Building Trust in Organizations through Training

Trust is defined as “belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, and effective.” I was recently asked to give a presentation on strategies for building trust in an organization, and to speak about this in the context of training as a tool for building that trust. I had never before thought about this concept, but as I started developing the content, it became clear that training could be a tool to begin the process of trust building.

To me, the most effective way to build trust with someone in your organization is to approach them as a person, not just an employee. Get to know them, find out their interests, goals, talents, natural abilities, and yes, even their challenges. Validate and show respect for these findings even though they may be different from your own. Dig deeper to determine how their personal interests and issues relate to the vision, mission, and goals of the organization. What strengths do the team members have that will align with the vision, mission, and goals? How can those strengths be developed and leveraged? How do we identify and compensate for weaknesses?

The last two questions become the goal of training. If employees feel that training focused on these two questions along with other programs provided by the organization such as their Employee Assistance Program, they can begin to think “wellness” and that the organization sees them as a whole person and not just a cog in a machine. As a result, they will become reliable, good, honest, and effective employees because they trust the organization.

(Article submitted by Paulette Hartman, Assistant City Manager, North Richland Hills. If you have interesting news or helpful topics to share, please submit them to Kim Pendergraft at [email protected]. Please keep the information to fewer than 250 words.)