Building trust is said to be easier formed in office environments than in remote environments where people kind of automatically meet randomly and discuss anything non-work-related. I wonder is this really true? If we are working in the same company with common goals and challenges, discussing, doing teamwork, succeeding and failing, trust will happen through those encounters and collaboration moments. I don’t think that’s even so different as opposed to f2f working. I believe in positive thinking and that everything is possible.
If we have shared and transparent values and culture, and we do our work well, trust will develop with time. Attitude is an important factor in this area too. Believe that trust can be reached, and it will. Work to achieve it. Managers and leaders have a lot of responsibility to make it happen. Like many other remote work aspects, this will need intentionality and commitment to work for it.
Diving deeper into my remote work thesis, a few practical ways to build trust in remote teams according to some research papers are
🤩 Providing reliable and effective technological resources and tools
🤩 HR functions: well-functioning employee/team onboarding and training
🤩 Effective team composition and building
🤩 Functional and effective team support
🤩 Communication to make every team member feel engaged
🤩 Making sure team members are aware of informal news and the events happening in the organization
🤩 Taking care of the conflicts and resolving them
🤩 Recognizing the accomplishments and achievements
🤩 Providing access to the required information
🤩 Defining the mission of the team’s projects and how they are connected to the mission of the organization
🤩 Defining the goals that should be achieved
🤩 Allocating responsibilities to each member of the team
🤩 Taking care of the personal needs of the team members
🤩 Conflict resolution
🤩 Rewarding the employees
🤩 Providing special training to ensure that employees are familiar with communication technology
🤩 Coping effectively with different time zones and cultural backgrounds of the team members
🤩 Recognizing an early stage of a conflict or a feeling of isolation of a team member
🤩 Organizing weekly meetings with each team member to provide feedback
🤩 Demonstrating great collaboration skills by leaders/managers
🤩 Ensuring that every member takes part in the organization’s life to avoid feelings of lack of belonging to a group
🤩 Providing trust-building team activities
🤩 Regular communication between team members
🤩 Creating a positive environment and organizational culture
Check also my other post about Trust in virtual teams/remote working. And materials about this topic.
