Building relationships with your employees is crucial for a well-functioning organization. Whether you are new as a manager or have an established relationship with the team, it’s important to consider how, as a leader, you can create a trusting relationship with your employees. This can be a challenge for many managers and is not always straightforward. Hiring talented, engaged, and competent employees is a first step, but it’s essential to know how to retain your employees in the long run. Creating a positive work environment and atmosphere are also two other factors that can be decisive. It’s also about employees wanting to feel valued and having development opportunities within the company to progress and choose to stay.
Building a trusting relationship with your employees means creating a transparent and open communication culture where all employees feel included, heard, and respected. When there is trust in the team, conflicts decrease, and a positive atmosphere permeates the group. Job satisfaction and loyalty increase, leading employees to choose to stay in their current workplace because they feel they contribute value and receive the recognition they deserve for their achievements. If employees feel appreciated at their workplace and have the right conditions to develop, the likelihood of them choosing to stay in the long term increases.
How you, as a manager, build trust with your employees
Review the workload and have clear communication – What expectations do you have of each other? Discuss this together so that both parties have the same understanding of reasonable goals expected from you. In a high-pressure workplace, it can be challenging to build trust. If an employee feels stressed and pressured, they are likely to have a more negative attitude towards their tasks. Therefore, it is important to maintain an open work atmosphere and discuss one’s work situation to ensure well-being and optimal performance. As a manager, understanding your employees can sometimes be a challenge, so it’s crucial to be clear, direct, and honest in communication. Employees generally appreciate being challenged, and expectations are placed on them, but these expectations must be reasonable to prevent the person from losing motivation.
Allocate time to engage with your employees – Use a digital platform with a tool for managers and employees that should be easy and smooth to work with. By dedicating time and effort to assess the well-being within the company, you, as a manager, demonstrate that you care about your employees. Puls+ coaches employees and managers to feel better and perform better. One of our core values is “simplicity.” Our tool, Puls+, should be simple and enjoyable for both employees and managers to work with. By assessing the well-being within the company, managers can easily get an overview of the weaknesses and strengths and actively work on them. It is also essential to emphasize that the focus should not only be on categories indicating negative figures, but it is equally important to focus on the strengths the team and the company possess. After all, we want to maintain and build upon these strengths, right? Engaging and caring for employees affects various parameters; it considers their health, reduces stress, increases customer satisfaction, and, most importantly, decreases absenteeism in the company.
Not hearing from your employees can be detrimental – If employees dare to speak up and complain, it can be perceived as negative and a sign of inadequate knowledge. However, it doesn’t have to be that way; instead, employees expressing their opinions can be seen as something positive. This builds trust. If an employee is not engaged, never responds, or participates in social activities such as team events or after-work gatherings, it is not a good sign. Trust issues often lead to the eventual departure of the employee or the manager from the company sooner or later.
Trust the decisions made by employees – Trusting employees’ decisions and independence saves time and makes work more efficient. Making mistakes is human and should not be seen as a failure but as a learning opportunity. Learning from mistakes brings benefits naturally. Additionally, the person grows in their role, gains better self-confidence, and likely can tackle more significant challenges in the future. This results in increased productivity!
Be attentive, empathetic, and considerate – For a successful and thriving company, one of the key ingredients is that, as a manager, you care about everyone in your team. It is due to everyone’s differences, experiences, and knowledge in the team that the company achieves success and evolves. Therefore, the employee is the company’s most valuable resource. Caring for your employees creates positive conditions for good cooperation within the company.