The opposite of earning your trust

My company is a place of pleasant surprises for great employees. The bad hires relish with equal glee. Right after the first week, the poor hires must count their lucky stars as they get comfortable with our hands-free approach in the company.

I enjoyed the same treatment during my first job in Sweden. As an inexperienced intern, I was given a Macbook Pro and assigned tasks like a full-timer. I was shell-shocked. Why did they trust me so much? I was convinced to do my best for the company.

I want to do the same for my employees when I came back to Singapore. Trust is given unto employees right from day zero.

We are not idiots

There are two types of employees. Employees who make excuses for themselves and employees who do not. We, managers, are not idiots. We know when you are skiving. We know it when you take advantage of the remote work arrangement. But more importantly, we know it when you are not delivering work. We know because the system is built to protect the core team of great employees and the organization.

When the Slackbot pings you for a detailed report, you can trust that someone will read and verify it. A skiver at work does not get to skive anymore than three days when the reports stagnate.

We trust, but we also verify it. But we also accept that humans are fallible. So we forgive until we stop believing.

When we stop believing

The axe will fall. There will be no second chances. We trim our hires as fast as we hire them. When a poor employee is dismissed, everyone is relieved. Good riddance.