Trust in the workplace has been slowly recovering during the past few years. Employees today are more trustful of senior management and colleagues than they have been since the start of the recession, according to surveys.
Improved trust in senior management has resulted from steps leaders have taken to cope with changes in the business and the economy. These have included communicating more frequently, becoming more visible, paying closer attention to motivating workers and fostering a sense of teamwork during difficult times.
Colleagues are more trustful of each other today due to closer working relationships that were formed when workloads became larger and employees were required to do more work with fewer people, making teamwork essential.
Traditionally, trust levels have been highest between employees and their immediate supervisors, and trust has been lowest between senior management and non-management workers. This is because interaction is closest between non-management workers and immediate supervisors and there is less frequent contact between upper management and non-managers. However, better teamwork among colleagues and management in response to A difficult economy can also improve trust.
The challenge that organizations, and especially their leaders, have is how do they maintain this higher level of trust? The actions they took to form closer relationships during a crisis need to continue and become part of their workplace culture.
For executives, this means to continue communicating openly and frequently with employees, sharing their vision for the organization and how each individual fits into it. Senior management needs to turn this higher level of trust into sustained employee engagement in their jobs. Keep them informed about both good and bad news. Employee engagement improves when workers feel their leaders care about them.
Management can also help to extend better trust between colleagues by fostering teamwork through placing a greater emphasis on rewarding team achievements and contributions, rather than individual performance. Each employee can be graded on how well he or she works on a team as part of their performance reviews or when considering merit increases.
Town hall meetings with senior management, including question-and-answer sessions, can contribute toward maintaining trust between workers and leaders. Informal, after-hours get-togethers – where the goal is for people to become better acquainted with each other and work-related talk is kept to a minimum – can help sustain trust between colleagues.
Trust also improves when workers feel they have input into decisions that affect them. Ask employees for solutions to problems. Also invite them to come up with ways they feel they can keep each other motivated.
