Why HR Professionals Are Ideally Positioned to Build Trust

Ed. note: Posts published on From the Workplace are written by outside contributors and do not reflect the view or opinion of SHRM. This post was originally published in 2022.

Building trust within an organization significantly benefits employees, culture, and overall performance, as these elements are closely interconnected.

Unfortunately, fostering trust is not an easy task for two reasons. First, trust is relative. While some behaviors, such as honesty, are universally valued, others are not. The same action that fosters trust in one person might lead to distrust in another. Second, recognizing which behavior to change is insufficient; old habits are difficult to break, requiring the formation of new ones.

The process of enhancing your trustworthiness involves these steps:

• Identify a crucial relationship where another employee (such as a co-worker, supervisor, or subordinate) depends on you. If they don’t trust you, they won’t rely on you.
• Determine the specific behavior that prevents you from being trusted by that person. Trust is relative, and behavior acceptable in one relationship might cause distrust in another. Focusing on negative behavior is essential, as people react more strongly to negative behavior than they do positively to good behavior, a fact supported by research.
• Develop a S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) plan to form new habits and change old behaviors. This plan should account for the habit-forming process.
• Execute the plan until the new habit becomes automatic, no longer requiring conscious effort.

Does this sound easy? It’s not. There are many potential pitfalls. You might misidentify a critical relationship or underestimate the dependency of the other person. You could focus on the wrong behavior, expending effort on an issue that doesn’t truly hinder trust, while neglecting the behavior that does. Your plan might be too easy, too challenging, insufficiently impactful, or prone to abandonment before new habits form. Even when correctly executed, research suggests a mere 50% probability of success.

Who is better suited to build trust in an organization than HR professionals?

• They are trained and experienced in human behavior within organizational settings, making trust-building a natural fit within their responsibilities. This expertise increases the likelihood of identifying the correct behavior and developing an effective plan for change.
• As internal members of the company, they are intimately familiar with personnel, internal dynamics, and corporate culture and goals.
• Having worked closely with employees, they are generally more trusted by these employees than an external consultant would be.
• They are already part of the company’s payroll.

HR professionals, therefore, are ideally equipped to lead initiatives that build trust, leveraging their unique position and expertise to foster a more cohesive and reliable organizational environment.

Yoram Solomon, Ph.D., is the author of The Book of Trust, host of The Trust Show podcast, founder of the Innovation Culture Institute LLC, and facilitator of the Trust Habits workshop.