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Why don’t you trust your employees?

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Trust is one of the most essential forms of capital a leader can have. When employees trust their leaders, it unleashes higher performance. Employees are more engaged, productive, and innovative. They experience lower levels of stress and burnout and are more likely to stay in their jobs. Good leaders understand these benefits and actively work to earn and develop the trust of their team members and colleagues.

But sometimes, a lack of trust flows in the opposite direction, and leaders find themselves in the uncomfortable situation of distrusting someone on their team.

In this unique age of remote and hybrid work, it’s perhaps no surprise that a scarcity of trust among leaders for their employees is now at an all-time high, a perspective confirmed in the recently published Microsoft Work Trends Index. Lack of trust in an employee leads to troublesome outcomes. It can cause leaders to feel anxious and frustrated, hesitant to delegate, and prone to micromanaging. Unfortunately, the adverse effects of leader distrust can also extend beyond the specific leader-employee relationship, stealthily diminishing innovation, morale, and performance of the broader team.

Steps to Take When You Don’t Trust Your Employee

Two-way trust is paramount to a healthy and productive leader-employee relationship. If you find yourself in the uncomfortable situation of distrusting a team member, here are five steps to help you address the issue and move forward.

1. Pinpoint the source of your distrust

We often hear (and make!) comments like “I don’t trust them” or “They aren’t trustworthy.” We talk about trust in all-or-nothing terms, but trust is not some global entity — trust is situation specific. Rarely will you distrust everything about someone. For example, you may trust your team member’s technical expertise but not their ability to present their ideas to clients effectively.

Research shows that trust can be broken down into three components:

  • Competency
  • Consistency
  • Character

Trusting someone’s competence entails having faith in their ability to do the job. Consistency is the belief that the person is reliable — they do what they say they’ll do and perform as expected. Finally, trusting their character is believing that they have integrity and care about others and their needs as well as their own. Like the indispensable legs of a three-legged stool, each component of trust is crucial in a relationship.

To move past the black-and-white impasse of “They aren’t trustworthy,” ask yourself: Which component of trust is lacking here? What exactly did this person do or not do that has led to my distrust? Separate facts from assumptions and focus on specific problematic behaviours.

2. Identify the specific situations or assignments where you are willing to trust them

Make a list of the areas in which you do trust your employee, and consider how you might incrementally build on these areas in low-risk ways. Here’s how this might look like:

If you trust your employee to communicate effectively within the team, try involving them in cross-functional meetings or broader discussions.

If you trust your employee’s technical skills, try having them mentor a newer team member or guide them through a complex task.

If you trust your employee’s problem-solving abilities, try assigning increasingly complex tasks or providing more autonomy in tackling problems and coming up with their own solutions.

Focus on clear and frequent communication as you delegate and build on their tasks and responsibilities. Communicate the purpose and desired outcome of the task, your specific expectations and standards, deadlines, and their level of authority in making task-related decisions.

It’s also important to maintain regular one-on-one check-ins to ensure you remain aligned, offer the right amount of support, and create trust. To reduce hesitation in approaching you between these regularly scheduled meetings, share that you have an “open-door” policy.

When we feel like we can’t trust someone, we fear what might happen if we extend our trust, which often leads to more widespread micromanagement. So it’s critical that you give this person the opportunity to prove their trustworthiness. Excessive control and scrutiny will likely reduce their motivation, productivity, and feelings of ownership, which could result in behaviours that further erode your trust.

3. Provide feedback on the specific behaviours that are leading to your distrust

Recall which of the three components of trust is low (competency, consistency, and character) and specify the behaviours that have degraded your trust. For example, let’s say you identified that the source of your distrust is a lack of consistency. What exact behaviours have you observed that make you feel you can’t rely on them? Missed deadlines, failure to follow through on a stated commitment, or failure to respond to you in a reasonable amount of time?

Provide descriptive and specific feedback on the problematic behaviours, describe the resulting negative impact, and align on moving forward productively. For example, you might say, “For the last two weeks, you’ve missed the weekly project status report deadline. Consequently, I haven’t been able to provide a complete project update to the executive team. Can we discuss what’s causing the delay and create a plan to rectify the situation?”

High-quality feedback strengthens relationships with your team member and builds trust. Remember that no one considers themselves untrustworthy, so avoid using the “trust” word during your conversation.

4. Reflect on what you might be doing (or not doing) to contribute to the situation

Each person shapes a relationship’s dynamics and outcomes, so it’s essential to consider your role in the current situation. Trust can erode when employees don’t have a clear understanding of their roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Is it possible that you haven’t provided sufficient clarity or guidance?

Trust is inherently reciprocal. In other words, the more someone trusts you, the more likely you are to trust them in return. As such, try boosting trust in this relationship by shifting your focus away from what this person needs to do to regain your confidence to how you might signal your own trustworthiness. Again, recall the three components of trust. How might you demonstrate your judgment and expertise, integrity and care for them, and your dependability? For example, could you show your character by being honest, transparent, and accountable for a recent mistake?

Also, consider whether a lack of visibility might be contributing to your distrust. With sparser in-person interactions, there’s more room to make negative and baseless assumptions about others. Would scheduling more face-to-face time with this person be helpful? Alternatively, do you need to let go of “seeing” them work and focus on impact instead?

5. Ask yourself whether the breach of trust is irreparable

While trust is a tangible asset you can create in a relationship, sometimes a situation is severely beyond repair; for example, discovering that your team member has lied, breached confidentiality, or engaged in deeply disrespectful behaviour. If a team member has crossed certain boundaries, the right course of action — for the integrity of your leadership and the health of your team — might be to trigger an immediate investigation or consider dismissal.

This unfortunate situation can also develop when the behaviour is less severe, but your dedicated trust-building efforts haven’t led to improvement. In these cases, consulting with HR and considering parting ways may also be warranted. Bi-directional trust is a fundamental aspect of a healthy-employee relationship; without it, the leader, the employee, and the broader team suffer. Create a plan based on the steps outlined above, give it time, and know that trust can be rebuilt in most cases, leading to a happier, more productive workplace for all.

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Sources:

https://www.thoughtfulleader.com/cant-trust-your-team-why-it-really-matters/
https://www.recruiter.com/recruiting/7-reasons-your-employees-dont-trust-you-and-what-to-do-about-it/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-trusting-your-employees-bad-need-earn-jacob-morgan

Why Are Employees Leaving their Jobs

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Retaining your top talent is every bit as important as attracting new top performers due to the simple fact that a high employee turnover is very costly to every organisation. Hence, managers should always be open and communicative with their employees and do their best to understand why their employees stay and what do they stay for. In the case of those who leave, they should find out why they quit.

A company can ‘achieve’ a high employee turnover for numerous reasons such as following their loved ones to their new job, or they stay at home with their newborn children, they seek a better position in another organisation, they wish to further their studies or they simply change their career field.  These types of events in an employee’s life are difficult to predict by the organisation because they revolve around events that occur in everyone’s life at one moment or another.

However, the majority of reasons why companies have a high employee turnover rate can be managed by the employers. To be more specific, organisational aspects such as workplace environment, culture and the perception an employee creates in relation to his job and responsibilities represent elements that factor in how an employee is affected.

As mentioned earlier, the best way in which to retain your top employees is to keep a close eye on what they think and what they want out of their professional life. Do they believe their work matters? Do they feel they need more of a challenge because their work right now seems dull to them? Is the communication style in the office suited to their needs? All of these questions should help out managers determine how happy and engaged their employees are.

In order to determine if your employees are happy with how things are going one solution is to simply ask them. Take the necessary course of action and carry out stay interviews in order to evaluate why employees stay with your organisation. Pay close attention to the factors that determine them to keep working for the company and then enhance them if possible. No employee leaves because they have it too good, everyone wants to leave for a reason. Discover those motives before it’s too late.

Offer your employees the best possible opportunities for them to do their job within the organisation and your retention levels will soar.

Firstly, let’s talk about salary. Let us not kid ourselves; salary is important, of course, but it does not represent the number one why employees leave. In a recent Gallup study, it has been revealed that salary cannot buy employee loyalty. In their findings, only 22% of respondents have even mentioned salary as the number one reason for their departure from a company. The rest of the respondents have stated reasons that are within a manager’s reach to change or influence for the better.

As a manager, there are a few things you can do in order to reverse the decision of employees who wish to leave.

1. No Opportunity for Advancement

From an evolutionary standpoint, the human race has always been looking for new ways in which to better itself. Being humans themselves, employees are always on the lookout for opportunities to advance their skills in order to advance their careers. In particular, employees from Generation Y and Z wish for their employers to provide them with the necessary tools and training programmes so that they can improve themselves. Consequently, if they start to feel that their job has become routine or their managers show little to no interest in their progress, their natural reaction will be to leave. This represents one of the best predictors of high employee turnover rates. Employees want to have opportunities through which they learn and hone their skills. In Gallup’s Q12 engagement survey, employees who agree with the following statements are more likely to say they feel they have the required opportunities to move up the ladder.

  • “In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.”
  • “My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.”
  • “At work, my opinions seem to count.”
  • “There is someone at work who encourages my development.”

It comes to no surprise that 92% of these respondents have stated that they see themselves working in the same company one year later.

2. Professional Relationships

It becomes more and more evident that employees do not leave a company; they leave their teams and managers. If an employee has a conflict with the manager, then there is only a matter of time until he or she leaves. At the same time, it is also true that if an employee doesn’t manage to make any friends at the workplace or have someone for a quick chat during breaks, most likely his engagement and happiness levels are low and may be looking to relocate.

3. Flexibility

Given the unpredictability and the need for alertness in today’s society, the majority of employees struggle to juggle their jobs with their busy personal lives. As a result, people are actively looking to work from home or try to adjust their hours and schedules accordingly, obviously without jeopardising both their professional and personal lives.

53 % of respondents in the Gallup study mentioned earlier have said that for them a great work-life balance and wellbeing is very important, especially for female employees. Furthermore, 51% of employees said they would make the switch to a new job if they had the possibility of a more flexible schedule whilst 37% of them would relish the opportunity to work from home at least half the time. In these ever-changing times, managers must show their employees they matter and find solutions in which employees feel they have control and that it also makes sense business-wise.

There is a real value in providing companies with the tools to carry out regular organisational assessments and this is where Great People Inside comes to your aid. Our online platform offers the best solutions and tools for your company to thrive in every type of industry and any possible situation your organisation may find itself. In terms of lowering your employee turnover rates, we recommend our GR8 Full Spectrum assessment for hiring and 360° Survey for retention. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and a keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/311292

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/why-are-your-employees-quitting-a-study-says-it-comes-down-to-any-of-these-6-reasons.html

https://www.thebalance.com/top-reasons-why-employees-quit-their-job-1918985

Overworked Employees: Signs and Prevention

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Every manager dreams of having a team full of hard-working employees, people who, on a daily basis, come in engaged, focused and prepared to reach all of their goals. And while everyone can appreciate employees who are very productive, there is a fine line between productivity and burnout when we talk medium to long-term. Unfortunately, that line is not hard to cross. All they have to do is start believing they have to work longer hours, even though business hours were over a few hours ago.

Perhaps there are managers out there that don’t want to realise this is a rising trend. In 2015, a report from Workfront “State of Enterprise Work” analysed the working hours of more than 600 employees. 52% of them have said they work longer not to catch up with assignments but actually to get ahead. This statistic raises a number of questions:

  • Do employees think this is what is expected of them?
  • Where does this feeling of working longer hours come from?
  • Are employees trying to avoid getting overwhelmed by work?

Perhaps an even better question would be:

  • Why don’t managers acknowledge this?

Managers have the responsibility to establish an environment where employees know and feel that they appreciated for their efforts instead of constantly questioning themselves and think they need to put in more and more work. Although the latter scenario may sound ideal, it is as clear as day that it leads to exhausted and even burntout employees.

Your business may be flourishing, but if you do not have any workers left to run the operations smoothly, employee turnover levels may change quickly. If you feel your employees have been neglected or have been overworking themselves, it may be time to take action and prevent anyone from quitting. Here are a few quick steps to implement in order to boost morale and bring back engagement at respectable levels.

Employee attitude shift

When employees start getting exhausted and frustrated about their workload, their attitude starts to drift towards a more negative perspective on work-related issues. Perhaps you have noticed some of your workers being angry and extremely irritable with frequent outburst towards their colleagues. It is a very clear sign they are over-worked and over-stressed. They may require some time off work or if deadlines are piling up the manager should be directly involved in dealing with day-to-day tasks and activities.

Higher working hours/week

In the vast majority of companies, the typical employee works more than 40 hours per week, more often than not it goes beyond 50 hours. In John Pencavel’s Stanford study, he has discovered that productivity reaches its maximum potential at around 49 hours, after that it dips down dramatically. If your workers are constantly working over 50 hours a week, it may a clear sign of exhaustion. Long hours lead to lower engagement levels, frustration and eventually burnout, so it is essential that the manager checks the average working hours put in by his team. Also, try and encourage your staff to work more reasonable hours in a week.

Vacation Days

There are situations in which employees do not use up all of their vacation days. This typically happens when they are over-burdened with work or they feel they haven’t pulled up their weight in the past few weeks or months. This where the HR department has to keep a close eye on employees, who do not use their vacation days in order to relax and decompress.  A quarterly review of this situation is imperative so that companies avoid burnout employees.

Increased employee turnover

It is common knowledge that stressed and exhausted employees are always susceptible to quitting. Obviously, this happens because employees have stopped being happy and they start seeking other employment opportunities. Providing flexibility for their work schedule can go a long way to reducing unwanted stress. Some people may be excellent workers during the early hours of the morning while others are night owls; allowing your employees some leeway with their schedule can be a simple way to create a happier and more productive work culture. Also, provide your employees with a Goals and Objectives document. This enables you, the manager, to have discussions with your staff regarding new projects or deadlines in order to mutually determine project priorities, shuffling due dates and rebalance workloads.

“Unplugging” from work

This has to start from the manager exclusively, by avoiding sending emails or texts during night time. Managers have to show faith in the importance of their employees’ life. A life in which they work, they have time for their hobbies and time to rest. Everyone needs to detach from work, which nowadays automatically means to spend time away from our smartphones and gadgets.

Bottom line is, there has to be respect for the people who work for you. It is essential for the manager to provide work for his employees, tasks that are challenging and exciting whilst at the same time making sure they do not overload. With the right balance and tension between projects can help create a wonderful working atmosphere with properly engaged and motivated employees. Managers should be mindful and keep an eye on for various signs that their team might reach the burnout point. Employees tend to keep their thoughts and ideas to themselves, afraid of what might happen if they confront their managers. This is why it’s up to the managers to observe and adjust any unfair situations that may develop in the workplace.

Great People Inside provides easy-to-use tools and processes to attract, assess, match, select, onboard, manage, develop, benchmark and maintain workforces anywhere in the world.

Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It requires deep knowledge of your own organisation’s culture and a keen understanding of the candidate’s personality, strengths, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you find employees who can flourish and reach the highest performance required to constantly bring your company forward.

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

 

https://www.inc.com/mandy-gilbert/what-to-do-when-everyones-overworked-and-theres-a.html?cid=hmpopface5

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286777

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-to-manage-a-staff-that%E2%80%99s-overworked.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2015/11/08/8-signs-that-you-could-be-accidentally-over-working-your-team/#1f52711a5899