How to Show Employees You Trust Them ~ Employee Commitment Series
This blog series focuses on nine areas that keep employees committed to your organization. In our opinion, employees stay committed when they are Involved, Paid Well, Asked for Input, Challenged, Empowered, Trusted, Valued, Appreciated, and Mentored.
How to Show Employees You Trust Them
In order for any organization to achieve high performance in these difficult times, it’s important that your employees be committed to your organization and your organization’s success. In order to gain the commitment of your employees, leaders or managers need to include employees in some of the organization’s decision making and show they trust the employee to do what’s in the organization’s best interest.
The human resources department may be able to give you tips on some ways to engage your employees and build trust. In the meantime, here are some ways to help you build employee trust and commitment.
Show Your Employees You Value Their Input
One of the most important ways to secure your employees’ engagement and commitment is to show you value their input and contribution to making your organization a success. Everyone wants to feel valued and showing each employee that you appreciate their contribution earns their trust and makes them more committed to you and the organization.
In order to garner input, you must have a foundation of trust. Trust is an “evolving thing that ebbs and flows,” says David DeSteno, a psychology professor at Northeastern University and author of The Truth About Trust. If you don’t have trust, more than likely you won’t get honest and in-depth input from employees. In fact, we often find that when trust is lacking, it’s rarely worth the time and effort required to survey or interview employees for ideas—they just don’t have the energy, or care to contribute earnestly.
Goal Setting
In order for any organization to move ahead, they need to set goals. Use goal setting to build trust by first setting your top-level goals and then allowing your employees to set their own short-term goals and objectives to reach yours. You may be surprised to discover that, given the opportunity, your employees will set higher short-term goals and clearer objectives than your HR department likely would.
You can then use the annual review process to assess achieving the overall organizational goals and how well your employees have stepped up to do so.
Let Your Employees Define Their Job Description
Another thing your HR department or supervisor can do is to let your employees define their own job description. By encouraging your new employees to research the best practices in their area of responsibility and examine what experts in their field think their job should entail before writing out that job description, not only will that job description be far more detailed but they will include much more in the job description than your own HR department would.
When you give your employees the responsibility of defining their own roles in your organization, they will be far more willing to shoulder added responsibility than they otherwise would.
Problem Solving
One of the best ways to show your employees that you trust them, and to solidify their commitment to you, is by involving them in problem solving. Whether you are trying to bring a project in under budget, cut expenditures to make more profit, or deal with other organizational issues, sharing critical or even confidential information and allowing your employees to solve the problem will definitely solidify their engagement with your organization and strengthen their commitment to the organization and its welfare.
These are just four ways in which you can demonstrate that you trust your employees. What has been your experience? How do you managerially or corporately develop and demonstrate trust with your people? Leave comments below. We value your contribution.
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In His Name HR helps organizations build high-performance Human Resources programs. Visit them at In HIS Name HR.
Mark A. Griffin is the founder and chief consultant of In His Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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In His Name HR helps organizations build high-performance Human Resource programs. Visit them at In HIS Name HR or e-mail them.
Mark A. Griffin is the founder and chief consultant of In His Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
