Contemplations on Trust
What does it mean to trust your employee? Trust is a two-way road, but somewhere along the way, roadblocks prevent the smooth sailing of remote or work-from-home flexibility for both employee and employer.
8 July 2022
I recently returned from a month-long break, where I spent time with family and friends, and caught up with former colleagues and editors from when I was a desk journalist.
This break, obviously, is the culprit to the long absence on this website, and the lack of updates, but remote work is inherently isolating, and the opportunity to switch off and focus entirely on human connection was too good to pass up.
But I digress.
On my trip back home, I caught up with an editor I had not seen in a fair few years. He and I had always had a great working relationship, and eventually it became a friendship, which we kept up long after we stopped being colleagues.
He had recently joined a well-established newsportal and was lamenting that he struggled to find and retain good writers. Furthermore, he said that the writers he had on his team were asking to work from home, or remotely. He frowned as he said this, and insisted that it could not be done.
I was surprised, to say the least. When we worked together, he never questioned my whereabouts, only the whereabouts of my story. If the story landed in his inbox on time and I was available to take calls for edits or clarifications, it didn’t matter if I were in a pub or cafe.
Of course, I made it to the office whenever there were meetings or a particularly tricky story that needed more attention, but most of the time, I was free to set my own schedule, arrange my own interviews, and had a lot of autonomy as to how I wanted to work, and what worked best for me.
I suggested perhaps that it would help his writers be more productive and happier if he allowed them the flexibility, but he shook his head and said that he didn’t trust them.
Again, I was surprised, and said as much; I reminded him that when we were a team, I had a lot of flexibility and autonomy. Maybe he could give his current team some leeway? He merely looked sceptical.
I thought it best then not to pursue the subject. There is a time for shop talk, and then there is time to catch up as friends; this was the latter.
But it got me thinking, and on the long flight home to sunny Ireland I asked myself:
What does it mean to trust?
Lessons from the ‘Great Resignation’
By now, we’ve all heard and read about the Great Resignation, a term coined by Professor Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University, which predicts that a large number of people will leave their jobs after the pandemic and as life returns to “normal”, employees are now re-evaluating their careers and priorities.
But it’s not as simple as people having a change of heart. COVID-19 has left none of us unscathed or impacted in some way that made us rethink what we want from work and our lives. For so many of us, working from home or remotely has led us to realise that work can be better, different-- we can break free from the 9-to-5 cubicle life, and we can be better off for it.
Research has proven it: 57% of individuals who left their jobs left because they felt disrespected at work. This new Pew Research Center survey found that low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected at work are the top reasons why Americans quit their jobs last year.
The survey also found that those who quit and are now employed elsewhere are more likely to say that their current job has better pay, more opportunities for advancement and more work-life balance and flexibility.
Feeling empowered, respected and trusted at work is an intangible concept, yet it has very real, very tangible impact on bottomlines and on talent acquisition.
In 2020, Growmotely conducted a study asking working professionals and entrepreneurs to share their thoughts on working from home. The results were overwhelming: 97% of employees don’t want to return to the office full-time, preferring some degree of flexibility between working remotely and working in an office.
What does it mean to trust?
It would seem, then, that we’re coming to a sort of impasse. Employers want their staff to come back to the office, but employees are moving on because they’re being forced to return to office.
Employees want to feel trusted and empowered, but employers want to be given a reason to trust and empower employees.
Neither side wants to be the first to offer the olive branch, as it were, so where does it leave us?
It boils down to recognising that trust is a two-way street that requires active participation on both sides. There will be roadblocks, but the only way to get past it is to work together.
Employers who can, should, offer the choice to employees for flexible work, and make the effort to ensure that it is as seamless, easy and empowering as possible. Employees should then be consistent and diligent about meeting deadlines, achieving deliverables and setting clear boundaries and expectations.
Neither side should make ultimatums; the days of the autocratic employer are well and truly over. Trust has to work both ways, and empathy and open collaboration are the keys to unlock the kind of work environment that we all ideally want to see.
