Trust is an essential part of any successful business. When employees trust their employer and vice versa, it creates a transparent environment and creates a sense of security for everyone. But what to do when the usual trust indicators are no longer available?
Building trust while working remotely is not easy. This can be difficult without physical cues, “water cooler” meetings, or the ability to physically monitor productivity.
However, trust is not a commodity that a distant business can live without. Trust allows remote workers to feel comfortable and confident in their daily tasks and to be productive, creative and collaborative. Thanks to this, even remote administrators can abandon micromanagement and embrace independence.
The more independence a company offers its staff, the more important trust is. Although the performance criteria provide some information about the performance of the hand, it does not paint the whole picture. Working remotely, business leaders must be able to trust employees to meet deadlines and complete tasks without their physical presence.
However, managers are not the only ones who trust employees. Employees must also trust each other. How differently do they know their co-workers are doing their share of the workload?
The trust also extends to the management. For your employees to follow your example, they need to trust your motivation and skills. And in the distant landscape, everything goes almost without saying. But how?
We’ll get to that in a bit. Now let’s take a closer look at what faith means. In a professional sense, trust is more about reliability and accountability than sharing secrets or withholding information.
Trust between employees, managers and management shows how confident both parties are that the other is doing their job and fulfilling their responsibilities. For business leaders, this means building trust in the processes they define and the teams they hire.
For example, it means trusting that employees will work when they are scheduled and use their time effectively. Older operating styles gained this “trust” from what they saw with their own eyes – if the employees were in the office at 9, everything was fine.
Of course, this system was not completely flawless. After all, attendance and productivity are two completely different effects. When employees (like telecommuters) are given autonomy, they tend to choose efficient times and styles.
The night owl can be only half as elegant at 9:30. That same employee can lead to a flexible schedule and do a lot more. Trust allows managers to be sure that a flexible arrangement works in the best interests of the company.
However, it is not just about directors. Employees also need to trust their managers and colleagues. However, problems of commitment and retention are bound to arise when employees do not trust that the organization supports them or recognizes their good work.
They must also trust the operation’s ability to steer the company toward unborn success. Therefore, managers who want to create and maintain a system of trust must ensure that it works both ways, instead of providing certainty to the company’s operations.
