5 Steps for Building Trust in the Workplace

Mike Novakoski

www.td.org/insights

5 Steps for Building Trust in the Workplace

By Betsy Allen Manning

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

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Trust is the foundation for building strong teams, creating a positive work culture, and producing results. The cost of not having trust in the workplace or a culture of trust is also greater than you may be aware of. Fast Company shared a story about a Fortune 500 company who realized it took an average of 89 weeks to execute change within their company, and 39 of those weeks were a direct result of mistrust.

Have you ever worked in an environment where trust didn’t exist? You most likely experienced a workplace where people were unreliable, inadequate, disloyal, uncommunicative, and inconsistent in their work and their moods. It’s what I call a low-trust workplace, and it can create a highly stressful and undesirable environment for everyone. However, when trust is present, people start to take ownership of their responsibilities, help one another out, speak highly of one another, communicate more often, and tend to be more productive. Trust provides a safe place for people to share their struggles and dreams and reach their potential individually and as a team. So how can you, as the leader, build a high-trust workplace? In this post I’ll share the five elements of trust so you can raise the morale of your team.

First, let me share with you a couple of statistics you should know about trust within organizations. According to the new Edelman "Trust Barometer" (a survey of 33,000 people in 28 countries), one in three people don’t trust their employer. They also discovered that trust decreases from top positions to the lowest. For instance, 64 percent of executives trust their organizations, while only 51 percent of managers and 48 percent of other staff stated they trust their organizations. Employees remarked that they trust their peers more than the CEO and upper-level executives of their company. That means the higher up you go, the more critical it is for you to build trust with those beneath you. Building trust starts with leaders.

5 Questions That Determine If You’re a Trustworthy Leader

1. Do people constantly question your expectations of them?

2. Would most people describe you as someone who is reliable?

3. Is there a high amount of gossip and disrespect among your team?

4. Do the majority of team members underperform at the tasks you ask them to do?

5. Do you trust people to take on new responsibilities?

If the answer questions one, three, and four are yes, and two and five are no, there is work to be done. Start improving by learning these five elements of trust.

The 5 Elements of TRUST

Be transparent (T) with your team. Transparency is showing accountability through communication. Being honest, being vulnerable, giving feedback, and stating expectations are all forms of transparency. Without transparency, people tend to make up their own truth about something. For instance, if you don’t give feedback after they’ve made a mistake, they believe it’s OK to repeat that same mistake again. If you neglect to say, “good job,” they think you didn’t like the results they provided.

Be transparent by giving constructive criticism and positive feedback often, so people understand where you’re coming from and what your expectations are. You can also be transparent by admitting mistakes and being vulnerable with others. This shows that you’re not perfect either, and it’s a great way to show people that they can trust you. By being an example for your team, they will learn to be more transparent with you and one another.

Respect (R) everyone. Respect your employee’s time, their opinions, and their ideas. If you say your meeting is at 9 a.m., don’t show up at 9:15. If you say you have an open-door policy, don’t shut the door just because you don’t agree with someone’s perception. Remember, great leaders are great listeners. Showing respect doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone, but when you honor their feelings, it builds trust, and they feel safe to open up more often. Respect is simply the Golden Rule in action: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Unite (U) your team. The first step here is to let people know that you will not tolerate cliques and gossip amongst your team. Gossip is like cancer; it kills team morale. Trust, however, is the cure. The second step is to have them work toward one vision. Give them a group project they have to complete by working together. If they fail, they all reap the consequences, and if they succeed, they all receive the reward. The team that struggles together and succeeds together is a team that unites.

Show (S) them you care. As leadership expert John C. Maxwell said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Trust is built when someone sees that you truly value them as a person and not just as an employee. In my audiobook, The TRIUMPH Method, I walk you through the top five things employees need to have job satisfaction—being valued is number 1 on that list. You can show people you value them by learning more about them personally, praising them daily, and asking for their input more often. When people feel valued, you do more than earn their trust…you earn their loyalty as well.

Trust-Building Activities (T) build morale. It’s been proven that when someone enjoys the people they work with, they’re happier and are more productive—and that doesn’t happen by accident. One of the ways to raise morale and build trust at the same time is to provide activities focused on building trust in teams. When I conducted a training for Princess Cruises, I included a few trust exercises. One was the “Index Card Game,” in which everyone had to write down something positive they thought their fellow employees brought to the team. When we finished, each team member walked away with an index card full of compliments they never knew their co-workers thought about them. The team said that one activity brought them closer than they’ve ever been.

When comparing a high-trust to a low-trust work environment, the five elements of TRUST will either be present or missing from the leader. My challenge to you is to make an effort every day on building one of the five elements of TRUST. Today, work on being transparent; tomorrow, work on showing others respect, and so on. Keep going until you’ve built a high-trust work environment and more respect in the workplace.

This post was originally published in May 2018 and was updated with recent research and resources.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Betsy Allen Manning

Betsy Allen Manning is recognized as one of the top leadership speakers, a best-selling author, and a personality expert. Betsy mastered the art of human behavior while working as a manager for multi-billion-dollar corporations such as Disney, the Golden Globe Events, and Wynn Hotels. Betsy provides managers with communication strategies to reduce workplace conflict, increase team productivity, and expand bottom-line results. Her strategies cover the three areas most integral for leaders to produce top results for their organization: high-level communication, increased influence, and high-performing habits. Typical clients experience a 78 percent reduction in workplace stress and at least a 27 percent increase in productivity. Betsy has used these techniques to train managers for Toshiba, TSA, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Her keynote speeches, leadership development programs, and cutting-edge communication techniques have helped her develop positive cultures in organizations nationwide, and have played a huge role in how she became one of the most in-demand trainers on DiSC Personality Styles and a top John Maxwell certified coach in Dallas.

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ATD BLOG

Mentoring Diverse, Distributed, and Digital Workers

By Seena Mortazavi

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

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There’s no going back. The hybrid and humanized workplace is here to stay. As workplaces became more virtual and remote, the workforce increasingly relied on empathetic connections, supportive recognition, and inclusion. Times of struggle bring to the forefront the necessities and amenities people rely on most. During this challenging time, we’ve seen mentorship play a “pivotal role in safeguarding retention and building organization commitment.”

This is vital to note as organizations prepare for a looming war for talent. A recent Prudential survey found that “a quarter of workers plan on looking for a new job when the threat of the pandemic decreases.” Organizations can better support, engage, and retain their people by using mentoring in creative ways—from onboarding programs for new hires and mentoring circles for community support to flash mentoring for immediate questions and reverse mentoring for inclusive leadership development.

But to meet the evolving needs of businesses, mentoring must adapt to better serve this diverse, distributed, and digital workforce. Let’s explore how to invest in employee development that enables more meaningful connections and creates empathetic workplaces to support the present and future of work.

Mentoring for a Diverse Workforce

As the workforce continues to diversify in terms of race, gender, age, sexuality, neurodiversity, capability, socioeconomics, and beyond, the call for greater inclusion and advancement of employees that represent this diversity grows. When used accordingly, mentoring is a prime vehicle to elevate historically underrepresented employee groups. Mentorship and sponsorship are critical to employee retention, engagement, and satisfaction, especially for people of color and women, both of whom are more likely than their peers to report mentoring as important to their career development.

Mentoring, especially in formats like reverse mentoring and mentoring circles, can break down barriers and grant underrepresented employees access to networks and opportunities that might have been closed to them. Formal mentoring programs with the right structure and practices can build rapport and can create a more inclusive workplace culture in this new normal.

Mentoring for a Distributed Workforce

Employees are in the office, working from their living rooms, spaced out across locations, or some version of all the above. To serve this long-term or transient reality, mentoring must connect people across offices and across meeting preferences. Without the limitations of proximity, mentoring can connect people across an organization that may never have been able to meet and learn from each other before. It’s important that mentoring programs also consider the accessibility of a program, whether through providing multiple languages or accessibility standards that make mentoring available to all who want to participate. With this consideration in place, mentoring and its illustration of employee investment become easier to scale across an entire organization.

In addition, Marianna Tu and Michael Li’s article “What Great Mentorship Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace” states that “remote mentoring can promote equity and build relationships free from the biases we face in person, when we know another’s height, physical ability, or pregnancy status, to name a few examples.”

Virtual mentoring’s ability to cross the divides of the hybrid workplace enables connections to stay focused on the personal or professional topics chosen by the mentoring participants. This better connects people to the resources and skills they need in the time and manner they need them. And as research has shown, resources and access to advancement still matter in this post-pandemic world. Of the quarter of workers thinking of leaving their job, as mentioned in the Prudential survey, 80 percent are concerned about their career growth. Mentoring can help mitigate these concerns while improving employee connectivity and productivity.

Mentoring for a Digital Workforce

When in-person meetings aren’t an option due to social distancing or virtual work, organizations need to motivate global and remote employees to stay connected by using online mentoring programs with integrated communication tools. Just as technology has enabled more flexibility in our workplaces, schools and society at large—from video conferencing platforms (such as Zoom or Google Hangouts) to online collaboration tools (for example, Slack and Microsoft Teams)—virtual mentoring has enabled more flexibility in how mentors and mentees can get and stay connected.

By providing various meeting options in a mentoring program, participants can choose their preferred medium. In addition, formal mentoring programs should come with guidelines and options for communication. This can mean the ability to enable Zoom meetings through a mentoring platform or integrating a mentoring program with the designated organizational communication tool (such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Chat) so that participants can stay connected using the platforms they’re already using on a daily basis. Providing easy, accessible options for communication will keep employees engaged and satisfied in their mentoring experience.

Establishing or elevating a mentoring program in these ways offers HR leaders the ability to connect to the levers of retention, promotion, development, and productivity in a tangible and measurable way. At the same time, mentoring relationships can be valuable anchors for both mentors and mentees. Through sharing and problem solving, mentoring can help mentors and mentees develop approaches for dealing with unprecedented circumstances as well as provide advice, perspective, and support to the diverse, distributed, and digital workforce.

Want to learn more? Join me during the ATD 2021 International Conference & Exposition for the session How Mentoring Needs to Evolve for a Diverse, Distributed, and Digital Workforce.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seena Mortazavi

Seena Mortazavi is the CEO of Chronus, the leader in mentoring software. As a passionate executive focused on leveraging the power of mentoring, he works to drive engagement, retention, and development for some of the world’s largest organizations. Under Seena's leadership, Chronus has created impactful mentoring relationships for over 1.5 million users in more than 200 countries.

Prior to Chronus, Seena spent most of his career at the intersection of IT and financial services. He worked directly with CEOs and business owners to design, launch, and grow financial products across a network of institutions. In addition to a BA in Economics and Computer Science from the University of Western Ontario and an MA from the University of Toronto, Seena completed his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

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ATD BLOG

Putting a Technicolor Spin on Work and Learning

By Mike Novakoski

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

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I was born in the 1960s when black-and-white televisions were becoming a thing of the past and color televisions were taking their place. While my dad still indulged in black-and-white Westerns from time to time, I couldn’t imagine sitting through a Disney classic without the vivid colors. Fast forward to the 1970s when cars were painted in bold colors like Grabber Blue and Goldenrod Yellow. What a far cry from the first decade of Ford’s Model T when the color options were black or black.

Walt Disney and Henry Ford quickly determined that consumers appreciated color options. From the beginning of time, Mother Nature has used color in fantastic ways to create identity and drive attraction. So, how is it possible that in a world with so many splashes of color, the business aspect of life is still monochrome?

We need to consider adding another aspect to the CEO job description. One of the key traits a person in this role needs to possess beyond the traditional business school acumen, it is that of an artist. Imagine looking closely at every element of the business as a paint by numbers challenge. How do we bring the mundane black-and-white processes, standard operating procedure manuals, and a potentially lackluster culture to life?

As CEOs, managers, and employees, we need to challenge ourselves continually to look for ways to engage the right side of our brain to change our business environments for the better. It is in that hemisphere of our brain where we find the ability to bring color, imagination, creativity, and excitement into the business world. Our employees deserve it. At the end of the day, what sets us apart from our competition? How do we create a workplace dynamic that removes the negative connotation of Mondays? Can’t Mondays and Fridays feel the same?

I don’t know about you, but I appreciate being a part of a company that looks for every opportunity to enhance the employee journey. From onboarding to retirement, we work to develop an exceptional experience throughout an entire employee’s work life cycle. Let’s look for ways to splash color into the shadows. It’s not that we have to create a theme park experience for our people, but if they have joy and excitement in what they do and who they do it with, it will surely pay dividends with the customers and clients they interact with.

I believe we all want a company that attracts and retains the best talent. Let’s take a cue from Henry and Walt and put a technicolor spin to all that we do. Engage that right brain then sit back, relax, and see what happens!

Want to learn more? Join me during the ATD 2021 International Conference & Exposition for the session Building a Transformational Culture to Win the War for Talent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Novakoski

Mike Novakoski is a CEO and entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in growing successful businesses. In addition to a degree in Construction Management, Mike holds an MBA, completed 240 hours of intense study to receive an “Innovation Management Certification” and just completed a 3-year Owner/President Management program through Harvard Business School. Mike thoroughly enjoys sharing the unique approach to the company’s success and helping other companies to achieve their full potential

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