This just in - employees are your business. They breathe life into your policies, create ingenious products, find customer service solutions, and allow businesses to thrive. Unless you believe that employees are robots then you must agree with this hypothesis on some level.

All business owners create a workplace culture. The best ones create a culture of trust, where people flourish. Think of FedEx or Southwest Airlines. A large scale investor could quickly duplicate their airplanes, routes, software and pricing. It would be far more difficult to duplicate their people, with their knowledge, experience, and positive attitude. For great companies, their people are a significant competitive advantage. They are a barrier to other companies entering the market. Why then would an owner not trust them?

People who are trusted, and who feel valued, produce results. They provide "discretionary effort", or effort that is beyond the expected. This is what takes businesses to the next level. For those who find this concept to be "too soft", or who are in need of data, I would direct you to the book "First, Break All The Rules". I am in no way associated with the authors, or the company that publishes the book. The work is data intensive and demonstrates a strong correlation between workplace conditions and business results.

In short, creating a positive and trusting work environment is good business. It allows the company to attract and retain very good people, and allows those people to succeed.

Learn more about this author, Rick Wilson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Benefits of trusting your employees?
We want to hear your view. Write now!