Three years ago, 37% of CEOs were concerned about a lack of trust in businesses, according to the PwC Annual Global CEO survey. Across industries, that number has climbed to 55%.
A high level of trust between managers and employees defines the best workplaces and drives company performance and revenue. Employees who don’t trust their managers usually point to obvious things: Their superiors skate the edges of ethical behavior, hide information, take credit for others’ work or flat-out deceive people. These untrustworthy managers damage morale and productivity.
Less obvious sources of distrust tend to originate more from the traditional environments in which leaders are mentored than from specific behaviors of well-meaning managers. For example, traditional leadership training often focuses on rule enforcement, which is akin to parent-child communication and not how trustworthy adults function. Today, leaders in high-performance workplaces don’t write policies based on the few bad apples. Instead, they expect people to act in the best interests of the company and one another.
Here are four ways to address issues with workplace trust:
HIRE FOR TRUST
From innovative interview tactics to involving teams in hiring decisions, CEOs can promote smarter practices that result in choosing honest people who will contribute to a culture of accountability. First, don’t assume that technical skills and knowledge trump character, especially when hiring for managerial positions. In an interview, favoring questions that reflect a candidate’s knowledge rather than his behavior overlooks his integrity.
Always get an idea of the person’s character. For example, ask when the person has tackled extra work to help meet critical goals. Have team members whom the candidate would work with join in. To show that you trust the team’s judgment and value its input, take all feedback seriously.
Finally, check references. People who are fired for breeding distrust are serial job hunters. The Society of Human Resource Management found that 53% of companies that checked references uncovered falsities about the length of previous employment, and 51% discovered false claims about past salaries. It also found that 61% of candidates lied about their college credentials.
MAKE POSITIVE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PEOPLE
In your personal life and at work, you’re bound to encounter people who take advantage of you, and these experiences can make you cynical. For managers, that cynicism can manifest as negative assumptions that employees are lazy or lack integrity. As a result, leaders may micromanage, lock up needed resources, withhold important information and create senseless rules and policies, causing even the best people to lose passion for their work.
To demonstrate positive assumptions, show that you reject micromanaging. Give challenging assignments with the belief that your expectations will be met. And promote transparency. Try adding a “through the grapevine” meeting agenda item as an informal way for people to share company information they’ve heard so you can confirm or debunk it.
When managers demonstrate positive assumptions, employees respond in kind. A management action or decision that might normally be questioned or unpopular is accepted because employees trust that there is more to the story. This gives everyone a level of comfort during times of rapid change and growth.
TREAT EMPLOYEES FAIRLY, NOT EQUALLY
Most traditional companies have been told by human resources that it’s essential to treat everyone the same in order to mitigate risk. But doing so strips people of their individuality.
Case in point: If two employees request time off for personal reasons, you wouldn’t automatically give both two weeks of paid time off. You would consider the circumstances as well as each employee’s tenure and performance.
The same logic applies to disciplinary issues. Weigh the potential risks of one-size-fits-all disciplinary policies against the costs of turnover, low morale and decreased performance. Traditional disciplinary policies are rarely effective and tend to cause an escalating cycle of threats and minimal resolutions. A better approach is to discuss the cause of the problem, and expect employees to identify and act on their own solutions. This counseling-style approach is more respectful and provides significantly better results.
When employees believe their leaders are looking for the causes of performance issues so they can facilitate a solution rather than blame someone, they have enough trust to admit mistakes upfront and accept responsibility for them.
CREATE A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY FOR DECEITFULNESS
Most companies take steps to ensure their employees aren’t violating the company’s trust in them. But high-performance companies value trust so much that they implement and enforce zero-tolerance policies. Doing so starts with communicating the expectation that any violation of trust is unacceptable and will result in being fired.
Managers must also be held to the same standard. If you’re capable of acknowledging your own shortcomings and accepting responsibility, your team will trust and admire you for it
