HR - it’s all about trust

Words can convey a lot more than merely their surface meanings. For example, I’m not the greatest fan of the phrase 'human resources’. It feels a little cold to me, objective and detached from the unique people who are the heart and soul of the company. In its worst connotation, it implies an asset to be used up like any other measurable number on a page. Perhaps it’s a throwback from the Industrial Age, like 'line management’ - how many of us operate factory lines anymore? 'People and Culture’ is, for me, a little easier on the ears. Thankfully, every HR professional that I know in the islands genuinely cares for their people.  

The best HR is keenly orientated towards fostering a high trust and excellent environment, conditions in which people can be at their creative, energetic best. They shouldn’t feel suffocated, dominated or drained but invigorated, stretched and encouraged. This is a responsibility for all leaders; ‘the people’ are not just the domain of the HR specialist. In our experience, leadership teams and organisations that get this right have the following approaches to areas that are usually allocated to HR: 

1. Positive Policies 

A high-trust organisation has a light-touch approach to its policies.   

Consider it like this. If the leadership of a company believes that it needs to prescribe every moment in the working lives of its employees, people will be robbed of autonomy and the ability to think for themselves. If there’s an extensive policy covering every conceivable scenario for breaks, sickness, compassionate leave, what to wear, when to turn the lights off and what’s allowed in the fridge (you get the point), then people will quickly learn not to think for themselves. My favourite and ironic example of this was the 21-page policy that an organisation produced to set out how to write a policy which apparently should 'be a maximum of three pages long’. 

We often discover that such policies were written in the wake of an employee incident, usually many years ago. This one person from a long time ago is still influencing the company which, in an attempt to prevent a repeat incident, is choosing to apply a constraining policy on all its people regardless of their quality and intentions. Can you see how easy it becomes for the leadership, via its policies, to imply that everyone wants to take advantage? In other words, ‘we don’t trust you’. 

A high-trust organisation will have policies but these serve to convey principles, which people are then expected to apply to the various situations that arise. Rather than prescribe and dictate, they provide clarifying guidelines and enable people to make choices. Leaders of such organisations recognise that such policies might leave some modest risks but are well worth it in the pursuit of a culture that propels people to take initiative.  

Do you have HR policies that might have made sense once, long ago but no longer serve a purpose? Are there others that are too tight and constraining? Which policies can you retire and which can you loosen?  

2.  Proper Priority 

In a company that’s intentional about fostering healthy conditions, people and culture are prominent in executive meeting agendas. All executives take a genuine interest and responsibility for the conditions in the company. The people or HR specialist has an equal place in the board meetings. Culture is not viewed as ‘the fluffy stuff’; it’s seen as essential to achieving company aims.  

It was once received wisdom that CEOs could be either people-focused or achieve financial success. I believe that the majority view has, thankfully, shifted to a ‘both-and’ ethos and that the most successful CEOs are excellent with people. However, in our work we still encounter a few leaders who take pride in their hard-hearted approach to people. The result is a poverty of trust, expressed in high staff turnover, internal competition and distracting politics.  

What can you do to elevate people on your senior-level agendas?  

3. Uncompromising Team Building 

Companies that are high in trust refuse to compromise their values simply to fill a role. Recruiting the right people can take extensive effort and time and yet bringing in the wrong people will set us up for future fragility. Working hard to find and attract the right people is only the beginning. Companies with a high trust ethos will challenge unhealthy attitudes and poor behaviour quickly, irrespective of who is displaying these attitudes. They refuse to allow people to persist in behaviour that undermines trust, preferring to exit the most persistent rather than tolerate toxicity.  

A high-trust organisation invests in encouraging and developing people. This is not limited to technical skills but to personal skills and personal support during tough times too. I’m always encouraged when encountering organisations that support their people through personally tough times, it shows a truly human approach to leadership. 

What can you change over the coming month and year that will strengthen trust in your organisation? If you’re not sure, we’re here to help you.