How To Handle Breaches of Trust in The Workplace: Employee Edition
“We’re all like one big family in this company.”
If your workplace is described as “one big family,” then we can probably expect it to function like most families function: Incredibly imperfectly, with sprinkles of drama here and there. (Or depending on your family, it might be industrial-size canisters of drama. Either way, we encourage companies to avoid describing the culture as “family,” but that’s for another blog.)
With any family or workplace, one very important thing is either absent or present… trust.
Work is work. It’s a place we show up to and do things. But we often forget about how much trust (or lack thereof) can impact the workplace experience. We tend to find out who we can trust, either through direct experience, observation, or workplace gossip. Peer-to-peer breaches of trust in the workplace can really harm our professional health and wellness by creating feelings of shame, awkwardness, and downright paranoia. (We can’t be the only people who have ever avoided an ex-work wife or work husband in the elevator.) Maybe you confided in your co-worker that your marriage is falling apart and the next thing you know, the janitor knows about it. Or perhaps you told your cubicle mate you were struggling with a project, and the next morning, your supervisor magically “reassigns” you to a different task. Whatever you endured, we usually can’t avoid the negative feelings that inevitably come.
So, how can we cope? We support employees through the following steps:
1) Assess the Breach of Trust
Try to do this step after you’ve taken some time to calm down. How bad was the breach of trust? What’s the damage? Is the damage short-term or long-term? Assessing the breach helps you put into perspective what is important to you and put you on a path to developing a plan of action to manage any fallout (either perceived or real).
2) Ask Yourself the If and Why
After you’ve assessed, ask yourself if you even want to be bothered repairing the relationship and why (or why not). Maybe it’s not that important to you to repair the relationship because you’ve assessed the damage to your promotion prospects to be nonexistent and you’re totally fine eating lunch solo. Or, perhaps you do need to somewhat repair the relationship in a way that makes it functional since you’re going to be working on a project together for the next 6 weeks. Determining if the relationship is worth salvaging and why (or why not) is hugely important in maintaining an optimal level of professional health and wellness for yourself.
3) How?
How are you going to do whatever it is that you decided to do? Perhaps you’re like us and are excellent at looking past people like you don’t know them. (We don’t recommend this approach). Or maybe you’ll reluctantly exchange pleasantries every morning until you’re not mad anymore. Your how is based on your workplace personality and other factors you deem important.
If you’ve decided to repair the relationship, be intentional about it. That might mean having a direct conversation with the person who breached your trust — not to relitigate what happened, but to establish what the relationship looks like going forward. It might mean keeping things strictly professional and rebuilding trust slowly through small, low-stakes interactions over time. What it doesn’t mean is pretending nothing happened while quietly resenting the person for the next two years. That approach tends to work out well for no one.
And if you’ve decided the relationship isn’t worth repairing — that’s a legitimate choice too. Not every work relationship is worth the energy it takes to fix. Sometimes the most professional thing you can do is maintain a cordial, functional distance and redirect your energy toward the people and work that actually matter to you.
These steps are not necessarily pleasant, and differ when the breach of trust is between supervisor and employee. No matter the scenario, take a deep breath and a few days to think it through. In these types of situations, time is your friend.
One last thing: if the breach was serious enough — if it affected your reputation, your safety, or your ability to do your job — don’t talk yourself out of escalating it. Document what happened, talk to HR, or consult someone you trust outside of the situation. Coping is important. So is knowing when something crossed a line that coping alone can’t fix.
WorkHero helps business owners and employees navigate the hard stuff at work. Learn more at
