A Quick Guide to Building Employee Confidence

It turns out that building employee confidence has a lot in common with sending a kid to kindergarten. Let me set the scene:

My wife and I are standing in the school yard with our five-year-old son on his first day of school. “Can I have a hug?” I ask. He pauses. “No,” he says.

“Fist bumps?”

He smiles and bumps my fist with his. Then, he informs us that he doesn’t need his parents to walk him in: “I’ll just go with the teacher.” We stand and watch as he files out of the yard and up the ramp with his class, and I’m surprised to realize that I’m not anxious—I’m just curious about how the day will go.

Switching From Mom Brain to CEO Brain

It’s amazing how much easier the first day of elementary school was with our second kid than with our first (for us grown-ups, at least). The first time, we were worried about all the things that you think about when your child is off doing something new without you: How would our son feel? Would he like the teacher? Would he get along with the other kids?

This time, though, we had the benefit of experience. Those questions were still there, but we’d been through the process before, so we could relax a little. I found myself thinking about how I could use this idea in the office. Was there a secret here that could help me with building employee confidence at The FruitGuys, and help my team tackle challenging things?

Building Employee Confidence: How It Works

This is obvious, but when you’re faced with a challenge, it’s easier to tackle it if you’ve done something similar before. You can call upon your observations and learnings, and the more experience you have, the better suited you are to anticipate what might happen, then plan and problem-solve as variables change. That’s why it’s important to expose our employees—and our kids—to new things all the time.

Sometimes these opportunities come naturally, like heading to kindergarten or jumping into a new role when someone leaves. But we can also intentionally expose our people to experiences outside of their normal course of work to help build their confidence.

For example, before our kindergartener headed to elementary school, he visited his big brother at the same school and spent a week there for summer camp. We intentionally gave him those opportunities to get him familiar with what was coming. You can do the same thing at the office, especially when an employee lacks confidence.

Easy Ways to Get Started This Week

To start building your team’s confidence, try asking yourself these questions, then putting the opportunity wheels in motion.

• Who on our team tackles challenges regularly outside of their day-to-day, and who doesn’t?
• How can you get those people outside of their comfort zones and expose them to situations that will prepare them for bigger roles?
• Which departments in your organization don’t usually work together? Are there any projects they can collaborate on to learn something new?
• Are any of your coworkers interested in other roles? Can you offer them the opportunity to cross-train?

Every employee and every kiddo is different, but making an effort to help people grow will always pay off in the end.

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