As a boss, it’s your responsibility to strive for the trust of your workers. After all, trust in managers and senior leaders can directly affect employee behavior towards the organization and work.

According to the Globforce’s study that was conducted among 828 employees reported that employees with high levels of trust for their bosses are happy with their jobs than those who dislike their superiors.

The survey of employees conducted by Globoforce also highlighted that more than 80% of the employees trusted their colleagues, only 72% showed trust in their leaders, managers and supervisors, and only 65% trust their senior leaders and bosses.

Great leaders can build trust with their employees and increase employee engagement by taking these 5 important steps.

1. Promote a Transparent Work Culture

Transparency is a must-have in order to start building trust with your workers. You need to share timely information with them when possible. Senior team leaders should always make themselves available to their teams, admit their mistakes when happen and share their team’s efforts and progress to improve their performance.

Though it can be a little challenging to find how much transparency is enough for employees, it is advised to simply taking employees feedback to get deep insights. You can use Comparably that allows workers to anonymously provide data on their organization’s strategies and insights into work culture.

Bosses can determine how employees feel about the workplace transparency and then use this information to improve the culture of the organization.

2. Always Recognize your Employees’ Achievements

Employee recognition is also important to create trust with your team and build the best relationship with your employees. According to the study conducted by Globoforce, employees who had received the recognition awards and bonuses have developed a greater sense of trust and respect for their leadership and management.

Employees who received recognition awards within a month before the study conducted, reported 82% of trust for their senior managers, compared to those who did not get any acknowledgment only showed 48% of trust for their leadership team.

To create trust, recognition is important at both individual and team level. Acknowledge employees’ valuable work, success and accomplishments regularly, that way the trust will create naturally.

3. Personally Arrange a Time to Meet with the Employee

Spending time with your workers is another great way to strengthen the relationship with them. According to the 15Five survey only 15% of employees reported that they believed their feedback was highly appreciated by team leads. While 58% of employees said senior leaders valued their feedback moderately, slightly or not at all.

Giving employees the freedom and opportunity to provide their valued feedback to leaders can greatly build a strong relationship. Spending time with every worker to learn about their efforts, problems and concerns will build a strong boss and employee relationship.

It is also critical to implement the suggested improvements you make from what you get during the personal meeting with them.

4. Value All Employees Equally

It is important to treat your workers equally with the same respect. A research conducted by Virgin Pulse suggested that approximately 60% of employees surveyed said their relationship with their boss positively affected their focus and productivity level at workplace, while 44% said it positively impacted their anxiety levels.

For employers, it is significantly important to make work environment and culture inclusive to create a big difference. Give all workers an equal freedom and voice, rather than showing that only management has all the power.

Once you create a workplace that values every employee, they will tend to trust and respect senior leaders. The trust will ultimately lead to increased focus, productivity and success ratio.

5. Actively Participate in Workplace Activities

Along with arranging personal meetings with your employees, it is also important to spend time with your team all together. According to 90% of workers surveyed by Unify, the leaders’ participation and involvement in workplace events and activities can lead to a great sense of friendliness.

In fact, participating in workplace activities with employees will make the work environment more fun and pleasant while building an ideal work culture. When bosses make an effort to be a part of the team, they greatly contribute to their employees trust in management.

All things considered, creating trust takes a lot of effort and time, by taking these simple and important steps to improve the relationship between effective leadership and employee, bosses can create an ideal work environment for everyone at all level staff level.