Another weekend has rolled up and this is the end of the month. I said to someone recently that I will start saying Happy New Year because before we can blink it will be the last day of the year.
Shout out to Tobi Amusan for making Nigeria proud against all and every odd. That is the stuff we are made off – mettle and sheer grit.
Today, we are going to be talking about Trust in the workplace. I will start with a definition. Trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. So, to extrapolate for our own purposes, trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, and ability of the organisation.
Developing trust in the workplace is a key organisational predictor of performance. Many organisations have stumbled and even failed outright where a lack of trust, doubt and suspicion have grown between the leadership, management and employees.
Studies have found that mistrust in the workplace predicts high turnover rates, increased absence through sickness, lower levels of productivity, performance and employee satisfaction. Understanding the process of developing trust in the workplace is therefore incredibly important.
I stumbled on a recently published study that looked at developing trust in the workplace, how this is linked to performance and what role HRM has to play in this process. I have adapted the study for our uses here today.
Let us be clear Trust is vital for increased performance
The study was to examine the drivers of trust in organisations, to identify the human resources practices that create trust in the organisation and to examine the effects of trust on employees’ performance in the organisation.
The study found three factors that create low levels of trust and can restrict developing trust in the workplace. They are a low involvement in decision making, a lack of opportunity to be able to evaluate and give feedback to the organisation on the effectiveness or otherwise of their performance appraisals and excessive control by management and managers not listening.
The study found a few things that help with trust building. These include but not limited to a Co-dependency where the managers and employees depend on each other to get the job done. Teamwork will do it.
Mutual respect all round, high levels of engagement, particularly in decision-making and open, transparent communication. Fairness all round but particularly in appraisals and grievance procedures. Being part of a high performing team and proper delegation of responsibility. An equality of the distribution of resources and a focus on relationship building.
Read also: Mental Health and Employees’ Productivity in Today’s Workplace
Each of these should be looked at in depth and the situation in your organisation should be analysed in depth. If they don’t align then you need to begin to align them.
The key factors which have had the opposite effect of developing trust in the workplace and created a lack of trust include but again not limited to a lack of transparency, particularly of decisions. Interpersonal and unresolved conflict or conflict that is resolved by resorts to power and status instead of facts and mediation. Disengagement and low levels of performance.
The study further found that trust tended to increase significantly in organisations where HRM have as an explicit aim, helping people to develop trust. This is where HRM functions explicitly focus on helping to develop open communication by developing various fora to enable this. Fairness in appraisal and proper delegation of responsibility. Equitable treatment across board and an equal distribution of resources. Finally active relationship building
Where HR functions have a three-pronged strategy for developing trust, there is a significantly increased likelihood the organisation or company will also increase the levels of trust across the board. HR functions should explicitly and overly target developing trust first within and throughout their own function. Then between themselves and the managers and employees. Finally, by helping to facilitate the creation of these dimensions between the managers and employees themselves.
However, building trust is part of culture building and as we have seen should be the agenda of everyone in the organisation. This is crucial to culture building, brand building and ultimately the bottom line.
Trust is even more important for the various stake holders of the organisation. The investors, the suppliers, the customers, and the regulatory authorities.
Trust and integrity are always taken into consideration during the valuation of a brand. Increase the value of your brand today and everything else that goes with it. Have a great weekend and it will be remiss of me if I do not ask you to be security conscious at a time like this. See you next weekend.
