Trust in Human Resources: Without Technology, How Can Relationships Be Built?

Trust is a vital facet of the business you want to be continuous or progressive. When it is lacking, it is nearly impossible to boast of an employee-focused strategy. Somehow, it affects your customers because employee unhappiness, or perhaps, mental unhealthiness, will reflect in their relationship with customers.

The big question now is "how do you determine your employees' trust level for HR?" In a bid to gauge employees' trust for their HR department, Cezanne HR has surveyed 1,000 employees from UK organizations with more than 250 employees and we take a look at some of their findings below.

The Current State Post Pandemic Employee Trust

The past 18 months or so have been life-changing for many businesses and during that period, there could have easily been drastic changes that saw businesses lose the complete trust of their employees due to a lot of uncertainty around the pandemic. Nevertheless, this hasn't ultimately been the case.

32.1% of people still trust their HR team more now than before COVID-19, 54.1% still trust them the same and 13.8% trust them less. Businesses have had to adapt how they operate due to the pandemic and with businesses now having returned back to the office, HR teams would have to openly communicate with their employees and keep them aware of the situations about returning back to the office.

With remote working now becoming popular, companies can implement a flexible workplace policy and allow employees to work some days remotely and some days back in the office.

Problems of Employee Mistrust for HR

Difficulty interacting with HR.

At least one-third of surveyed employees stated that they find getting help from their HR department as being hard or nearly impossible. This certainly isn't helpful during a pandemic.

HR departments need to operate and find ways where they can make themselves available and respond to employees' queries as an unanswered query can certainly damage morale and contribute towards unnecessary stress.

Emerging thoughts of favoritism.

In a society where organizations take great pride in their diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, it's important to remain impartial and not show favoritism towards one group of people over another.

If this is the case, then this will contribute towards low staff morale and result in them wanting to leave the company producing high staff turnover. It's important that HR keep their employees happy, especially since talent acquisition can be an expensive and time-consuming process.

45% of survey respondents stated that they neither trust HR to act impartially, while 43% believe senior staff is favored more compared to the 12% of junior staff.

HR Software Can Still Bolster Trust While HR Focuses on Performance

HR software can be valuable and efficient in enhancing employee confidence in company processes and integrity. In this regard, you can expect an improved work environment and fairness that retains talent, boosts morale, and improves productivity.

Human Resource Management software allows your organization to eliminate the awareness gap by providing a snapshot of HR activities and corporate initiatives. You can then leverage the report to communicate changes and rethink employee relationships with HR management.

HR software significantly improves transparency which bolsters employee trust such that it anonymizes and provides data showing how the organization has been handling employee relations issues. The team can then work on the report to address workplace problems that can improve employee trust.

Technology is permeating all facets of the work environment which could mean losing the human touch. However, it will be difficult to accurately gauge employee trust levels without HR tools. The HR team has a lot to gain from using HR software and this includes automating and hastening how they reinvent the wheel to address problems surging employee distrust.