Building Employee Trust Is A Crucial Ask For Modern Businesses And Leaders

For any organisation, the key to luring and keeping the best talent isn’t in the perks; it’s more in the connection. It is no secret that employees choose to stay with companies that take care of their overall development, help them strike an effective balance between work and life, and motivate them to do better with tokens of recognition.

However, modern businesses frequently fail to meet in areas related to care, including effective communication, accountability, transparency, and more. Relationships at work and organisational effectiveness are built on trust. Therefore, establishing and creating an extraordinary workplace environment is a basic requirement. Businesses start experiencing problems when there is a disconnection between the employees and the organisation’s goals, as they feel a lack of purpose in their job or the feeling of being unheard.

Trusting employees believe in the vision

What is trust? When it comes to people, it is all about the mutual expectations of dependability, honesty, integrity, support, loyalty, respect, and, ultimately, care. However, trust between a company and its employees is different - it is a two-way street. Just as employees believe in the business to act morally, so must organisations trust their employees.

Once this two-way framework is established, it helps improve communication and teamwork. As a result, employees feel more engaged, collaborate more effectively, and have healthy interpersonal conflict in a trustworthy work environment. Besides, a motivated workforce will likely encourage colleagues to focus on organisational goals, strategic direction, and mission attainment. In short, they believe in the vision of the organisation.

How can businesses earn employee trust?

As businesses move past the pandemic and build their new reality, trust is more important than ever. Without conviction, having a hybrid or remote workforce is nearly impossible. Trust helps create a meaningful employee experience; it helps engage and retain teams and top people, sustain or build your brand, expand your company, and achieve the results you seek in today’s business environment.

Today’s leaders deal with a variety of demands. So, managing these expectations requires open communication and a flexible strategy.

The first step is a given: Pay attention to your staff. Understanding your employees and their needs is the first step towards developing effective employee-employer connections. This can be done through feedback surveys or continuous dialogues. Once you are aware of what they are expecting, make a response. Employees can tell the organisation values their viewpoints when there is constant two-way communication and a willingness to take significant action. Increased trust and everything that it entails are a result of this.

Communication is paramount

For any business to thrive and grow, communication is key. It builds employee trust and allows leaders to define and give employees clarity on their roles within the organisation. Cooperation is more likely between people who are aware of their objectives, tasks, and a larger purpose, as well as their relationships and knowledge of others. It takes both informal and formal communication to get there as a team.

Be constructive with rewards

Punitive HR technology can quickly undermine confidence by treating individuals like numbers. Instead, it is always better to motivate employees through rewards and benefits. Organisations must take initiatives that make them develop a sense of belonging where they trust they can shine. Businesses should encourage employees to concentrate on the aspects of their wellbeing that are important to them, such as their mental health. Everything is interconnected, so enhancing one aspect may result in nurturing another. The feeling of improvement at work and in life should be the true incentive for these programs.

The wellbeing of employees and their families plays an integral role in establishing faith in the organisations. So, organisations must secure the families of employees with adequate benefits such as medical and term life benefits.

Learning and development through the right training

Gone are the days when one skill set could suffice for a person to shine at the workplace. Employees are no longer complacent in one position, awaiting a rise every two or three years. Instead, they welcome multiple roles, which translates to lateral movement, allowing them to enhance their skill set and agile mindset. This enables them to grow, especially in the post-pandemic world, where workplaces and roles have seen a sea change.

There are several ways in which upskilling and reskilling of the workforce can be carried out effectively. Businesses can partner with management institutions for development programs to enhance the sales force performance. It helps employees understand customer behaviour, markets and organisational processes. Learning and development is a continuous process and must enable an organisation to build a talent pool to become future leaders.

To sum up: It’s all about the leader

The power of a leader to inspire and encourage employees is impacted by both sides of the trust equation. Leadership influences people in times of uncertainty. If a business wants to gain the trust of its employees and include them in the organisation, actions are what really count. Starting with the top management, involvement at every level is necessary to forge a strong sense of believability. It inspires workers to put up the effort required to ensure the success of their company.

Leaders must continue to push for increased trust within their teams and the firm. Employees who believe in their managers will go the extra mile for them and show greater interest in the company. In short, as a leader in the modern business world, believe in your employees and invest in their growth which is the key to attaining success and building a healthy work culture.

(The article has been curated by Parag Bengali, Director Finance & Human Resources at Bisleri International, specially for BW People publication)