MHRM 6120

Building Trust

 …if developed and leveraged, the one thing has potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. 

Yet, it is the least understood, most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time. That one thing is trust. —Stephen Covey

In class this week, we're talking about trust. How HR can create trust, challenges to building trust and how to maintain stakeholder trust. 

Trust is a tricky thing... It can be so difficult to build, so easy to destroy and next to impossible to regain once lost. 

I think it is very important for staff members to trust their HR department. And equally important that HR earn that trust by always being honest with staff.

I feel that developing a relationship with staff is important. At the hospital where I work, nurse recruiters almost act as docents to new nurses. They tour them around the medical center, make introductions, I've even see them counsel new nurses months after they are hired. I think this kind of relationship is important in building trust among employees. 

Listening is another skill HR can use to build and maintain trust. Conduct employee surveys, not just to measure, but improve. After one of our employee surveys, departments met with management to discuss results and improvements that could be made to improve morale. Our representative looked us in the eye, told us all of our ideas were good and good be accomplished and then followed through with none of them. This is not a successful means to maintain trust with your employees. Do you think the next year we offered any ideas to improve things in our office? Why would we bother when we didn't believe anything would change?

Proper communication, I believe, is the key to both earning and maintaining stakeholder trust. People by nature resist change, but if HR properly communicate the reason behind the change, staff may be more likely to accept the change. As the relationship between staff members and HR continues, staff will learn to trust HR. But HR must also continue to earn it by communicating effectively and honestly at all times.



References:
Covey, S. R. (2006). The SPEED of trust: The one thing that changes everything (p. 1). New York, NY: Free Press.