Developing and maintaining trust at work Essay

Developing and maintaining trust at work is essential for structure and balance within the working environment and for a business to be successful in its chosen fields. Trust is built on the following, respect, honesty, integrity, communication, attitude, approachability, manners and commitment. Trust can be broken down by using a trust model that then incorporates decision-making factors and situational factors. Decision making factors consist of the following: How risk tolerant is the trustee? How well adjusted is he/she? Situational factors consist of the following: How similar are the parties involved? How secure do the parties feel? Does the trustee show concern? Have they shown predictability and integrity? Do the parties have good communication between them? How much power do they have? Confidentiality is important for building and keeping trust in the work place, from senior managers down to the different departments within the business and onto the different workstations on the shop floor. When an employee confides in a person, who is in a position of trust, it is then that persons responsibility to keep and make sure that the information given to them is kept in the strictest confidence unless told otherwise by the trustee. Any breach of this confidentiality will break down trust between the parties involved and do serious damage to any respect that existed between them it would also have an knock on effect through all departments within the organisation and in worse case scenarios it could lead to legal action being carried out. Building the team An example of a group in my place of work is our start of shift meeting between the shift manager/myself the team leader/cell leaders/logistics charge hand/ line leaders from packing and assembly/the maintenance department. The shift manager would then â€Å"chair† the meeting and explain the running of the shift that day i.e. any changeovers, the availability of paper and labels and any quality issues found from the day before by the shift following us in. The manager would then give us our overall meterage figure from the day before. Everyone would then inform the manager of any immediate manning or relevant issues within their departments. All department heads would return to their respected work areas and relay the relevant information to their teams. I myself after having a face to face brief with my manager and my cell leaders would return to my cell and brief my team which (depending on the time in the season ) Consists of four machine operators and two packers of any relevant issues that could affect our cell for that day. I would then take the time to address any problems that immediately would face us i.e. Health and safety in our immediate area and surrounding area, housekeeping issues, machine target speeds and any other problems my operators/packers may have I also then delegate everyone on their individual tasks for that day. When groups are formed they go through different stages before they can become effective and established. The four stages were first recognised by Bruce Tuckman, these stages are Forming/Storming/Norming and Performing.I can recognise and relate to these four stages in my work place. As a team/cell leader my cell consists of four machine operators, which is usually a mix of both permanent and temporary staff. At the start of our busy period/season im given between one and two new temporary machine operators for a period of a fortnight for training they first get introduced to the other members in my cell and start to learn what is expected of them by the company, And what is expected of them by me within the cell this is the Forming stage. Once the operator has met certain standards and requirements and has shown an ability to combat and recognise our biggest enemy which is waste I sign the operator off on my check sheet and then they will be allocated a machine to run on their own within the cell, They will start to become more confident in their own ability and the environment in the cell, I will try and encourage the operator to voice their opinions and concerns regarding decisions I make within the cell, This is the Storming stage. The temporary operator should now be feeling like one of the team and should be hitting their meterage targets and now will be confident to share any ideas they might have with myself and the rest of the team. This is the Norming stage. Everyone in the cell as a whole is hitting their production targets and the temporary operator is feeling established and comfortable of running any machine in the cell and running a machine through break on break cover with another operator without supervision. This is the Performing stage. Tuckman added a fifth stage which is Mourning, This stage does occur in a cell when the team loses a valuable member to another cell and when the temporary operator leaves at the end of the season. It does have a significant effect in my experience on my team’s morale, structure and sometimes even their attitude.