7 Trust Building Techniques for Onboarding Remote Workers

Trust building is an essential part of any onboarding process if you want to reduce turnover and retain your newly hired talent.

This isn’t exclusive to managers needing to trust their staffers. In fact, staffers need to be trusted and learn to trust their managers just as much.

So, how do you build trust in a remote environment when onboarding new workers?

Check out seven trust building tips below!

1. Give your trust and allow them to reinforce it.

Trust isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone, but you need to learn to give your trust to others, particularly when working in a remote environment.

When onboarding new remote workers, trust building begins during the onboarding process.

Here you’ll need to show your full faith and support in their abilities (and your training) and then let them prove to you that they are trustworthy. After all, you likely made the decision to hire these people.

Trust your judgment and trust their efforts and you’ll see the relationship flourish.

2. Support and encourage open communication.

Remote working requires open communication to be utilized at all times and all levels. From the get-go, reinforce the importance of open communication.

Keep your lines of communication open, don’t get irritated when you are faced with questions, and be mindful of being available, whether through email, chat, or video.

When you establish open communication from the very beginning, the mutual respect and trust will grow.

3. Have accountability standards in place.

While you need to trust your new staffers, you also need to have systems in place to ensure accountability. These systems and standards must be shared with the new staffers.

While there is no need to monitor each minute a person is working or take screen shots to ensure their productivity, you do need to have goals and guidelines in place. It might be as simple as a shared document that you can review, or it could be a guideline that a specific task should only take X amount of time.

4. Hold yourself accountable.

Just as you hold your staffers accountable, you need to keep yourself accountable. Be honest in your words and actions, and make sure you follow through on what you say.

As a leader, you won’t have the trust of your team if you hold them accountable and they see you miss the mark time and again.

5. Don’t overlook the human factor.

At the end of the day we are all human and just trying to make it through this life. Don’t overlook the fact that your new staffers are people with lives outside of work, and that they have valid ideas and feelings, too.

Make sure to create opportunities to learn more about each other as well as for personal interactions with the team.

Although a virtual workplace might present a few challenges, it can be remedied through creative initiatives.

6. Avoid placing blame on others.

Whether someone else is to blame or not, avoid pitting people against each other, different teams, or different levels of the organization.

The best way to foster trust is by bringing people together to a common ground. By placing blame rather than working together to rectify any issues, you lay the foundation for communication to break down and teams to fall apart.

7. Keep them in the loop.

Nothing says trust like entrusting people with information. Now I’m not saying to give away sensitive information or industry secrets, but you can and should share information about company happenings.

Whether it is promotions, strategy, processes, or whatever, sharing company information with your new staffers shows that you trust them with that information, and it makes them feel good.

In turn, they’ll be able to show you that they are trustworthy, or they might be able to give a different perspective, adding value to parts of the organization you didn’t know they could.

When onboarding remote workers, don’t underestimate the importance of trust building opportunities. Through a number of tasks, encounters, and opportunities you can show your new staffers that not only do you trust them but that they can trust you in return. And by laying this foundation early on, you set the stage for positive working relationships moving forward.