Building Trust With Your Employees
Friday, June 26th, 2009How do you know when you can trust an employee? For starters, if you’ve properly screened every applicant, you can be reasonably sure you’ve hired honest people. Pre-Employment Screening will weed out those with criminal backgrounds, credit problems, or who have misrepresented education or work history.
Trust is an important component of the long-term relationship you want to build with your employees. It’s vitally important that they feel they are trusted, and can trust you back. Here are some tips that can help!
1. Remember that your employees are adults—and treat them accordingly. For example, it’s reasonable to ask for receipts for employee out-of-pocket expenditures—and unreasonable to chastise someone for spending a few dollars more than you think is necessary.
2. Remember that your employees have lives outside work. Respect their need to care for their families, and their desire to leave work on time.
3. Rewrite your company’s policy handbook. Dictating endless rules can cause resentment. Consider eliminating policies that don’t involve safety, established employment laws, abuse of paid leave, and taking care of your customers.
4. Show generosity. Whether it’s with time, money or with words, be as generous as you can with your employees. A small investment of time or money can return a big investment in terms of loyalty and employee retention. And everyone wants to hear that they are appreciated. Let the compliments flow freely!
5. Ask their opinions. Get feedback on processes, ask for their ideas, and encourage them to make suggestions to improve your company. Just the act of asking shows them you’re engaged; but be careful not to ignore every suggestion—or your employees may stop making the effort.
6. Encourage employees to make their own decisions. Empowerment contains the word “power” for good reason. Let your employees feel powerful by giving them the ability to make decisions that serve your customers’ best interests. Chances are when given the opportunity, they will make the right decisions.
7. Be flexible. Consider employees’ needs concerning work schedules, working from home, and requests for time off. See #2.
If you feel nervous about letting go and trusting your employees, you’re probably not hiring the right people. Keep in mind that you can always take action if and when your staff abuses your trust.
Hiring smart and treating your employees like they are valuable assets of your company will go a long way toward building mutual trust—which leads to loyalty and a happier work environment for everyone!