Investing in Your Trust Fund: How HR 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 two decades 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.