Sept. 28, 2026 | TRUST Pt. 2
Okay, let’s talk more about building trust…
First of all, if your HR personnel truly are just the handmaidens of an unethical leadership team, then you aren’t trustworthy, and employees shouldn’t trust you.
(If this is the case, then this series of posts isn’t really for you. These are all about genuine ways to convey trustworthiness, and there are no genuine ways to mislead or trick people into trusting you.)
But let’s assume you really do have the entire organization’s best interests in heart—including employees, leadership, business performance, everything…
The solution boils down to publicly saying and doing things that send that message. As I said last time, the only way to build trust is to behave in a trustworthy fashion.
This approach works even if you’re starting out with a negative reputation. If you consistently and persistently do things that are incompatible with any narrative about you, eventually the narrative is the thing that breaks down.
Examine every aspect of HR communications and interactions, and ask, What message does this send about whether we have everyone’s best interest at heart?
Pro-Tip: You can ask employees for this specific feedback too!
If it doesn’t send the message you want, then your team needs to have a conversation about whether and how it should be modified.
That’s it.
Again, deceptively simple.
Of course, the only way to pull this off is to partner closely with upper management. After all, that is where the real distrust lies.
If HR sends constant trust-building messages through both words and actions, but leadership does the opposite, then this whole exercise comes across as a trap to get employees to let their guard down.
Okay, that’s the general idea. Next time, I’ll look at examples from real-life complaints about HR…
