Many managers find that trust can be an issue when you have field workers. Having employees that are working outside of the office and traveling around can make it challenging to develop and maintain trust as you will rarely know what they are up to, and communication is limited. It is easy to develop and maintain trust when you can see and speak to your in-house team, so what can you do to build trust with field workers? Fortunately, there are a handful of ways that you can do this that will create trust from both sides and create stronger working relationships.
1. Lay Out Expectations
First, you need to communicate what your expectations are for field workers and have clear systems in place so that they know how to work each day and what is and what is not allowed. If you do not have these expectations and rules in place, then you will constantly be worrying about what they are up to, and field workers may struggle. By outlining expectations, both parties know what is expected and can rest assured knowing that there are rules in place.
2. Make Communication Easy
In order to build trust, good communication is key. Of course, this is not easy when you have field workers that are often traveling around. This is why you should make sure that you check in regularly to see how they are doing and if there is anything that you can help them with. You also need to make yourself available for support if they need anything. While checking in is helpful, you want to avoid micromanaging and trust that they will perform their job to a high standard.
3. Prioritize Employee Wellbeing
Following this, you also can build trust by prioritizing employee wellbeing. You want to make sure that your field workers feel like an important part of your operation and that you have their best interests in mind. You can improve employee wellbeing with positive feedback, a healthy work-life balance, career development opportunities, and team building and social events.
4. Use Mobile Engineer Locator Software
When you have field workers, your imagination can get carried away, and it is easy to imagine them sitting in a cozy pub all afternoon. To alleviate these concerns, you can use mobile engineer locator software from Service Geeni that will allow you to track where your field workers are at all times. This will help to develop trust and give you peace of mind knowing where they are throughout the day.
5. Get To Know Your Workers
Trust comes when you know someone, and this is true of both personal and professional relationships. Therefore, one of the best ways to build trust that goes both ways is to take the time to get to know your field workers. Showing an interest, asking questions, and spending time with them will help to build trust that will be beneficial for all parties.
The advice in this post should help you to build and maintain trust with your field workers that goes both ways, which will benefit all parties and give you peace of mind.