More people are having to work in a virtual or hybrid workplace. As we adopt new ways of working, we also need to identify how best to optimise these new approaches. One of the critical emotions we need foster in the virtual and hybrid workplace is trust. Trust matters more in the virtual team environment than compared with face-to-face teams when it comes to effective teamwork (Breuer, Hüffmeier, Hertel, 2016). Less face-to-face contact means leaders and employees have less opportunity to engage in trust-promoting behaviours. We can’t observe people’s behaviours, see individuals do extra work or engage in incidental conversations that build both rapport and interpersonal trust.

In workplaces where there is high trust, leaders and employees may have strong beliefs that each will make commitments and act upon their intentions. In workplaces where there is low trust, leaders and employees may face questions like;

·       “How do I trust employees who are working from home are actually working?”

·       “Can I share feedback about a mistake to a colleague?” or

·       “Can we openly discuss conflicts?”

There may be feelings of uncertainty and people may perceive risks including increases in conflict, stress and even hostility among team members. Having less information, less data and less reinforcing information will ultimately impact how trust is established and maintained.

Successful virtual working therefore requires employees to learn to trust each other through understanding how people communicate, collaborate (i.e. involve each other like they’re in the workplace) and make decisions. This includes sharing openly with the team in an easy and predictable way. In a virtual or hybrid team it is important that leaders model good virtual teamworking behaviours, set clear expectations and that everyone shows accountability, authenticity and integrity for team success.

 

What you can do to foster trust

“Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” - Patrick Lencioni

Leaders and employees are going to have to be smart about how they approach building trust with virtual and hybrid teams. Take these key actions to foster trust:

1.       Communicate, communicate and communicate

We can lose cues when communicating virtually, such as body language when using the phone/phone-conferencing (and even when video-conferencing). In doing so misinterpretations and miscommunications about message intent can occur. When this happens there is the potential to erode trust. When in a virtual or hybrid team, provide and use multiple methods of communicating from asynchronous (i.e. email to Slack) to synchronous communication (face-to-face meetings). In person meetings are the best for building trust, so try and schedule frequent meetings with each other and as a team, trying not to let face-to-face meetings fade out into the distance (go frequently!). When using communication tools, be clear, transparent and unambiguous.

2.       Involve employees like they’re in the workplace

Trust can be built by creating more interaction opportunities for individuals and team members to share experiences and foster a sense of belonging. The more we see someone the more we tend to understand them, their behaviours and the more subtle changes. This is harder the more we remain socially distanced. Create opportunities for people to be involved in the workplace. In the hybrid workspace it’s often going to be a case of ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind’, so those in the office need to actively pull those working virtually into their work. Avoid an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ situation with those working in the office and those working virtually.

As an example of involving employees is when in the office important conversations (or side conversations) are likely to occur ad hoc and change team priorities and objectives. For those working virtually, it is easy for them to become unaware of such changes. This can quickly create imbalances in relationships between those working in the office and those working virtually, causing issues of mistrust. Communication channels need to be set up so as to catch these types of conversations. While employees need to be both aware and to capture these conversations. You can use video-conferencing software so virtual and in-office employees remain connected throughout the day.

3.       Share openly

Openness is the backbone of a trusting relationship. When you share about yourself, others get to know you more and they may share about themselves. In doing this you will start the loop of trust and, in continuing, you will deepen the trust relationship. In sharing openly you can also balance and leverage reciprocal trust, listening to hear what others are sharing and that moment for sharing back.

Remember you get to set limits on how much you divulge. In recent times there has been further blurring of the ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ boundaries, and an increase in being more vulnerable. This has happened as employees discuss topics like childcare, family situations and health-risk comfort levels to make decisions around the structuring and scheduling of their hybrid work (Edmondson & Mortensen, 2021). Share as you feel comfortable, but bearing in mind, the more you do share, the greater the likelihood of developing trust in that relationship.

4.       Be easy to read and predictable

Increasing others’ trust in you reduces uncertainty and can increase trustworthiness, thereby increasing perceived trust both within you and your stakeholders as a whole. We preference certainty and predictability; those that we can read and understand over those that we can’t read and understand. For example, if someone is quiet in a meeting or turns off their zoom camera, our perceived trust may alter as we may not be able to interpret or understand their motives and we may draw incorrect conclusions. Tell people why you are quiet or have turned your camera off. Explain your body language, for example let people know your head nodding for agreement or nodding for understanding.

5.       Model behaviours

Trust is also a behaviour that you need to call upon in a moment. It is in the background, proven by past experience and something that people have reinforced through observation of the modelling of behaviours. Set clear guidelines and expectations around what a trusting environment looks like. For example, how do you:

·       Actively and safely encourage the critiquing of ideas?

·       Get transparent advice?

·       Disclose and acknowledge mistakes? and,

·       Can people both ‘walk the talk’ and ‘talk the walk’ of trust?

It will be particularly important that office and virtual teams do not set different trust related norms. For example, trust is strongly guided by group membership and it will be easier to preference working with people in our present vicinity, so it is particularly important to promote interaction between both groups and actively call out behaviours such as favouritism and bias.

6.       Set clear expectations

Set clear goals and expectations around work roles and responsibilities with deadlines included. The focus should be on employee output rather than the number of hours and virtual environment of an employee. Monitoring of people, such as through key-strokes and webcams, tends to limit employee productivity and performance while also eroding trust. If you have a ‘high performing virtual team’ that is operating at a level of efficiency with alignment and autonomy it shouldn’t need close monitoring. Hybrid work should be designed so as to empower an employee to manage better their time and productivity.

7.       Accountability, authenticity and integrity

Assume that you start with trust and there are both good intentions and goodwill. In virtual and hybrid teams, it is essential that both leaders and employees are trusted to get their work done while delivering on the same strategic direction and responsibilities. 

If someone fails, they need to be held accountable. If someone erodes or breaks your trust, you may need to make a different choice about what type of relationship you have with this person. You may choose to end the relationship or disinvest in it (as you may not have a choice to end it when in a team). Strengthen connections and trust in admitting mistakes, showing authentic emotions and not aiming for perfection. Demonstrate integrity by being respectfully honest.

8.       Get together!

Knowing that face-to-face contact is one of the best ways to build trust, teams will need to plan when they can get together. Interactions that are task-focused or social in nature, are opportunities to build on trust as they encourage conversation and collaboration. This option should be used frequently where possible.

Some final thoughts

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair” – Dhar Mann

 

 

Trust me, we have more tips…

Breuer, C., Hüffmeier, J., & Hertel, G., (2016). Does trust matter more in virtual teams? A meta-analysis of trust and team effectiveness considering virtuality and documentation moderators. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(8), 1151-1177.

Edmondson, A.C. & Mortensen, M. (2021, April 19). What psychological safety looks like in a hybrid workplace. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2021/04/what-psychological-safety-looks-like-in-a-hybrid-workplace

Zhang, M. J., & Chen, H. (2018). To ask or not to ask: The roles of interpersonal trust in knowledge seeking. International Journal of Knowledge Management (IJKM), 14(1), 71-86.