trust
Highest level of trust concept

How to establish trust in the workplace

By Ty Tucker

Just like in your personal relationships, trust is everything when it comes to your professional life. Trust is about reliability and having faith that your employees are fully capable of each task you set before them. Trust ultimately determines success in your job and career, and is oftentimes considered the bedrock of a company’s success.

While earning a paycheck is generally the foremost motivation for employees to come to work, it is still important for the employee and employer to build a relationship. For these relationships to thrive—and employers to successfully manage employees—there needs to be some degree of trust. When your employees don’t believe in each other, communication, teamwork and performance inevitably suffer.

Below are three ways you can establish trust in the workplace:

Teach your staff how to win the game of work

It’s easy for managers to utilize technology like performance management platforms to build up trust with and among their employees. Gamification can help make work fun by fostering an open line of communication between employees and managers about performance and expectations. When both your teams and individuals are working towards a common goal, workplace bonding will lead to increased trust among employees who support and root for each other.

Establish an open line of communication

One of the most important aspects of a successful workplace is communication. We learn this early on in our formative years as a child with our parents, and continue to build upon it as we establish various relationships including professional ones. Managers are most effective when they keep this top of mind, communicating openly, defining expectations, providing recognition when expectations are met, and utilizing failures as coaching opportunities. This ultimately is the key to trust. With regular ongoing dialogue, your employees will feel comfortable speaking their mind and bringing ideas to the table. Don’t wait for the dreaded performance review to discuss a person’s progression within the company – provide employees with constant feedback and maintain an open door policy.

Continuously look for ways to help your employees grow

One thing employers should constantly be thinking about are ways they can invest in their staff in order to keep them happy, motivated, productive and aligned with company goals. When you show that you care about your employees’ development and growth within the company, they will feel valued and respected. This will ultimately lead to employees trusting you as their employer, as well as trust in their own capabilities and potential.

These tips are just the beginning steps to increasing the accountability among your office staff. Create trust and respect in the workplace, and everyone from the top-down wins in the long run. With these changes, your sense of teamwork and trust will grow, decreasing stress levels and conflict across the entire office. Ultimately, the most important thing a manager can do is express trust their employees, providing them with the tools to succeed and then stepping back to watch them shine.

Ty Tucker is the CEO of REV, a performance management platform company. Follow him at @ThisIsTyTucker.