Job Seeker Blog - Spark Hire

Five Ways to Earn Trust in the Workplace

Distinguishing yourself from your colleagues is a sure-fire way to get promoted, so you should be doing everything you can to stand out. It is a daily struggle, but there are steps you can take to make sure you are on the right path. There are many ways to be distinguished, but it is usually better that it is your positive reputation that does so for you.

Listed below are five steps that will aid you in being the perfect employee and coworker. These are not the only steps you should be taking, but they are a good jumping off point towards earning trust in the workplace.

Be dependable:

This encompasses all things, be it punctuality, deadlines, or bringing donuts for everyone when you said you would. By being dependable, your coworkers will begin associating you with someone who doesn’t let them down. They will respect you and your bosses won’t pester you as often about completing work because when they think of you they’ll think of someone who gets the job done. Now, this may make the office a more comfortable place for you, but the second you slip up the plates come crashing down so make sure once you get going, you keep going.

Be efficient:

This is a given, after all, because you need to do your job well to keep your job. But within efficiency also lies self-sufficiency, which is a necessity for upper management candidates. While you should not shy away from group work, you need to prove that you can carry your own weight and carry it well. Your coworkers will thank you and your bosses will notice you.

Be friendly:

As humans it is only natural that we lose sight of sportsmanship when in competition from time to time, but that is a big no-no when building a positive reputation among your coworkers. Building trust also means being someone people like. It has been proven through social experiments that by simply being attractive you are given more graces than someone who was not blessed so. The same feeling of charity can be invoked in people through friendliness. Besides, why would anyone promote you if you were nasty to work with?

Go above and beyond:

It’s a cliché but a fact nonetheless. By doing more than is asked you are proving that you are self-motivated as well as someone who likes to take the initiative, both very necessary qualities for upper management positions and a positive reputation. The only downside to this is that sometimes coworkers do not take kindly to being one upped and you may feel a little shunned, but that’s where the previous three steps come into play to make up for it.

Be consistent:

This is the most important of the five steps when it comes to building trust. This differs from all of the others because it is more of a moral you have to imbibe than an actual thing to do. You cannot be dependable if you are not consistent; no one will think you’re friendly if you snap at someone every now and then, and you certainly won’t be noticed if you take that extra initiative only once. Being consistent is the backbone of building trust and a positive reputation among your coworkers and upper management, but at the same time it becomes meaningless if you don’t apply it to the other steps. Being consistently smiling: excellent. Being consistently late: there’s the door.

Building trust or a positive relationship takes time, that’s why it’s called ‘building’ and not ‘wishing into existence.’ Building a positive reputation in the workplace is the same as building trust within a personal relationship and should be treated as such, with care and consistency.

IMAGE: Courtesy of Flickr by buddawiggi

Bane Srdjevic

Bane is a Purdue graduate and has been through a lot of the trials and tribulations every job seeker goes through. He is looking to spread his knowledge so that other job seekers don't make the same mistakes. Learning by doing is fine, but knowledge is king.

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