Building a high trust culture - 10 tips from the room

I recently presented to a group from the Swindon CIPD branch on the topic of building trust and how to build a motivating and positive culture. Many thanks to Lee Krawczyk-Brown - Henlee Resourcing for the invite and all who joined me.

In the session I shared my experiences of creating successful and productive organisations with higher levels of employee engagement and better retention. During this session I asked the group for their top tips on creating more trust in an organisation, I felt it would be helpful to share these as the tips were spot on.

So, here they are, bite-sized but beneficial, even if you only put a few of them into practice.

1: Actions have to match words: It sounds obvious - promises made need to be delivered upon and promises made, kept. Trust that may have taken years to build can vanish if actions don’t live up to expectations.

2: Clear and two-way communication: This one is all about telling people what is going on in an organisation - the good, the bad and the ugly. And don’t try to control the opposing voice. It’s a powerful point, and well made.

3: Support a speak up culture: Being able to raise concerns, call out poor behaviours and do so without fear of reprisals demonstrates high levels of trust within an organisation. This closely aligns to the next point.

4: Welcoming feedback: And most importantly, acting on it. People want to have a voice, without which they don’t feel trusted by the organisation.

5. Role model leadership: There are ways that we want to see those in positions of responsibility behave. High trust organisations need leaders you can trust and who are role models to others.

6. Empowerment and autonomy: The group wanted to see leaders and line managers who could take appropriate actions when needed. They also felt trusted more when empowered and could work with autonomy themselves.

7. Transparency, openness and vulnerability: Those leaders who can be open about when they made the wrong call, showing vulnerability and admitting responsibility were trusted more.

8. It’s OK to make mistakes: Those organisations that are a safe space and view mistakes as a learning experience - were seen as more trusting than those where a blame culture prevailed.

9. Consistency: From the wider mission to the actions of leaders and line managers - no one wants to see the goal posts changing.

10. Keep flexibility: Being trusted to work from home or the hours that suit shows trust from the employer. No one wants to see flexible working patterns reversed.

The trust model

I think there are some powerful recommendations here. Thanks again to the CIPD members who offered their ideas. We also sketched out a model to represent all the views. What do you think? I’d welcome your thoughts.

Do you need some help?

If your organisation is failing on trust, it’ll likely be failing in other areas too, which can impact profitability and retention of talent.?

I’m passionate about helping create engaged, inspired and highly productive teams and cultures.

Please?contact me ?if you want to chat through a scenario or need my help in auditing your levels of trust with recommendations for actions you can take.