How to Establish an Environment of Trust

An environment of trust is crucial to building a healthy work place. Workers who feel unheard, unrecognized or misunderstood provide lower-quality work than those who feel appreciated. A business does best when its workforce communicates and feels comfortable doing so. Truly successful companies invest in their employees and expect them to share honest feedback. Establishing an environment of trust ensures that your organization will continue to produce quality work.

Openness and reliability are the cornerstones to keeping your workforce engaged. An important component in creating an environment of trust is selecting honest and engaged employees. A team environment is built from the ground up. Workers should feel free not only to openly communicate with one another, but to also bring concerns or questions to their supervisors.

Invest in your employees. This means providing your employees with many opportunities to express themselves. Offer a truly open door when it comes to letting them voice their opinions. Healthy, happy, committed employees maintain a positive work culture. This positively impacts produced work, task completion and employee morale.

Communication is the biggest component to building and maintaining an environment of trust in an organization. Work relationships are oftentimes seen as less important than relationships with clients, but work relationships directly impacts the work culture, no matter the field. Workers who experience conflict with supervisors are significantly less likely to stay on a work force.

Communication also means sharing the company's vision and values with all employees. The environment of trust can be built when all employees feel they understand why they are working for the company. If management shares its goals and expectations for the company, employees can help meet the goals laid out. When people understand why things are happening they are more able to deal with any backlash.

We know that an environment of trust is built with communication, openness and employee investment. The organization runs more smoothly when employees feel heard and when supervisors share their vision. When employees or supervisors lie, omit important information or don't match words with actions, the work place is no longer safe. Workers no longer feel that they are collaborating towards a shared goal. Instead, they may begin to look for companies where they can trust the organization's integrity.

An environment of trust is important not only for producing quality work but for maintaining a high level of experienced, trustworthy workers in the company. Employees want a work environment where they understand the mission and goals of the company. Working in an organization that supports open communication results in higher employee productivity. Collaborating toward a shared goal, communicating with one another and maintaining openness are crucial to achieving an environment of trust.

(Photo courtesy of posterize / freedigitalphotos.net)