A matter of trust
Employment is a relationship. The employee and the employer are in a trusted relationship. The employer trusts the employee to do their jobs as required, and we trust the employer to compensate us and furnish a safe and legal work environment. To treat us fairly and humanely. There are always many elements to this relationship, many agreements, some clearly articulated and some assumed. But at its most fundamental level, employment is a relationship.
Depending on whether we work in a small business or a large one, and anything in between, we could have many employer/employee relationships. As an employee, we have a cultural relationship with the corporation. We have relationships with our direct managers, their managers, our co-workers, customers, stakeholders. It’s infinite really. Even families not directly employed are often involved.
Relationships cannot be healthy without trust. Many other factors play a part, but I firmly believe that any relationship that exists without trust is doomed to fail. It becomes toxic, dysfunctional, unhealthy. All good relationships are built on trust.
Employers need to create workplaces that encourage honesty, integrity, and personal loyalty. Communication needs to be open. Professional standards need to be important and personal boundaries respected, but all workplaces should be environments where trust is valued. A corporation and its leaders must have ethics and values. Not just a set of business beliefs and a corporate mission statement that is published and discussed periodically, but a real value system that is vital to the corporate culture. The organizations’ mission and vision have to be alive. Leaders need to lead, to walk the talk.
If we stop thinking about our work as “work”, and start thinking about it as a relationship, ideally a symbiotic one where there is a “win-win”, the natural most essential value must be mutual trust.
