If customers are the backbone of any successful company, then employees are the foundation. When an employee doesn’t trust the company that they work for, then your company will not succeed. This is why building trust with your team is an important aspect of running your business. Employees do not want to give 100% to a company they do not trust. Your employees may just be giving the bare minimum not to get fired. When an employee likes the company that they work for, you will find that they are acting with more passion and enthusiasm for the job.
Building Trust within your Team
So how do you establish trust with your employees? There are plenty of steps to take to earn the trust of your employees.
1. Establish initial trust with employees
Since managers are in direct communication with their employees, the first step is to be sure that the managers are doing everything they can to establish trust with their employees. Managers can do this by just being honest with their employees. They must be effective communicators who offer help and support. Managers should not only be helpful, but they need to have a friendly and professional relationship with their team. Consider taking your team to lunch once a week to establish a better connection.
2. Engage your employees
The easiest way to get to know your team is to ask them questions. That’s all it takes. Once you open up communication, you can begin building trust in your relationships. If you’re not sure how to establish communication with members of your team, ask them what you can do to be better. Take this feedback and then acknowledge and act upon it.
3. Listen to your team
Now that you are getting good at asking your employees about what they feel and want, you must listen to what your employees are answering. In this regard, you must take a more in-depth look, because more often than not, your employees will sugar-coat things with surface-level conversations. It is your job as the manager to dive deeper into these conversations and find out what it is your employees are too shy to ask for.
4. Respect your employees
Don’t try to scare your employees with surprise reviews. If you have something serious to discuss with an employee, let them know that it is coming so they have time to prepare. Schedule your time with employees so that way you’re not bursting in on an important project they’re working on with bad news. It is better for the overall health of your business to be completely transparent with your employees.
5. Let your team know that you trust them
An easy way to show your team that you are building trust in them is to give them a project and let them run with it. If you don’t believe they could do a difficult task without your help, start with an easy task. Try not to micromanage their lives and you’ll find that once you start showing trust to your team, they will begin to demonstrate confidence in return.
6. Treat them like humans
When you’re a manager, you may come off as intimidating to your employees without even realizing it. Although you want to maintain a reasonable amount of respect, don’t forget to show that you’re a human too. Little things like making eye contact, greeting your employees every day and listening to them can make a big difference.
7. Build up your team
Show that you have confidence in your employees by taking an interest in your employees’ personal lives. Of course, this must be done on a respectful and professional level, but it’s important to know when your employees may be struggling so you can provide support during these times. For example, if you recognize that one of your employees is going through a divorce or is having another issue at home, you might notice that it is affecting their work performance. When you can provide sympathy and take an interest in their personal lives during these downtimes your employees will feel supported and ready to give their all again. On the other side, when things are going well, don’t forget to celebrate!