As we already know, trust is a critical part of life, and business, too. Where it is difficult to establish, a lack of trust creates friction between employers and their employees. It does not stop there as it also influences customer relationships.
The adoption of technology is on the rise in all parts of the work environment. With employee confidence, technology only proves how valuable it can be in boosting morale and delivering increased productivity levels to the workplace. The world of work is changing. Increasingly, employees expect to be trusted by – and to trust – their superiors.
These relationships are vital as they ensure effectiveness in the workplace. Utilising HR Software can go a long way in establishing a relationship of trust between HR departments and staff as it provides a simple and effective way to maintain transparent communication with each other so both parties know exactly what is happening and what they’re doing in the business.
While using technology can help establish a level of trust with HR, just what exactly is the current state of trust levels and how has COVID19 had an impact on it?
Building Trust in HR
To understand whether employees trust in their HR teams post COVID, Cezanne HR surveyed 1,000 UK workers in organisations with over 250 staff and found out what sections HR could improve on to ensure greater trust from their employees. We will base our discussion today off of those findings;
Trust Levels Post COVID
Looking back at the past months, many businesses have had to make life-changing decisions, which could have been easy for them to lose trust in their employees owing to the instability that came with the pandemic. While this is a possibility, Cezanne HR’s survey reported that this was not the case.
According to the report, 32.1% of the employees who took part in the survey said they trust their HR staff more now than before COVID-19, 54.1% have the same level of trust, and only 13.8% have less faith now than they did pre-COVID.
Because of the outbreak, organisations have had to change how they work, and now that they have returned to the office, HR teams will need to actively interact with their employees and keep them up to date with the new demands of the workplace.
Human Resources Management Software Aids Transparency
Transparency improves trust, and programmers build HR Softwares to establish openness. From the survey, we saw that just 34% of employees trust their HR team to inform them about internal promotional opportunities, 33% trust their HR teams to contain and resolve conflicts between staff. In comparison, only 32% trust them to put favouritism aside and pay more attention to fairness.
As an employer, see that your HR team is transparent, as this is one of the major ways you can get employees to trust their activities. We can achieve this by letting employees know the company’s state, the current challenges it is up against, milestones hit and missed, etc.; this way, staff members can be more creative and work as a team towards achieving more yields.
This also means that the HR team understands employees and could tell where they could be going wrong as staff may now be able to share their distresses willingly.
Sensitive Data Needs to be Protected
We have all seen in the past how data breaches lead to exposure of employee personal information, and such actions will always hurt the trust your employees have in the HR team. It will push them to look elsewhere, considering that the management finds it difficult to protect their data.
With HR Software having highly secure data protection protocols, security will not only bolster employees’ trust but also their productivity can be enhanced as well. According to the research, 31% of staff are either unsure or do not trust the HR team to respect and protect their personal information.
Cybersecurity is a telling point in gaining employee trust as reports of cybercrimes are all over the news, and you will need your staff to be sure that you care about their data and it is safe.
Fairness
50% of staff trust their HR to act impartially. 12% believe HR favours junior staff more, while 43% think HR tends to senior staff more – these were the responses received when staff members were asked who they believe HR prefers more.
Favouritism could easily be eating deep into your firm and the disparity realised from Cezanne HR’s survey poses a huge bias problem in support of senior staff. Junior staff could feel left out and have contempt for senior employees as they could feel their seniors are only reaping off the collective results of everyone’s hard work. However, this is all dependent on the modus operandi of an organisation’s HR team.
A sense of unfair treatment or injustice will dampen your employees’ mood, which will harm the workplace reputation, dwindling motivation, and above all, eliminate whatever trust they had for the HR team – this will ultimately be evident in the way they go about their duties.
Though it is a continuous process, HR can settle the disparities in fairness and see that all staff get deserving treatment, irrespective of their positions. The goal is to win employees’ trust and ensure that they can confide in their superiors instead of hoarding their concerns.
It does not just end at making the popular decision or doing what everyone thinks is right; workplace trust means the Human Resource team should be knowledgeable enough to provide winning solutions.
Seeing that some staff members feel it is a longshot or an impossible one to receive assistance from the HR team is not a very convincing statistic. As a business owner, you need to put strategies in place, systems that knock off distrust and ensure that assistance is available and provided to staff of every level.
