Trust and the Building Blocks of Workforce Engagement

Organizations must always be in a constant state of improvement. Recruiting and retaining top talent is only one half of the talent acquisition equation. For a business to be successful, talented individuals must be retained through workplace engagement. Building an engaging workforce is done through cultivating a mutually beneficial relationship of trust.

Building an engaging workforce is not about paying the most, providing improved benefits or even creating a fun workplace environment. While all of those are excellent incentives to retaining high quality individuals, they mean nothing without giving employees a relationship of trust. Workplace perks are surface representations of the deeper meaning, placing value on employee growth.

 Statistically, businesses that show high levels of workforce engagement outperform those who do not. A 2012 Global Workforce Study concluded that companies who show high levels of workforce engagement had an operating margin of 27 percent, whereas companies with low levels of workforce engagement had an operating margin of less than 10 percent. An even more recent study concluded that while workforce engagement is up in 2014, over 51 percent of employees are not committed or engaged in the workplace.

 Workforce engagement also affects employee turnover. Highly engaged organizations consistently had a turnover rate of 18 percent, compared to a 40 percent turnover rate for low engagement companies. For many organizations with low engagement, high turnover rates are a downward spiral, greatly affecting how an organization expands and performs within the marketplace. Highly engaged organizations not only produce better outcomes in the business world, but also better outcomes for the livelihood of the employees within an organization.

 Providing a purpose for employees is about giving employees trust in the work that they do. Building a relationship of trust and meaning is less about what type of work is given and more about how work is given. Individuals who work in sales, retail, logistics or marketing can all share in work that is meaningful and built on trust. It is the experience of work that employees are looking for, not the work itself.

 For this reason business leaders must make employee success a high priority. By coaching employees through professional maturity, an organization will not only implement a quality sustainability program, but also communicate value to employees on an intrinsic and meaningful level. To trust in an employee is to trust in their aptitude for learning.

 Regardless of the industry if employees are given the trust of managers and organizational leaders, then employees feel a sense of individuality and direction. Large companies that are leading the way in engagement do not just have excellent work perks with fun and collaborative work environments, they have a spirit of purpose. This is why organizations that show high levels of engagement can also show high levels of productivity.

The blueprint to implement employee trust is to establish an atmosphere of open communication. Objectives, goals and organizational vision cannot be pursued without the open communication between organizational leaders and employees. Organizations that thrive on open communication understand that the employee leader relationship is a mutually beneficial partnership. Without open communication, leaders cannot share employee trust.

For organizations to thrive in employee engagement, leaders must also implement integrity among the workplace. For employees to feel motivated, business leaders must encourage action, not command it. By communicating a command, organizational leaders display a lack of both trust and respect for employee autonomy. How can an employee develop a sense of trust for managers and leaders if trust is not given to the employee in the first place?

Workplace engagement is a two way street. It is not something that can be artificially created by leadership and trickled down through the organization. Workplace engagement is about trusting talented individuals and building upon that trust through professional growth…