At a glance
By Emma Foster
Anyone who has ever had a workplace relationship where trust has broken down will understand the detrimental toll it can take on work, productivity and motivation.
However, as with personal relationships, experts say trust at work can repaired, although the type of trust lost will often determine the difficulty of the process.
Competence-based trust
“Broadly, there are two main types of trust open to violation in workplaces,” says Dr Mara Olekalns, professor of management (negotiations) at Melbourne Business School.
“One relates to a person’s competence and ability. It is the kind of trust that is straightforward to establish, easy to break and pretty easy to mend,” she says.
For instance, if a colleague or employee fails to complete a task on time, one slip-up can be forgiven easily, but if it happens again, trust in their ability to deliver may begin to evaporate.
Integrity-based trust
“The other is more intuitive or emotions-based,” Olekalns explains. “It is trust from the heart, rather than the head, where you will assess the other person’s intentions.
“You’ll be weighing up, ‘Do you have integrity? Are you benevolent? Do we share the same goals and values? Are your actions and your words consistent with those values?’”
One possible scenario is where one employee has worked hard to deliver a big piece of work, but they overhear a colleague or manager take credit for it.
"If I believe you have good intentions and shared values and you do something that does not stack up, it leads me to question the fundamental roots of our relationship."
Another is if a company’s senior leaders say they care about gender diversity yet the company practices do not support that claim.
This type of integrity-based trust is the more difficult to establish and to repair, Olekalns says.
“If I believe you have good intentions and shared values and you do something that does not stack up, it leads me to question the fundamental roots of our relationship,” she explains.
Here are six steps for repairing broken trust in the workplace.
1. Identify when trust has been broken
It can often be immediately apparent when trust has been broken, especially when it relates to competence.
However, it can be harder to tell when integrity-based trust has been violated, says Dr Steve Lockey of the University of Queensland’s School of Business.
The clues will be in the flow of communication with colleagues, says Lockey, whose postdoctoral research focuses on the development, repair and measurement of trust in an organisational context.
"Acknowledging what happened and demonstrating remorse are both vital for people to be able to make sense of what has happened and for trust to be rebuilt in the longer term."
“If you notice changes in behaviour – if people are not communicating as much as they normally do, aren’t sharing as much, or their performance isn’t what it was – that could be indicative of a trust issue that hasn’t come to light.”
Broken trust can also be uncovered in the results of employee satisfaction surveys, or in noticeable lifts in staff turnover, or presenteeism – also known as “quiet quitting”, where employees turn up but do the bare minimum.
2. Acknowledge what happened and apologise
While repairing integrity-based trust violations takes commitment, action, time and reciprocity, if done well, the transgressor can often learn and adapt from the experience, says Dr Lockey.
The first step is to recognise the issue and apologise.
“Acknowledging what happened and demonstrating remorse are both vital for people to be able to make sense of what has happened and for trust to be rebuilt in the longer term,” he says.
The timing of the apology is also critical, Olekalns adds. “In the immediate aftermath is not the best time, because it will seem insincere or like you haven’t had time to reflect on the consequences,” she says.
“On the other hand, do not leave it too long because emotions will simmer.”
3. Show that the mistake was not intentional
Olekalns says offering an explanation can also help. The concept of a “behavioural bank account” – often used by marriage counsellors – can also be equally useful in work relationships, she adds.
“One of the ways people successfully repair personal relationships is to refer back to the good times or when other problems have been overcome,” she says.
“It can help to build an understanding that a transgression was not intentional or was an exception to the rule.”
4. Follow through on making changes
Making a commitment to change is vital to reparation, but more important is to put that into action, Lockey adds.
“More often than should happen, we do not see organisations following through with substantive action and that is where trust issues can linger. Trustworthiness needs to be demonstrated,” he says.
Lockey and Olekalns agree that issues should be nipped in the bud before trust evaporates, because there will always be “red flags”.
5. Create a safe space
Creating a psychological safe space can also help.
“By being attentive and fostering a culture in which concerns are heard openly and addressed, rather than where people are scared to speak up, will go a long way to preventing problems from escalating,” Lockey says.
6. Make sure you’re on the same page
While colleagues will typically assume they are on the same page, it is often the case that they are not, Olekalns says, but early preventative intervention can help.
“When we’re working with someone on a project or in a team, sometimes trust violations can be avoided just by having a conversation upfront, about what the project means to each of us, what each of us will bring to it and by when,” she says.
“That simple step can go a long way to stopping trust breaches before they arise.”
