Building Trust is Key to the Success of Your Remote Team

Perhaps nothing affects your remote team’s success as much as trust.

The most potent factor contributing to stress among employees is a lack of trust toward management. According to one study, employees at low-trust companies experienced more stress and burnout, were less productive, and were more likely to be disengaged. Research shows that stress and burnout make employees 2.5 times more likely to quit their jobs.

Building a workplace on a strong foundation of trust will make your company perform better in all areas. Two-thirds of the criteria upon which Fortune compiles its “100 Best Companies to Work For” is based on trust. Companies featured on this list that use trust to become an outstanding workplace experience greater productivity and better financial performance.

Your remote work policy should reflect the significant role trust plays in your company’s success. The remote work policies you implement should bolster your employees’ confidence and faith in your organization.

For workplace purposes, Harvard Business Review identifies three main components of trust. These three “trust traits” are leadership qualities that together influence the level of trust employees feel toward their leaders. These trust traits are consistency, leadership, and positive relationships. Build trust by demonstrating these qualities during interactions with your remote team.

Build Trust During One-On-One Meetings

One-on-one meetings with individual team members are your chance to guide employees toward greater success. You can also use these meetings to learn about conflicts or issues that threaten to derail the entire team. But these one-on-one meetings will never be as productive as possible if your team members don’t trust you.

Consistent leaders will maintain the same standards of performance for each team member during each meeting. An employee will lose trust if you reprimand her for being unresponsive to emails if another employee is a far worse offender. Likewise, don’t chide an employee for starting work mid-morning if you’ve overlooked the habit for a year. A clear set of rules applied equally across your remote team is the best way to promote consistency.

One-on-one meetings are excellent tools for uncovering friction among team members. Employees experience more difficulty resolving conflict when they work remotely. Without the benefit of body language and proximity, misunderstandings quickly arise. Conflict will simmer indefinitely without the forced interaction of being in the office.

Following up on employee issues will reinforce a sense of strong leadership. You can further cultivate trust in your leadership if you’re tactful and diplomatic in your approach to conflict. Whether an employee’s issue is with management or coworkers, he should be able to trust that you’ll help him correct the problem without further damaging relationships.

Fostering a positive relationship is the most important trust trait, according to researchers. For this reason, you should work to build a strong relationship with each employee. Use one-on-one meetings to get to know more about your team members. Ask them how their life is going outside of work. Keep a notepad with family members’ names or important information if you have trouble remembering details. Reciprocate with your own personal details, as appropriate. Recognize that your employees have a full life outside of work. Part of your job as a leader is to support them as they find ways to balance that life with work.

Build Trust During Team Meetings

Leaders leverage team meetings to get team members in sync and further the team’s goal. Team meetings are important for remote employees, too, who are working in isolation. The trust traits can help managers and workers get the most out of group meetings.

Use a consistent set of guidelines for scheduling and conducting a meeting. Schedule a work-related meeting only if it’s necessary. Then create an agenda with a clearly stated purpose for the meeting. Send the agenda to the meeting participants before the start of the meeting.

Keep the meeting focused and within its stated time frame. Strong leaders know how to keep all of the participants focused on the agenda items. Start the meeting on time and don’t let it run late.

For work-related team meetings, you can create a window before the meeting’s start time to allow participants to log in early for some social interaction. Make this “water cooler” moment a consistent feature of team meetings and be on hand to facilitate conversations.

Use team meetings for more than work-related topics. Remember that fostering relationships is the most important feature of trust, including trust across team members. Get creative with ideas for team meetings that have nothing to do with work.

You can host a lunch hour zoom call. Encourage participation by giving a lunch stipend to those who attend. Or you can create a Friday afternoon “happy hour.” Encourage a culture of learning with a book group or invite experts to speak on topics such as wellness or work-life balance.  

Encourage Good Remote Work Practices

Fostering good relationships goes beyond chit-chat. Conversations with your employees are important. But you can show them you care and inspire their trust by encouraging good remote practices.

One study showed that four out of five remote employees have trouble shutting off work in the evenings. Another study found that the demands of working from home can actually increase stress levels and negate the otherwise positive effects of working remotely. As a manager, you’re in a leading position to encourage these good remote work habits.

• Give your employees the ability to block out portions of their workday to complete tasks without interruption.
• Create competitions to encourage exercise. Activity trackers make it easy for groups to compete for anything from most steps walked to the most minutes of aerobic exercise.
• Encourage employees to use their vacation time. Task managers with following up with those who aren’t taking time off. Give them the support they need so they can leave their work for a few days without falling behind.
• Set a time in the evening after which you don’t require employees to respond to emails and messages.
• Provide a stipend for ergonomic office furniture.
• Create a training module that empowers employees to adopt other good work from home habits. Employees can learn how to implement good habits such as creating a schedule, getting out of the house, and recognizing the signs of burnout.
• Be on the lookout for signs of burnout in employees, then respond with empathy and support. Suddenly missing deadlines or being unresponsive could actually be a sign an employee is struggling with stress.

Set Your Team Up for Success

Trust is essential to your remote team’s success. Without it, stressed employees are 2.5 times more likely to quit their jobs. But a company that earns a high level of trust from its employees will outearn its competitors. Employees who trust their leaders are more engaged and more productive.

Research has shown that business leaders with three key traits inspire the most trust from their workforce. These “trust traits” are consistency, leadership, and positive relationships. Your remote work policy should reflect these three traits. You can earn your remote team’s trust when you demonstrate the trust traits during key interactions with your team.

Leaders who have taken the time to build trust will be able to lead effective one-on-one and team meetings. And leaders who have cultivated the most important trust trait, positive relationships, can help their employees diffuse conflict and avoid burnout. In the next chapter, we’ll examine the other ways good leaders can make their remote teams successful.