For years businesses worked hard to beef up their security systems in order to protect employees and information. Today a shift in leadership among various types of businesses has resulted in the issue of trust management coming to the forefront. While some people think this is an absolutely crazy idea, it really seems to be working quite well in many types of industries.

There are plenty of elements that encompass the concepts of trust management. It doesn’t give employees or consumers free reign. Instead it offers a set of principles and policies that are in place to provide a framework structure. In most instances the trust management aspect pertains more to the ideas of decisions being made based on the best possible information that is offered.

The more information a person has about a specific principle the more likely they will feel comfortable trusting in it. Therefore it is important for these issues to be completed defined and outlined by the owner of the business. Many of them have common features including protecting the data for the business that could help their competitors.

In many instances the decision to believe this information depends on the amount of credibility that the business has. Those that have been in place for some period of time are generally more credible because the assumption is that they would have gone out of business if they weren’t providing an excellent service.

The policies that are in place relating to trust management still result in some individuals being limited from accessing particular information. For example some sites only have one person with the authority to access the screens for completing refunds when the consumers request them. The policies that are set for trust management really depend on the structure of the business, what your role is in the business, and what skills you have to perform the various tasks.

One of the main issues when it comes to online businesses is the security of documents that pertain to the business. Those that are offered access to such documentation are under the influence of trust management not to pass on that information to those that are outside of the business. 

With trust management the business owner isn’t investing as much money in security issues. Yet they aren’t finding any more of their information being compromised than before. In fact studies show that in many instances it has dropped. This is because employees are happy about the level of trust that has been placed with them. They don’t want to jeopardize it. This is very similar to the importance of the trust you have in your personal relationships. 

Many businesses have found that placing too tight of a restraint on various aspects of their business makes it impossible to have happy employees. As a result they deal with a high volume of turn over and people not working as hard as they should. However, with trust management employees feel like they are an important part of the business. They embrace it and work hard to protect it.

Tim Hoiseth

Tim has background as is business psychologist and work sociologist with expertise in building organisations and teams to solve problems for the future. Tim has expertise in technology and the symbiosis between human interaction and technology in operational processes.