Think about how much time you spend with your coworkers. In some groups, people work together for many hours each day. During the week, you may see your coworkers for more time than you see your family members! The quality of those work relationships is important and they translate directly to both employee satisfaction and quality of life.

People are the center of any organization and trust is the foundation of any relationship. How people feel about each other and the place where they work determines how successful they, and their organization, will be.

People who share trust know they can rely on each other to collaborate and overcome obstacles. But the absence of trust erodes morale and reduces enthusiasm for confronting challenges. Without trust, people no longer want to extend themselves to overcome hurdles that might help them and their organization excel.

Introducing a Foundation for Trust

People are the most important part of any organization, and in our institution, we see our community of faculty, learners and staff as the force that gives UCSF meaning. That is why we have decided to focus on trust over the long term.

We began by introducing Restorative Justice (RJ) principles to our staff in order to equip them with skills to sustain an inclusive community, foster trust through better understanding and communication, and address relational harm. RJ is grounded in Indigenous beliefs that we are all interconnected, and therefore, have a shared responsibility to build healthy and harmonious relationships with each other. At UCSF School of Dentistry, we are integrating the restorative mindset and associated practices to help build those healthy working relationships across our community.

Listening to Our Most Valuable Asset

We would like to learn about dynamics between individuals and among teams that influence people's sense of trust in the working environment. We will be sharing a survey link with you separately and we invite you to share your thoughts with us. It is a great opportunity to let us know what specific behaviors or actions you feel would help build, or in some cases restore, trust in our units. We're doing this to get down to brass tacks—what can we as colleagues demonstrate in our daily interactions to move the needle on trust?

In a future post, we will share what we've heard and how we anticipate moving this work forward. Our ultimate aim is to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels they belong. We believe there is no better place to start than strengthening trust.