A framework for building and maintain trust in remote and virtual teams

Abstract

Trust is an important concept in assessing and measuring business behaviour from an organisational performance and culture lens, and has become a source of competitive advantage for organisations especially within the knowledge economy. Studies show that organizations with a high level of trust have increased employee morale, more productive workers, and lower staff turnover. Most organisations factor and measure trust as part of keeping a pulse on their organisational culture and design their initiatives around building and maintaining trust. While it is not impossible to build trust virtually, it certainly is harder and requires a different set of considerations. There has been a big shift by organizations catering for more remote and flexible work conditions over the past decade with the “virtual team” becoming the norm. The recent impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced most, if not all, organizations to move in that direction faster than planned. With this movement to more remote working conditions, that are likely to have longer-term impacts, companies will be faced with challenges that virtual teams typically face in establishing and maintaining trust. This paper sought to highlight a framework that organisations, with remote and virtual teams, can use as a guideline to build and maintain trust. The framework suggests that trust is reliant on components from three key areas, namely 1) Foundational, 2) Organisational and 3) Individual. Components related to external aspects that contribute to trust, such as laws, reputation and society, have not been factored in. It is acknowledged that this will play a role in organisational and team trust but has been excluded from the scope of this research.