AlbiCoins – Empower Team Performance
What are the basic things to build what are the fundamentals of building a cohesive and inspired team? From transparent communication to trust.
Learn about the critical importance of peer-to-peer communication in the workplace from Albi Research Team article. Coherence could not be achieved without trust in a team. Trust cannot be built without transparent communication.
The fundamental issue here is transparency and clear rules. Every company decision could be clearly explained and accepted by the team. But how do we make it look fair? Because we know that our employees have different individual agendas and career goals. In the idea or the core values of our company we can find an answer. We go forward to make the idea of company values clear with AlbiCoins SaaS. And bring core values into daily work. We use a company core value as the basis for our recognition programs and team project competitions.
In our previous blog, we discussed the basis of trust and one of the ways to achieve it, i.e. to promote transparent communication in the workplace. Building it can be challenging, especially in a corporate environment. What are other strategies that could help establish trust among employees? We provide an overview of existing practices for you.
So it is not to be expected that scientific and technological development of civilization will bring events under control, substituting mastery over things for trust as a social mechanism and thus making it unnecessary. Instead, one should expect trust to be increasingly in demand as a means of enduring the complexity of the future, which technology will generate.
Niklas Luhmann1
What can be done to promote trust among coworkers?
Cooperation boosts when employees have an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas and are respected. Managers play a critical role in building and maintaining trust within workers. We discuss strategies for how company managers can maintain a culture of trust.
1Luhmann, N., 1979. Defining the problem: Social complexity. Trust and Power, pp.5-11.
Get to know your employees and develop transparent communication
The genius things are often rather simple: when managers are interested in workers, workers become more open and supportive of the company’s corporate ideas and goals. This includes both interest in employees’ concerns and challenges, and the existence of channels for honest and open communication. Employees should not be afraid to ask questions, should be able to talk face-to-face, and should be able to get feedback from their manager. Studies show that face-to-face open communication is perceived as more individualized and increases the level of trust between individuals2. As a result, members of a team with a personalized understanding of each other’s life circumstances are more likely to trust their coworkers, coordinate effectively, and engage in communication3.
Inspire rather than command
Workers can distinguish between a mandative tone and an inspirational speech. They shouldn’t feel pressured to complete another task. Instead, managers can motivate them to fulfill their duties. Studies show that leadership inspiration has a positive impact on the team’s problem-solving ability and the performance of the workers4. Motivated employees are likely to be highly productive through commitment and dedication5. When individuals are empowered to achieve success and feel trusted, they tend to put more effort into work. A manager can demonstrate trust in employees by delegating tasks while maintaining a clear and understandable performance appraisal system. AlbiCoins a turnkey SaaS to help you set up an effective motivation, reward, and feedback systems by improving p2p communication.
Keep the arrangements and be consistent
Activities of managers that are consistent and transparent can increase the trust of employees6. Therefore, efficiency of performance and feedback system is crucial in this case.
2Damen, D., van der Wijst, P., van Amelsvoort, M. and Krahmer, E., 2020. The effect of perspective-taking on trust and understanding in online and face-to-face mediations. Group Decision and Negotiation, 29, pp.1121-1156.
3Maynard, M.T., Mathieu, J.E., Gilson, L.L., R. Sanchez, D. and Dean, M.D., 2019. Do I really know you and does it matter? Unpacking the relationship between familiarity and information elaboration in global virtual teams. Group & Organization Management, 44(1), pp.3-37.; Espinosa, J.A., Slaughter, S.A., Kraut, R.E. and Herbsleb, J.D., 2007. Familiarity, complexity, and team performance in geographically distributed software development. Organization science, 18(4), pp.613-630.
4Al Dari, T., Jabeen, F. and Papastathopoulos, A., 2018. Examining the role of leadership inspiration, rewards and its relationship with contribution to knowledge sharing: Evidence from the UAE. Journal of Workplace Learning, 30(6), pp.488-512.
5Vo, T.T.D., Tuliao, K.V. and Chen, C.W., 2022. Work motivation: The roles of individual needs and social conditions. Behavioral Sciences, 12(2), p.49.
6Weibel, A., Den Hartog, D.N., Gillespie, N., Searle, R., Six, F. and Skinner, D., 2016. How do controls impact employee trust in the employer?. Human Resource Management, 55(3), pp.437-462; Wang, D.S. and Hsieh
Employees should be able to see that the company has well-established rules that protect against personal favoritism along with efficient supervising and rewarding mechanisms. This provides equal opportunities for professional development of employees and, in turn, increases trust in a corporative environment.
Support you team
Personal relationships within the team are rather important. This relationship closely links with the daily interaction between manager and employees that involves task performance and goal achievement7. Employees need to feel that they are supported and can contact their manager for advice in case of difficulties and challenges. Moreover, if something goes wrong, a good manager doesn’t blame the team for everything, and also doesn’t take credit for success either.
Martínez-Tur, V., Molina, A., Moliner, C., Gracia, E., Andreu, L., Bigne, E. and Luque, O., 2020. Reciprocity of trust between managers and team members. Personnel review, 49(2), pp.653-669.
Therefore, it is critical to take action to strengthen team relationships and demonstrate support. One way to do that is by team-building activities that help to improve communication and to engage together in a semi-formal environment. As a result, workers are more likely to maintain a trusting relationship in the workplace. However, it is equally important to make sure everyone in the team knows what they’re supposed to do, understands their task, and wants to achieve team goals. This can be done through simplifying motivation and employee engagement system. AlbiCoins offers an integrated independent module dedicated to team project contest (ссылка на модуль). After implementing our solution, the team experiences an increase in transparency between coworkers and a feeling of belonging, leading to trust between colleagues.
References:
- Luhmann, N., 1979. Defining the problem: Social complexity. Trust and Power, pp.5-11.
- Damen, D., van der Wijst, P., van Amelsvoort, M. and Krahmer, E., 2020. The effect of perspective-taking on trust and understanding in online and face-to-face mediations. Group Decision and Negotiation, 29, pp.1121-1156
- Maynard, M.T., Mathieu, J.E., Gilson, L.L., R. Sanchez, D. and Dean, M.D., 2019. Do I really know you and does it matter? Unpacking the relationship between familiarity and information elaboration in global virtual teams. Group & Organization Management, 44(1), pp.3-37.;” rel=”noopener”>
- Espinosa, J.A., Slaughter, S.A., Kraut, R.E. and Herbsleb, J.D., 2007. Familiarity, complexity, and team performance in geographically distributed software development. Organization science, 18(4), pp.613-630.
- Al Dari, T., Jabeen, F. and Papastathopoulos, A., 2018. Examining the role of leadership inspiration, rewards and its relationship with contribution to knowledge sharing: Evidence from the UAE. Journal of Workplace Learning, 30(6), pp.488-512.
- Vo, T.T.D., Tuliao, K.V. and Chen, C.W., 2022. Work motivation: The roles of individual needs and social conditions. Behavioral Sciences, 12(2), p.49.
- Weibel, A., Den Hartog, D.N., Gillespie, N., Searle, R., Six, F. and Skinner, D., 2016. How do controls impact employee trust in the employer?. Human Resource Management, 55(3), pp.437-462;
- Wang, D.S. and Hsieh, C.C., 2013. The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust and employee engagement. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 41(4), pp.613-624.
- Martínez-Tur, V., Molina, A., Moliner, C., Gracia, E., Andreu, L., Bigne, E. and Luque, O., 2020. Reciprocity of trust between managers and team members. Personnel review, 49(2), pp.653-669.
