CHRO
opinion
LET’S NOT LOSE THE TRUST WE’VE GAINED The employment relationship is currently marred by a trust deficit because, over the last few months, employers and employees have moved from becoming selfless to being selfish.
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BY AADIL PATEL
s Covid-19 drags on and a new normal becomes our reality, there has been a regression in many workplaces from a period of selflessness into a period of selfishness. A trust deficit has emerged, forcing HR leaders to look at how they can manage and inspire an anxious workforce. When President Ramaphosa announced the national lockdown in March, South Africans applauded him and workplaces came together. Never in all my years had I seen a level of trust between employers and employees as we saw towards the end of March and the first two weeks of April. Employers always trusted employees to work from home and expected them to be at their desk. During this period of uncertainty, employees' financial survival was dependent on employers and, as a result, they made extra effort to comply with even the most draconian of expectations.
the transition from selflessness to selfishness that was attributable to a growing trust deficit in workplaces. Employers began to default. They were not equipped with dealing with remote workers so they began micromanaging employees and expected them to be online all the time. I see many similarities to the 2007/2008 global financial recession in that some employers have seen the economic downturn as an opportunity to get rid of non-performers.
“...selfishness began to creep in when they saw being home as an opportunity to ‘take a break’ from work…”
Trust deficit But the levels of trust slowly dissipated. Some employees were unable to grasp how to work remotely because they had household chores to contend with, as well as children and home-schooling, which added to the mix of distractions. While they may have wanted to be empathetic, employers still had businesses to run and thus began
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There is nothing wrong with embarking on retrenchment processes in the pursuit of profitability. But if that is the path that companies choose to follow, the leaders within those organisations cannot turn around and condemn the selfishness and trust deficit within their workforces. We must understand that trust goes both ways.
We didn’t listen to the millennials From an employee perspective, selfishness began to creep in when they saw being home as an opportunity to "take a break" from work. This was understandable given that they had to manage their children's schooling, home chores, and were dealing with a heightened sense of anxiety surrounding what soon became a pandemic. Even though they may have contemplated the idea of remote working, employers have failed to equip managers with the tools necessary to manage people working from home. I recently did a matchbook
