They say
What to say when an employee says they don’t trust a coworker: “I don’t trust them.”
When an employee says they don’t trust a coworker, ask what specific behavior or risk sits behind the judgment and what commitments would make ordinary collaboration workable. Route credible safety or misconduct concerns elsewhere.
Your response
“When you say you don’t trust them, what do you expect them to do—or not do? Let’s identify the risk to the work and agree what they must do, what you must do, and how we will know it is happening.”
First, check this
Is this about unreliable work, or is the employee describing harassment, retaliation, discrimination, threats, or another safety concern that requires a different process?
Why this works
Trust is too broad to manage as a single judgment. For an ordinary work conflict, the manager needs the behavior, risk, and commitment involved: missed handoffs, withheld information, broken agreements, or another specific problem. If the concern involves harassment, retaliation, discrimination, threats, or safety, it must leave the ordinary conflict pathway and receive appropriate specialist or emergency handling.
Don’t say
“You don’t have to trust them. You just have to work with them.”
If they push back again
“They’ll just agree with you and then do whatever they want.”
You could say
We’ll know soon enough. I’ll agree on the same commitments with them, write them down and check them in two weeks. If they don’t keep them, I’ll deal with it.
After the conversation
- Write down the commitments for both people, such as handoff times or information shared, and send each the same list.
- Check in two weeks whether the commitments were kept, using emails or handoff records as well as your impressions.
- If either person describes misconduct such as harassment or threats, take it to the formal process the same day.
Questions managers ask
Can I make two employees work together if one has lost trust?
For ordinary work problems you can, as long as the arrangement has clear commitments and you follow up on them. Close collaboration may not be realistic right away, so you can reduce shared work while the commitments are tested. If the concern involves misconduct or safety, don’t require it until the proper process has looked at it.
What if the coworker really is unreliable?
Address that with the coworker directly, as a performance issue, with examples. The employee who raised it shouldn’t have to work around it indefinitely. Tell them you’re dealing with it, without sharing what you say to the other person, and give them a way to tell you about repeated misses.
Should I tell the coworker that someone said they don’t trust them?
Avoid putting it in those words. Tell the coworker the behavior you’ve seen or confirmed and the commitment you need. Hearing that a colleague doesn’t trust them gives them nothing to change and can make the relationship worse. If the behavior was only reported to you, check it yourself before raising it.