Jacob What pops up in your minds when you hear terms like The Shrek, Kungfu Panda, or The Boss Baby? Movies! Which one of these movies are your favorites?
DreamWorks Animation has been a childhood friend to a lot of us and I bet, if a movie is a DreamWorks Animation production, then it must be on top of your list! Imagine, if DreamWorks Animation has such a powerful impact on their audience, then how much effort did the team working behind the screens have put in to gain that trust. Think about how much effort leaders must have put in to gain employee trust who work beyond their calls of duty to deliver amazing results. DreamWorks Animation is truly one of the most successful companies in the entertainment industry.
Don’t you get questions running through your mind like how do successful organizations sustain their standard? What kind of employees work there and how are they always motivated to succeed every time and moreover, withstand it throughout? Whether you’re a leader or an employee, these thought-provoking questions are what will drive you towards improvement.
Certainly, employees are called human resources because they sit at the heart of every brand’s success. For any business, it is important to strategize how to successfully retain employees. In our opinion, one of the crucial factors is trust. It is very important to not only build a trusted platform but to maintain it and repair it when needed. To earn your employee’s trust, it is important for you as a leader to:
- Practice Integrity
Be it work or any other interaction, integrity should be practiced religiously. Living as per your values and being honest is the greatest trait you can have as a leader.
- Be Respectful
Respect is for everyone and as a leader, you must respect your employees; it starts with you. A good leader is one who treats everyone in the organization with respect. Respecting each other, will build strong connections and strengthen trust within your organization.
- Motivate
Sometimes, a push is all an employee may need. Employees should be given the freedom to explore. Surely, mistakes may be made, but turn their mistakes into learning opportunities, this will help your employees to grow and realize that they are trusted even if when they fall. Empower your employees to do better.
- Keeping Everyone in the Loop
As a leader, it is your core responsibility to keep your team on one page. It is important to keep everyone informed by clearly conveying all the required information.
- Create a Common Goal
Everyone has dreams to fulfill, which is great. Without eliminating them, create a sense of shared goals for your organization. Your employees should be aware of long-term plans.
- Measure What Should be Achieved
It is important for your employees and everyone else in the organization to know what is being expected of them. This will allow employees to measure their achievements. As a leader, you should be aware that uncertainty breeds distrust.
- Embrace
Some conflicts emerge for good reasons. If a conflict is encountered in a trusted environment, it leads to an opportunity for growth. If the purpose of the company or business is dominant, all interactions will transport towards a common objective.
- Win-Win Negotiation
Conflicts happen, they are a part of every organization. However, if either party is going to come to a discussion with an aim to win rather than settling it in a way that makes a win-win situation, then nothing will get resolved. In fact, conflict creates more chaos than good. Therefore, a working relationship should be seen as progress, not something to end as a war zone on the meeting table.
- Proceed with Care
Betrayals will probably occur, and when they do, as a leader of a highly trusted organization, you must check if your previously built alliances still support your organization. Modifying trust can happen, and it happens all the more effectively when an environment of trust has been firmly grounded.
As a leader, if you assure these practices, you will have a higher level of employee retention. DreamWorks Animation, made sure to practice all of these above-mentioned strategies to gain employee trust. They appreciate their employees, make them feel respected and valued. Not only with words, but they also present their tokens of appreciation that boost employee morale. These acknowledgments are what pushes employees to be creative, productive, and efficient. Today, DreamWorks Animation is one of the most recognizable successes globally, all because of the trust they have successfully built and maintained throughout, making it in the top five list of Global Companies that have the highest employee retention rates. That is how significant and powerful trust-building is for an organization.
