Creating an environment of trust based on integrity will make a company improve its productivity and easily identify with its customers.
Creating an environment of trust based on integrity will make a company improve its productivity and easily identify with its customers.
I am impressed or rather still impressed by the self awareness and self patronage that the plumbers at Vitens have. Vitens is one of the drinking companies in the Netherlands.
Each plumber goes straight to the field to attend to customer complaints of technical nature with a fully equipped van. It all starts with a phone call from a customer detailing the technical complaint and providing the address of the location at which the technical complaint has occurred. The complaint is profiled and located on a map. A link of the profile and address of the technical problem is shared with a plumber and who in turns makes an appointment with a customer if the technical complaint is in a residence and not on the street.
The productivity and movements of the plumber are monitored using a GPS. When the plumber completes the repair, he closes out a complaint. Such a plumber is not only using the available technology but is empowered with the tools and spare parts and most important he is responsible enough to be trusted.
Some people in Uganda have a casual linkage between the importance of their job bills and comfort that the job offers thus they go to work every morning so that they have a place to go to. In brief, they go to to work to socialize. They do not add value to their employer and interestingly, their employer keeps them year in and year out. The employer may put in place controls and reforms little knowing that the first step was for the staff to prove that they can be trusted with responsibility.
Controls are as good as the leadership of the organisation. And a leader is only a leader if he is being followed.
Many questions then come to mind. It starts with a person; Does the employee want to grow with the organisation or does the leadership of the organisation only want the organisation to grow? Or are talking about a waning organisation? Does it mean that the laid-back employee is inherently lazy or is initially not responsible enough to be trusted? Not necessarily.
If the employee is growing genuinely with the organic growth of the organisation then the onus to be responsible enough becomes a natural instinct for a high-end achiever. What else makes an employee to be a high end achiever. Do they have personal goals and ambitions that yield them to hold onto the organization?
“The glue that holds all relationships together – including the relationship between the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity,” according to Brian Tracy.
Leaders at the workplace have to build an environment in which trust thrives. Susanne Jacob suggested eight drivers of trust at the workplace which are Belong and Connect; Voice and Recognition; Significance and position; Fairness; Learn and Challenge; Security and Certainty and Purpose.
The web of trust at the workplace increases productivity and is eventually woven to the customer who in turn constantly identifies with the business and fulfills their obligation to the company.
With the available technology, transparency to the customer is no longer a challenge. Transparency exudes the trust of the customer and in essence trust increases sales and it should be worked upon from the inside outwards.
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