7 Strategies to Build Trust of your Team

The organizations are striving towards a people-centric approach these days. By the word people centric they mean that if on one hand, managers and leaders want their task to be completed on time with greater efficiency, then on the other hand they are taking care of the employees’ well-being. It is important to look into the matters of employees’ satisfaction and their needs. The organization should have a feeling of “together we work, together we’ll succeed.” The success story of big companies is in the latent form with a secret of them putting lot of efforts nowadays on spirituality in the organization. That people should get a healthy working atmosphere with collegial manager-subordinate relationship. The mantra behind building a collegial manager-subordinate relationship is building trust. If the employees and team members have trust on their managers, they get motivated to work well with the feeling of cohesiveness. The trust building plays a vital role in making people learn and become self- driven.

Following can be ways by which the managers can build trust with their team:

1. “Communicate to seek change”: It is rightly said and experienced by the company professionals that clear communication with the employees regarding the requirements and goals is very necessary. The manager is said to be effective if he is able to communicate the company’s grievances’, problems, short and long term goals with their team. It is important for them to even engage the employees in company’s decision making. Involving the team members in decision making makes them feel worthy of themselves and thus build trust in them. When they are given importance by the managers, the team spirit increases. “The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through

2. “Every good conversation starts with a good listening”: Listening is more important than speaking up the problems. A good manager must lend their ears to the employees. All teammates should get an equal space to speak up and it’s the responsibility of the head to listen and understand what they actually want.

3. “Having an open door policy : Having an open door of the manager for employees to seek help and discuss issues wherever required is not a new concept when it comes to corporate culture. Having and open door promotes “free to approach manager” atmosphere. It helps managers in building the trust with the team by being readily available and visible to the employees. The feeling that someone is there to grab their hand when they begin to fall.

4. “Know by name”: once, a girl named Sarita joined an office as a fresher.
On the first monthly board meeting she was called up by her name by the
northern India head of the company on his visit to the branch. She felt elated by knowing that such a big personality of the company know her
by her name even after having 200+ employees in the branch. It enhanced her self-confidence and made her feel an important part of the organization.

Knowing each and every team members by their name is a hidden
treasure type of point which helps in building trust with the team. By knowing the name, it is meant that a manager should know the team
members as who they are in terms of their qualities, attributes and even
their strengths and weaknesses, when you are the immediate team leader of an employee. Knowing the employees, their capabilities and their SWOT analysis should be clear to the manager so that no ineffective work distribution is done. This helps in gaining huge lot of trust and commitment of the employees.

5. “Offering gifts and rewards”
Giving the incentives and promotions time to time are making employees feel motivated. No matter what! Who doesn’t likes to be rewarded? Apart from the incentives and promotions, the managers should provide gifted holiday packages, movie or show tickets to their teammates as a reward to completion of certain assignment. This will build in a friendly workable atmosphere in an organization, also promoting work life balances.

6. “Avoiding gossips” bitching around any teammate about his/her
shortcomings in his/her personal or professional life is neither ethical
nor acceptable. The teammates should respect each other. Respecting the behavior, knowledge and experiences of each person is important, be it a senior positioned boss or a freshly joined employee. All the unnecessary gossips of the employees lead to mistrust.

7.“Lead by your example” trust building comes up only when the managers have that persona to be followed up to. When a person joins a
group or a team, they look up to their boss. To all the managers, make sure they look up to you as a good example and want to be like you. Preach what you do. Do what you want your teammates to follow and make them trust you.

Submitted By:Pragya Seth | Vinamra
(PGDM Batch 2019-21)