Before the pandemic, most of us had clear boundaries between our personal and work lives. Employer policies focused on managing behavior at work, and mostly left individual well-being to the realm of employer-sponsored apps and health benefits. But this separation was artificial at best and damaging at worst as we really cannot compartmentalize personal and professional well-being. Personal well-being is not checked at the door when you arrive at work, and we cannot expect someone to thrive in the workplace if their personal well-being is struggling.
Personal well-being, in fact, has likely had a long-standing impact on employee productivity and retention that we just have not had the desire nor ability to measure well. We all know that there are days that we are more productive and days that we just want to get through. And the sources of that change can be found outside of the office as well as in it. So, do managers need to start managing personal lives as well? How do we manage boundaries if we acknowledge the role of personal well-being on engagement, productivity and retention?
The answer may be hiding in a place that seems obvious at first: Trust. As humans, we tend to assume much higher levels of trust than often exist. Research has shown that groups of managers and employees often overestimate the extent that they are trusted by the other group. The Edelman Trust Barometer (a survey of 33,000 people across 28 countries) showed that 1 in 3 people don’t trust their employer. And we already see employers eager to bring people back to the office, fearing productivity will decline. That fear typically arises out of a lack of trust. “Trust, but verify” often has seemed to be the watchword of corporate America, although many tend to verify more than trust.
Why does trust matter so much?
First, trust is the foundation of the things that traditionally drive engagement, productivity and satisfaction: clear and meaningful work, opportunities to develop and relationships with managers and co-workers. Gallup research found that 96% of engaged employees trust management, while only 46% of disengaged employees feel the same. It also has shown that workplaces with high trust have 50% higher employee productivity, 106% more energy at work and 13% fewer sick days. In their study, high trust companies outperformed low trust companies by 186%.
Second, intentionally building trust is essential in a world where flexible and remote work arrangements seem destined to stick around. Having employees be out of sight, it might be tempting to treat everyone as cogs in the machine, focusing simply on managing tasks. High trust organizations, however, spend time building trust through small, consistent behaviors that indicate a willingness to trust. In the 1980s, Hewlett-Packard decided to allow engineers to take equipment home whenever they needed to without a huge process to manage it. Employees felt that the company was saying they could be trusted, and they returned the trust by returning said equipment. Small trusting acts send signals that we are willing to meet people in trust, and minimize risk by being small acts.
What are some examples of how employers can build trust?
1. Recognize Excellence – Recognition builds trust when it comes soon after a goal is met, comes from peers and is tangible, unexpected, personal and public. I worked with a company where a common reward for excellence was to attend and observe a meeting of the officers. They were briefly introduced by name and then the meeting proceeded. Little trust was built because it revolved around the notion that to be in the room with the officers was a reward in itself, and lacked tangibility, wasn’t personal and lacked interaction with peers.
2. Cultivate trust built through challenges – If managers assign achievable challenges to a team where they need to work together to reach it, the experience of making progress together builds trust between the team and with the manager who checks in and adjusts goals that are too easy, too vague or impossible to achieve.
3. Be flexible in how employees do their work – Whenever possible, allow employees to manage people and projects in their own way. Managers have a tendency to try to drive their own behaviors throughout their team. But autonomy promotes innovation and motivation. A 2014 Citigroup and LinkedIn survey found that almost half of employees would give up a 20% raise for more control over how they work.
4. Foster “job crafting” – Enable employees to choose at least a portion of the projects they will work on and encourage reaching out to be involved in what they care about most. While some companies have gone to the extreme of having no roles and allowing employees to self-organize into work groups, that isn’t necessary to build trust. Increasing transparency about existing and upcoming projects, and allowing employees to reach out to project leaders about involvement, and formalizing their involvement as part of the performance process, both shows trust that employees have something to offer, and increases engagement and productivity overall. Early in my career, I had several managers who allowed me to do this. Even when I didn’t love all the other parts of my job, my engagement and daily energy increased because of how working on a project I cared about increased my energy and interest levels.
5. Increase transparency with employees – Uncertainty about an employer’s goals, strategies and plans increases stress and decreases trust. Transparency allows employees to manage their own expectations and reduce uncertainty about their own and the company’s future. It also allows them to connect their daily work to the future of the company to a greater degree – something key to innovation and good decision-making.
6. Intentionally build relationships – Express interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being. If employees feel that a manager or employer cares about their well-being as a whole person, the team outperforms others in quality and quantity of work. This doesn’t mean knowing all the intimate details of someone’s life. It does mean supporting an employee in their personal well-being and with the flexibility and trust to work in a way that supports them both at home and at work. Being open to discussing the needs of each employee, and willing to find a solution that works for them and the team is the foundation of that relationship. Yes, social activities can help in that relationship, but too often managers replace connecting with employees needs with “team building” activities. In the end, it is the connection that builds the relationship, not the quantity of time spent together.
7. Enable growth of employees as a whole person – As we build relationships, we can extend discussions to include professional and personal growth. For example, managers can ask questions like “Am I helping you to reach your goals?” “What are your goals for work-life integration?” “Are we helping or damaging your satisfaction or well-being?”. Of course, the relationship of trust has to exist before these questions can be discussed. But if it is there, they can serve to strengthen the trust and give managers ideas of small acts to further increase engagement and productivity.
8. Be open about what you don’t know – We all know when someone doesn’t have the answer but tries to appear that they do. Being open about not having the answer, or asking for help rather than just telling people what to do, can transform teams into high trust places to work. An example of this occurred when Alan Mulally took the helm at Ford Motor Company to try to turn it around. Mark Fields, then president of the Americas, tells about how Alan brought transparency to the company:
“At a weekly business status meeting early in Mulally’s tenure, charts from top executives didn’t indicate the company was in any trouble. Ford uses a color code for topics — green for good, yellow for a potential issue, red for a problem — and everything was green. Mulally thought that odd for a company losing billions.
Meanwhile Fields, then president of the Americas, had an issue with a product launch that year. The new Edge had a liftgate problem that threatened to delay its critical debut.
I said, ‘Code it red,’ and they said, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’,” Fields said. “I said, ‘This is what Alan wants. Let’s go for it.’”
Finally it was Fields’ turn — Edge launch: bright red. “I could feel the chairs move away from the table,” said Fields. “I said we have a problem, and I’d love to have help from manufacturing and quality to help resolve it. Alan turns to me and starts clapping. The next week, everybody’s chart was like a rainbow.”
In the end, we can do a whole lot to try to influence engagement, productivity, burnout and turnover. But perhaps few of the things employers do will have as much impact as building trust through small acts such as these.
What does your employer or manager do to build trust?
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