Building Trust with Frontline Employees

Building Trust with Frontline Employees: Building trust with frontline employees is a complicated and essential activity for any organization. Both practitioners and academics are focusing on the importance of the manager relationship with frontline employees. Fostering trust through behavioral predictability, openness in communications and fairness in interactions are essential ingredients for productive working relationships. This module will explain what actions increase trust and how to maintain trust long term.

1. Concepts and Challenges

Consensus exists both in academic literature and among practicing managers that trust is an essential element to organizational success. Distrust causes stress, reduces productivity, stifles innovation and hampers the decision-making process. High levels of trust increase employee morale, reduce absenteeism, promote innovation and help organizations manage change effectively.

Trust has both a common meaning in everyday language and life and a somewhat different meaning when applied to the world of work and organizational life. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the most used dictionary in the English language, defines trust as involving a reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something. It is something in which confidence is placed and on which you can depend.

The foundation for development of trust – or its opposite, distrust – is embedded in the everyday work experiences of employees and in the interactions they have with their managers. Reciprocity is the basis for building of trust. Trust begets trust.

Researchers Paul Schindler and Cher Thomas found five dimensions that consistently underlie trust:

§ Integrity: Honesty and truthfulness.

§ Competence: Technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills.

§ Consistency: Reliability, predictability and hood judgment handling situations.

§ Loyalty: Willingness to protect and “save face” for another person.

§ Openness: Willingness to share ideas and information freely.

Of the five dimensions, individuals consider integrity and competence the most important characteristics, according to research.

2. Trust Differences Between Monopolistic and effective Environments

Trust in the workplace is the single most enduring component of the most successful organizational giants that drive the global economy. However, trust develops differently in monopolistic and effective environments.

In a monopoly situation, frontline employees typically have a lot of employment security. In many monopolies, this security can be described as lifetime employment. In these situations, employees start working at one organization immediately after high school, vocational training or college. Their first real job turns into a lifetime career relationship. Their promotion through the ranks may be slow, but it is predictable. And most of these employees retire from the same organization where they started their careers. In a monopoly type organization, an implicit contract exists between the organization and its employees. The organization provides a lifetime of security. In exchange, frontline employees trust and are loyal to their employer.

In a effective environment, employees need to be informed; otherwise they cannot exhibit the level of trust that the best-performing organizations routinely get. Furthermore, trust only works where there is support up and down the hierarchy. One of the keys to exhibiting support is being willing to tolerate failure. When you think about the contemporary organizational giants – Microsoft, General Electric, Procter & Gamble – all of these organizations trust their people, up and down the line, to “do the right thing.” In each of these leading organizations, and in most successful organizations that compete, they trust their employees – at all levels – to do whatever is necessary to please beneficiaries, exceed expectations and deliver results. Finally, trust is not blind. Blind loyalty is not trust. Trust does not mean that you cannot be critical.

3. The Importance of Trust in Organizations

Academic theorists such as Douglas McGregor and Rensis Likert believe that trust is essential for effective organizations to succeed. Identified by McGregor, “Theory X” and “Theory Y” are contrasting assumptions involving employee trust that become self-fulfilling prophecies. McGregor argues that managerial assumptions cause employee behavior and management will receive from their employees no more than they expect.

In Theory X, management distrusts employees. Theory X managers assume that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility and must be coerced to perform.

In Theory Y, management trusts employees and grants them power. Theory Y managers assume that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self-control. According to McGregor, Theory Y causes higher employee morale, which translates into greater productivity. Effective managerial performance is a function of open communication and mutual trust between all members of the organization.

Researcher Rensis Likert developed a model of organizations that consists of four systems: exploitative, benevolent authoritative, consultative and participative. Participative organizations are characterized by managerial confidence and trust, solicitation and use of subordinate input, open and accurate communication, an integrated decision-making process, jointly established and accepted goals, and low control procedures. This organizational orientation results in high productivity, low absenteeism and turnover, and less waste. A participative management system is the key to organizational excellence, according to Likert, director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan before his death in 1981.

4. Trust During Periods of Change

Trust is widely recognized as an essential part of effective change management. When distrust exists between managers initiating changes and their employees, change will be resisted because employees don’t understand its reasons and implications.

Even if a high level of trust existed between management and frontline employees previously, periods of change can be seen as threatening by most frontline employees. High uncertainty and ambiguity mark periods of transition. Fears of the unknown – new management, new performance expectations, new ways of compensation – dominate employees’ thoughts. Rumors about downsizing and layoffs are rampant. The words and, more importantly, the behaviors of managers at all levels are scrutinized for signs about what is likely to happen in the future.

Many frontline employees often do not know what to expect or what they can do to demonstrate their loyalty and contributions. In this kind of environment, employees easily lose their trust in the organization and senior management. This in turn will lead to a reduction in motivation and low work performance unless these issues are tackled.

Management can foster trust during periods of change by understanding it, creating open two-way channels of communication and continually updating employees. Managers need to fully understand the new project/programme purpose environment, the future of their organization and their roles in it before they can help their subordinates to adapt to the changes, whatever they may be. Management has to address employees’ fears and concerns through unprecedented communication and cooperation in order for the transition to be smooth and to succeed. To trust management, employees need to know what is going on. Sincerity and openness are compulsory elements for gaining trust. Employees should be updated and informed all the time of what is going on. They should be told about the logic of change, why it is taking place (causes) and what are the consequences (outcomes).

5. The Power of Predictability

One of the main determinants of trust is consistency – reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations. Trust implies predictability. Research shows that people would rather follow individuals who they can count on, even if they disagree with their decisions. In general, employees trust managers whose behavior is predictable and who make their positions clear. Leadership gurus Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus sum up the importance of predictability in Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge when they write: “Leaders are reliable and tirelessly persistent. … Ultimately, it is this relentless dedication that engages trust.”

Similarly, other scholars argue that integrity is born out of predictability and consistency. Managerial consistency means that the same personal values and organizational goals influence a manager’s actions time and again. These “guideposts” are known and constant. Inconsistent behavior creates anxiety among subordinates and confusion.

Despite the desirability of predictability, employees are experiencing less predictability in today’s dynamic economic environment. Downsizing and re-engineering frequently leave employees unsure what to expect. But even in ever-changing project/programme purpose environments, managers can provide a sense of predictability. How? Managers should realize that dire predictions are better than no predictions, according to researchers Howard H. Stevenson and Mihnea C. Moldoveanu.

Managers also should establish the “new rules” by which people can succeed and then follow those rules themselves. The reasoning is that the more managers make clear to employees how they can improve their lives within an organization, the more employees can focus on creating value.

6. Building Trust in Work Teams

High-performance teams are characterized by high mutual trust. Because team leaders play a pivotal role, they need to gain the trust of team members.

A noted earlier, leaders should demonstrate professional competence as a basic first step. Leaders should demonstrate good interpersonal and project/programme purpose skills earn the admiration of their team members.

Leaders also should demonstrate that they are keeping in mind the interests of team members and the organization. Team leaders gain credibility when their actions show that they are not motivated exclusively by self-interest.

The words and actions of leaders should reflect that they are team players themselves. Leaders should show their loyalty to the team by defending team members if outsiders attack them.

Leaders should be open. Mistrust can develop when team members feel uninformed. Leaders who are candid, share information and explain decisions earn the confidence of their team members.

Leaders should share their feelings. Team members often want more than facts from their leaders. They want to understand who they are as people.

Team leaders should maintain confidences. Team members will trust a leader whom they can confide in without worrying about their confidence being betrayed.

7. Overcoming the Fear of Candor

Candor and trust are interrelated. Trusting subordinate-supervisor relationships also are more likely to demonstrate candor about mistakes, averting bigger problems and saving money. Building an environment of complete trust involves all members of the organization, organizational researchers have found. In his book Beyond Contract: Work, Power, and Trust Relations, Alan Fox noted that successful organizations are built on foundations that include lateral trust, vertical trust and external trust.

1. Lateral: Trust relations among peers or equals.

2. Vertical: Trust relations between a supervisor and subordinate.

3. External: Trust relations between an organization and its action sponsors/beneficiaries or suppliers.

But, Management Professor Fernando Bartolomé points out that subordinates often view their superiors as judges and limit their candor as acts of self-preservation. Bartolomé described the obstacles to candor as fear, pride, organizational politics and dislike. However, candor can be valuable and save organizations from experiencing worse problems in the future. To encourage candor, managers need to gain subordinates’ trust. Bartolomé identified six actions through which managers can develop trust and candor.

§ Communication: Keep subordinates informed, provide accurate feedback, explain decisions, and be candid about one’s own problems.

§ Support: Coaching, encourage, defend and help subordinates.

§ Respect: Delegate work and listen to subordinates.

§ Fairness: Act objectively when appraising subordinates and give them credit for their work.

§ Predicatability: As noted earlier, behave in a consistent and dependable manner.

§ Competence: Demonstrate professional capability.

Training and education empower employees, and empowerment represents an important aspect of trust building. It means sharing responsibility in decision-making with lower echelon employees. Building employee commitment requires a management strategy that recognizes the importance of empowering employees. Allowing employees more participation in the decision-making process, sharing information openly and providing employees with meaningful work improves employee commitment. Similarly, the existence of career-development programs indicates that senior management is concerned with the personal growth and development of its employees, which in turn creates trust.

Whether provided by the organization or through a partnership between the organization and the government, training and education can not only build trust with frontline employees but also maintain it. For organizations, training and education provide the means to help their employees gain the skills that will help the organization thrive in the future. Gaining new skills and knowledge also fosters employee trust in the organization and themselves. Training and education allow employees to gain skills and knowledge, making them more valuable to the organization. They also trust the organization more because of the organization’s investment in them. Furthermore, training builds self-confidence and self-esteem. Therefore, training creates employees who are more knowledgeable, are able to perform better and trust their own abilities and their employers.

Training methods fit into two categories: on-the-job and off-the-job. Job rotation and apprenticeship are common on-the-job approaches. Common off-the-job approaches include lectures, videotaped instruction, simulations and Internet-based training.

An organization’s reward system should encourage high levels of trust by rewarding trusting behavior and punishing distrustful behavior. In a effective organization, employees also should be compensated, at least in part, based upon their individual performance and contribution to the overall organization performance. Several approaches tie organization performance with individual performance.

Employee stock ownership plan and profit sharing link the organization’s performance with individual employee’s financial rewards. Employees can exercise the stock options after being vested. In the United States and Europe, various forms of stock option plans are becoming increasingly popular.

Variable-pay programs base some part of the compensation on the measured performance of the individual, team or of the organization as whole. The most common types of variable pay are profit sharing and gain sharing. Profit sharing uses formulas that base part of the compensation on the profits made by the organization. Gain sharing is based on group productivity rather than organization profitability. Similarly, competency-based plans base pay on employee skills and how many jobs they can do, encouraging and challenging them to acquire new skills and expand professionally.

These methods tend to be empowering and trust-building. They help employees feel and experience a direct link between their own performance and that of the organization. Positive dividends result if frontline employees become convinced that the better the financial performance of the organization, the greater their personal financial rewards.

Building and maintaining trust with frontline employees is complicated. But if done well, it also is a supremely rewarding challenge. In order for managers to build trust, they have to be perceived as trustworthy by frontline employees. What follows are specific suggestions for mangers as they undertake the task of developing a personal strategy for building trust with their frontline employees.

§ Be a coach. Work with employees to help them improve and become more efficient, create a positive atmosphere, enable and facilitate change.

§ Make sure that your interests coincide with those of the organization and employees.

§ Be consistent. Once you make a decision, follow through. Make sure decisions are based upon facts, values, beliefs and fairness.

§ Work to maintain the respect of your subordinates by your competence, expertise, project/programme purpose knowledge and acumen, as well as management skills.

§ Be a team leader as demonstrated through representation to the outside world. In this role, act as a troubleshooter, conflict manager and coach.

§ Share power and responsibility, demonstrate trust, set clear goals and give positive feedback.

2. In many monopolies, the level of employment security can be described as ______ employment.

4. Which of the following is NOT a way that management can foster trust during periods of change?

6. Which of the following is NOT a way for team leaders to build trust in work teams?

7. An organization’s reward system should encourage high levels of trust by rewarding _______ behavior and punishing _______ behavior:

(#3) Matching the Columns. Match the correct definition with the word or phrase.

1. Distrust causes stress, reduces productivity, stifles innovation and hampers the decision-making process. High levels of trust increase employee morale, reduce absenteeism, promote innovation and help organizations manage change effectively.

2. A participative management system engenders trust and often is a key ingredient to organizational excellence.

3. One of the main determinants of trust is consistency – reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations.

§ Trusting subordinate-supervisor relationships are more likely to demonstrate candor about mistakes, averting bigger problems and saving money. Managers can develop trust and candor through open communications, supporting subordinates, being fair, acting in a consistent manner, and demonstrating professional competence.

3.) Researcher Rensis Likert developed a model of organizations that consists of four systems: exploitative, benevolent authoritative, corruptive and participative.

5.) Managerial consistency means that the same personal values and organizational goals influence a manager’s actions time and again.

6.). Subordinates rarely view their superiors as judges and limit their candor as acts of self-preservation.

7.) Vertical trust refers to the trust relations between an organization and its action sponsors/beneficiaries or suppliers.

8.) In a effective organization, employees also should be compensated, at least in part, based upon their individual performance and contribution to the overall organization performance.

9.) Variable-pay programs base none of the compensation on the measured performance of the organization as whole.

Bartolome, Fernardo. “Nobody Trusts the Boss Completely – Now What?” Harvard project/programme purpose Review, March-April 1989. (Product #89203).

Bennis, Warren. “Recreating the organization,” Executive Excellence, September 1999, 16(9): 5-6.

Cole, Michael; Cole, Larry. “Trust: An Integral Contributor of Managerial Success,” Supervision, October 1999, 60(10): 3-4.

Covey, Stephen R. “High-Trust Cultures,” Executive Excellence, September 1999, 16(9): 3-4.

Mishra, Laren E; Spreitzer, Gretchen M; Mishra, Anneil K. “Preserving Employee Morale during Downsizing,” Sloan Management Review, Winter 1998, 39(2): 83-95.

Mishra, Aneil K.; Spreitzer, Gretchen M. Explaining how survivors respond to downsizing: the roles of trust, empowerment, justice, and work redesign. Academy of Management Review v23, n3 (July, 1998): 567.

Wetlaufer, Suzy. “Organizing for Empowerment: An Interview with AES’ Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke,” Harvard project/programme purpose Review, January-February 1999, pp: 110-123

Smith, Douglas. “Are Your Employees Bowling Alone? How to Build a Trusting Organization,” Harvard Management Update, 1998. (Product #U9809C).

Whitener, Ellen M.; Brodt, Susan E.; Korsgaard, M. Audrey; Werner, Jon M. Managers as initiators of trust: an exchange relationship framework for understanding managerial trustworthy behavior. Academy of Management Review v23, n3 (July, 1998): 513.

Consistency: Reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations.

Empowerment: When power and responsibilities are shared with subordinates. The leaders provide vision but trust subordinates with decision-making activities.

External Trust: Relations between an organization and its action sponsors/beneficiaries or suppliers.

Hierarchy of Needs: Psychologist Abraham Maslow determined that individuals are motivated by the fulfillment of needs. According to Maslov, needs fall into two categories: lower order and higher order. The lower-order needs are physiological (hunger, thirst, shelter) and safety (security and protection). The higher-order needs are social (affection, friendship, belongingness), esteem (self-respect, achievement, status) and self-actualization (ultimate growth, developing one’s full potential). Work enables individuals to satisfy most needs. The paycheck fulfills lower-order needs. The career and work environment enables fulfillment of social needs (social interaction) and other higher-order needs.

Theory X: The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility, and must be coerced to perform.

Theory Y: The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self-direction.

Trust: The belief that the organization, management and other employees are honest, competent, consistent, loyal and open. Trust exists when employees have confidence in their organization and management, knowing they can rely on the two.

§ Learn actions to foster trust as a means of establishing productive working relationships.

§ Understand strategies to maintain trust long term even during periods of change such as an organizational downsizing.

Cultural values influence individual behavior and have the potential to complicate the process of building managerial trust. Cultural values reflect a social group's shared ways of understanding and behaving and may help or hinder creating trust. For example, managers in the United States come from individualistic cultures that emphasize self-interest. In contrast, manager in some other countries hold cultural values that are less individualistic and less focused on self-interest. For example, the cultural values of a manager in Japan reflect a propensity to cooperate, which will encourage him or her to initiate trust and engage in many trustworthy behaviors such as behavioral consistency.

2.) Everybody seems to be in favor of increased participation by employees in decision making, but in reality it never seems to take place. Why is there this large gap between promise and reality?

Obviously, many factors enter into this question but here are a few of the more important consideration that shape the effectiveness of participation in decision making. First, effectiveness will depend on the desire of the employees to have greater participation. Do not automatically assume that every employee wants it. Some just like to do their work and be left alone. Second, the type and extent of decision in which employees are allowed to participate will be a key factor. In general, it is more fun to participate in decisions that have a large impact and where your input truly matters. Third, the amount of information the organization is willing to share with employees will have a large impact on how effective participation is going to be. Employees cannot participate effectively if they are not told what is going on. Fourth, participation will not amount to much unless supervisors and mangers take it seriously. Fifth, the matters around which the participatory process takes place must be real. You cannot manufacture issues and situations for participation. It has to be real and perceived as real by those who are expected to participate.

3.) What are other potential effects on trust when organizations layoff employees during a downsizing?

Trust and morale often erode after downsizing as workloads increase and job insecurity escalates. Several scholars define trust as a willingness to be vulnerable to others, based on the prior belief that those others are trustworthy. Scholars also have documented several key dimensions of trustworthiness, including a concern for others' interests, competence, openness, and reliability.

Researchers Aneil K. Mishra and Gretchen M. Spreitzer argue that organizations need the trust of “surviving” employees. Organizations should demonstrate that the survivors can trust that top management is concerned with the interests of all stakeholders, is open and honest with employees, or is competent to lead the organization through the downsizing. Otherwise, survivors are more likely to feel threatened by the downsizing and to respond in destructive ways, according to Mishra and Spreitzer. Without trust, survivors are more likely to either withdraw from the organization or retaliate against management and the downsizing implementation. Conversely, survivors who trust top management prior to downsizing will be likely to exhibit constructive such as hopeful or obliging responses.

a) Theory X	1) Trust relations among peers or equals.
b) Theory Y	2) The belief that the organization, management and other employees are honest, competent, consistent, loyal and open.
c)Empowerment	3) The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self-direction.
d)Trust	4) Reliability, predictability and good judgment in handling situations.
e) Lateral Trust	5) The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility, and must be coerced to perform.
f) Consistency	6) When power and responsibilities are shared with subordinates. The leaders provide vision but trust subordinates with decision-making activities.

Building Trust with Frontline Employees

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