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Investing
in Your Trust Fund: How Human Resource Professionals Build Credible
Relationships
When
I was a clinical psychologist in private practice, I was often
puzzled (although always thrilled) about why my therapy clients
got better. When I asked them, explanations inevitably focused
on our therapeutic relationship. "You really seemed to care
about me." "You were always there to listen." "I
felt safe enough to tell you things I've never told anyone."
Essentially, the talk centered on the quality of our relationship
rather than the therapeutic techniques I spent years studying.
The same seems to be true of human resource professionals. After
over a decade of management and human resource consulting, I have
consistently found that the effectiveness of an organization's
human resource department centers on the managers' and employees'
ability to trust the HR staff.
In
fact, when we talk about "organizational trust," we
are often talking about a limited concept - the degree of to which
corporate communication is clear, the existence of rules and procedures,
and the consistency of an organization's business philosophy and
goals. Trust lies primarily in the realm not of organizational
dynamics, but of interpersonal dynamics. In this article, we'll
take a look at how human resource professionals can play a critical
role in building trust with the managers and employees who ultimately
control the bottom line.
Four
Parts of the Trust Equation
Trust
is the foundation for effective communication, employee retention,
and employee motivation. When trust exists in an organization
or in a work relationship, almost everything else is easier and
more comfortable to achieve. When it's absent, people leave, file
lawsuits, and are less productive.
Trust is also a more complicated concept than it at first appears.
While trust is most often thought of as an intangible gut feeling,
in reality it is a complex mixture of four basic ingredients -
credibility, reliability, intimacy, and personal orientation.
Let's take a look at each of these ingredients and how human resource
professionals can demonstrate them:
1.
Credibility has to do with the words we speak--are we believable?
When managers and employees are evaluating their human resource
department's credibility, they look well beyond credentials to
the person's behavior, demonstrated expertise, and interpersonal
demeanor.
*
Trust builder: Be a constant source of information. Supply information
to employees on a wide range of employment issues through a variety
of media. If possible, provide information on a weekly or daily
basis on a variety of topics that directly impact or benefit employees.
Use as many communication methods as possible. They'll soon come
to see you as a resource, rather than an obstacle.
*
Trust builder: Know your stuff. Trusted professionals continuously
learn and stay up on the trends and issues of their industry.
They also insist on rigorously clear thinking about HR issues;
rather than blindly pursuing employee retention programs, for
example, they have a point of view about the right level of turnover;
about the payback, return on investment and pro-cons of alternative
approaches to retention; and about the priority of retention among
other general business initiatives.
2.
Reliability has to do with the actions we take--are we dependable?
The factors that go into this part of the equation are predictability,
dependability and familiarity. For instance, does the human resource
professional treat employees consistently, follow-through on his
or her commitments, and respond quickly to problems and requests
for information?
*
Trust builder: Get your ducks in a row. The quickest way to lose
credibility with a workforce is to make mistakes. Not meeting
deadlines, making "minor" errors, and not following
through on promises will come back to haunt you every time. HR
is watched by many eyes and can't afford to be sloppy or incomplete.
3.
Intimacy has to do with safety of the interactions between human
resources and managers/employees. The intimacy factor essentially
has to do with a sense that the human resource professional is
discrete, understands how the manager or employee feels, and knows
how to deal with that knowledge.
*
Trust builder: Get clear with yourself. It's tricky to be the
liaison between employees and employers. If you have unresolved
conflicts in your belief systems about the rights, obligations,
and ethics of employees versus employers, it's important to either
resolve them or clarify them. Managers can respect the integrity
of those they disagree with; but they will never trust those with
unclear belief systems.
*
Trust builder: Make your role known. Oftentimes, employees misunderstand
how HR operates. To combat this phenomenon, advertise your job,
including your mission, your role, and your services. Make it
known how you handle "confidential" information. Don't
be afraid to do a little education about the HR world. The more
they know, the more they trust and respect you.
*
Trust builder: Avoid favoritism. Don't turn to the same manager
for input over and over again. Avoid socializing exclusively with
senior managers or with specific managers/employees. If managers
or employees perceive that you have "special relationships"
with certain members of the organization, they will be much less
likely to trust you to be impartial.
4.
Self- Orientation has to do with attention, i.e., on whom is your
attention focused? Human resource professionals often have only
the best motives, but worry about how they are being perceived,
about how smart they seem, and about whether they'll get the job.
To that extent, they may not focus on the manager or employee
in front of them--and to that extent they won't be trusted.
*
Trust builder: Constantly ask for feedback. Conduct annual surveys
and customer focus groups to find out what your employee customers
think. Pursue continuous improvement as a result of the feedback.
Those who are always getting better are always more respected.
*
Trust builder: Listen for understanding. Listening for understanding
means creating a relationship with those you are listening to
which they experience being completely heard and understood. This
involves understanding the other party's perspective before progressing
to a discussion regarding agreement or disagreement. This also
involves listening to much more than the content of what is said;
it means listening, and asking questions about, the history behind
the current issue, the thoughts and feelings about the issue,
and the intentions behind why the other person is saying what
s/he is saying.
All's
Fair in Love and Work?
It
has long been thought that employee satisfaction is the key to
employee work motivation and participation. Yet more recent research
points to the way employees feel about the fairness of the organization
they work for as the true key to employee motivation. In fact,
researchers at West Virginia University found that it is the employee's
faith in his or her supervisor and the fairness implicit in day-to-day
transactions that is the key.
People consider the nature of their treatment by others when determining
if fairness is present and can be trusted. Each person in a relationship
views the other from his or her personal perspective.
In
the workplace the organization is represented by or presented
to employees by supervisors. Employees view the organization through
their supervisor. In turn supervisors view the organization through
their supervisor and so on. It is mostly the supervisor that explains
the organization to the employee and explains the employee to
the organization. Based on this research, supervisors, through
the supervisory relationship, are the only logical catalysts to
creating an organization that excels.
Human
resource professionals can play a pivotal role in ensuring fairness
and justice regarding all basic issues is in place and that supervisors
are inspiring employees toward goals. Here are just a few of the
steps in this process:
1.
Check all policies and work rules to assure that there are procedures
that create fairness. The important ones center on pay, diversity,
and etc.
2.
Look at decisions made in implementing these rules and general
working practices to assure that fairness and equality exist in
all supervisory and management decisions about employees and their
work.
3.
Set up a group of management, supervisory employees and other
employees whose sole job it is to watch for the creation and maintenance
of fairness in the organization. As a part of this effort this
committee should be looking for results by answering the question:
Are people working conscientiously and voluntarily going beyond
what is merely expected by the job role we have given them and
what are we doing?
Training
for Trust
Trust
is predominantly an interpersonal matter; organizational trust
is a largely one-dimensional reflection of the richer trust between
people. But that doesn't mean organizations should give up on
the task of enhancing the trustworthiness of their people, by
any means. In fact, both organization and employee stand to benefit
from such efforts.
The
Human Resources professional has a special role in promoting trust.
You influence the power differentials within the organization
by developing and publishing supportive, protective, honorable
policies. You are influential in building appropriate social norms
among people who are doing different jobs in your organization.
By keeping your own staff members truthfully informed and divulging
as much information as appropriate to managers and employees,
you are setting a tone of open communication that can enhance
trust, especially during times of organizational transition.
You
are also in charge of hiring, coaching and training your managers.
Hire and promote people who are capable of forming positive, trusting
relationships with people who report to them. Develop the interpersonal
skills of all employees, especially those of current supervisors
and people desiring promotion; the reason most managers fail within
the first 18 months is because of interpersonal reasons, not technical
ones. Train your managers to confront hard issues in a timely
fashion. If an employee has excessive absences or spends work
time wandering around, it is important to confront the employee
about these issues.
Play
an active role in trust-building and team-building activities,
but only when there is a sincere desire in your organization to
create a trusting, empowering, team-oriented work environment.
People will know the difference, or they will find out, and then,
they will never trust you.
The
Bottom Line
The
ability to build trust among managers and employees, especially
in a tight labor market, may be the single biggest lever in the
portfolio of HR activities. Not only does trust directly impact
employee retention and satisfaction, it plays a critical role
in reducing employment liability by increasing the chances that
employee complaints will be handled internally.
The
Godfather had it wrong when he said, "It's not personal,
it's business." The truth is, business is personal. And human
resources, as the liaison between employer and employee, serve
as the personal representative by which the trustworthiness of
an organization is judged.
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COME
TO SAN DIEGO AND LEARN - OUR INTERPERSONAL RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
GOES PUBLIC!
By
popular demand, our 3-day Interpersonal Risk Management Program
will be offered as a public seminar September 23 - 25. Attendees
will receive a pre-workshop skills assessment and report, individual
coaching and three months of e-mail follow-up.
This
unique program is designed for technical managers with 1 to 3
years of experience who are technically proficient but need to
develop stronger interpersonal and leadership skills. The cost
for the workshop is $1295; newsletter subscribers who register
before July 15 will only pay $995.00!
To
register, e-mail jonij@workrelationships.com. This class is limited
to 20 attendees, so hurry!
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