Trusting Your Employees

Some companies follow an absurd pattern of ratcheting down on their employees to prevent them from browsing the web, checking personal email, and shopping. They seem to think that they own their employees and their minds when they are at work. Employees keep finding ways to work around these restrictions, and employers keep plugging holes in the dam.

And then there’s another approach. This approach focuses on keeping employees happy and realizing that if your asking for their full commitment to the cause, that you’ve got to make sure that they can do those things that will keep them happy while they’re plugging away. Employees learn to decide when to answer their phone or reply to an email, and they feel respected as real people who lead real lives outside of work. Let’s face it, the more people integrate work into their personal lives via email, phones, and old fashioned homework, the more employers are going to have to allow their staff to tend to personal issues at work.

Perhaps the biggest effect of respecting the personal lives of your employee while they’re at work is that it breeds trust. You send a strong signal to your staff that I trust you to manage your time and effort, but I expect you to deliver for me when I need it.