Trust in the Work-From-Everywhere Era

Six-plus years after the start of the COVID pandemic, there’s no “winner” in the work-from-office vs. work-from-home debate. The truth is the debate is here to stay.

Over the course of a week, I’ll chat with companies that either:

• Require their employees to return to the office full-time.
• Have no physical office space.
• Use an awkward hybrid policy.

In going deeper with these companies, conversations usually focus on addressing key issues, including:

• How do we build a healthy culture virtually?
• We have some people who work in an office, and some at home. How do we help everyone grow their career regardless of where they work?
• How do we entice people to work in the office more?

These are questions I solved while running agency account teams and now consult companies on them today. 

The truth is, and I experienced this first-hand in my career: you can be fully in-office and not feel trusted at all, and you can also be fully remote and feel trusted.

New research, “Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work,” found that when leaders drag everyone back to the office, it’s usually not about trust or even productivity; it’s about power.

This research tells us something unofficially we’ve known for decades: your work policy and your trust level are two completely different gauges.

It’s all situational. There are no absolutes. 

That’s why it’s so difficult to make confident, holistic, enterprise-wide decisions on building trust in organizations.

It must come from the people you spend the most time with.

Trust in yourself and in others is the most critical yet often overlooked aspect of well-being. 

Harvard Business Review research found that people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress and 40% less burnout than those at low-trust companies.

The steps to creating trust

What are the first steps to building trust? It’s worth a longer conversation than a column, but let’s start with my three values for building trust at work, which have taken me far in my life. 

These values are important for every person in your company, whether you’re the CEO or an intern, to live and breathe every day. 

• Proactivity. No matter if you work from home or in an office, out of sight is out of mind. As professionals, we’re trusted to do our best work. Yet, at the end of the day, we’re helping companies meet their business objectives. We all play a role in that happening. 

Whether it’s saying, “good morning!” to your team as they pop into Slack, raising your hand to offer to run next week’s meeting, or asking your manager if they’ll work with you and review your career growth plan, put yourself in your best position to be visible.

• Honesty. I remember in my agency days, executives were concerned with sharing company revenue with junior employees. “We’re worried about how they’ll react if we show we aren’t meeting projections.” We are all adults and need to treat them as such. 

Of course, honesty goes both directions. If someone is expecting a press release draft tonight at 5 p.m., and you have three other priorities, it’s best to discuss this with them at 9 a.m., rather than worry, feel stressed, and be unproductive all day because you feel stuck, then message them at 4:57 p.m. saying you haven’t started.

• Overcommunication. Think about how many emails we receive and commercials we watch as consumers that say the same thing — every time. Consistency in communication always wins out. We do this in our work, yet we forget to do that for ourselves. 

Concerned your team is not keeping in mind the business objectives of your company? Remind them during every team meeting. Going on vacation? Don’t just sign off on Friday. Remind your team a week out that you’re going on vacation. You can never communicate enough.

If you and your team live these values every day, I guarantee that your team’s well-being will be stronger, you will be perceived as an amazing leader, and your company will far exceed its wildest expectations in the Work from Everywhere Era.