Corporate mistrust is causing seismic and far-reaching reputational damage for big businesses. Whether it’s the erosion of trust between employees, consumers, or the public or high-profile scandals it is hurting the bottomline.

Businesses that invest in building trust outperform the competition by four times.

But what does a culture of trust look like, and how do you achieve it? What are the behaviours that commonly erode trust and what are the risks when it’s missing?

What is organisational trust?

Most of us can articulate what trust feels like in a personal relationship. If asked, we’d probably cite things like; feeling someone has our back, that they keep their promises or that we feel safe enough to be vulnerable and get things wrong.

At a basic level, trust in an organisation doesn’t feel that different. Do people believe their employer will defend or advocate for them? Has an organisation proven that it will keep its promises? Does it behave predictably?

Here's where things get complicated. Whilst we can apply some of what we understand about trust in personal relationships to a corporate setting, it can be difficult to articulate who we’re looking to trust when we say ‘organisation’ or ‘employer’. You cannot trust a company, but you can build trust with its people.

In their book The Trusted Leader, Galford and Drapeau talk about three types of trust, and you could argue they are more relevant today than ever.  

• ‍Strategic trust refers to the trust that employees have in leaders to make the right strategic decisions. Do they have the vision and the ability to lead the organisation to achieve its goals?

• ‍Personal trust explores the trust that employees have in their direct line managers. Do line managers treat their team members equitably? Do they consider how their team’s needs might be impacted by business decisions?

• And organisational trust refers to the belief that an employee has in the business itself. Are processes transparent, easy to understand and fairly applied? When the company makes a statement or takes a position, does it deliver? 

‍

Why is trust so important?

Organisational trust isn’t a nice to have. Businesses who successfully build cultures of trust will grow faster, be more innovative and have a culture where continuous improvement is embraced and encouraged.

People in companies where trust is low routinely perform inconsistently, are less capable of healthy disagreement, and are more likely to take more poorly judged risks and invest less of their energy and skills into their work.

As businesses compete for marketshare or set ambitious productivity targets, it’s important that they understand the impact of a lack of trust. Deloitte’s 2024 Human Capital Trends report confirms that increased focus on trust is vital for business performance but that only a relatively small percentage of companies are making meaningful progress in this space.

In businesses today, trust is much more likely to come from four key things: a shared set of values, clear goals, predictable behaviour, and a sense of belonging.

When an organisation is transparent about the behaviours it values and, importantly, those it doesn’t, employees understand what’s expected of them and can positively contribute to the future of the business. of predictability.

An organisation being confident in who they are and what they stand for is incredibly powerful when it comes to building trust. It enables them to show up authentically and consistently even in difficult situations.

Common pitfalls

We can probably all identify a company where trust is lacking. What’s more difficult is identifying the contributing factors that lead to this feeling. There are a few traps organisations can fall into:

• ‍Not telling the real story - it takes strong leadership to tell employees how things are going, rather than sugar coating messages. You are much more likely to build trust if employees feel they know the score.

• ‍Hiding data - organisations are increasingly talking about data-based decisions and indeed making decisions based on fact, not opinion, and this can be a useful technique when it comes to building predictability. But being closeted about the information on which decisions are based can be detrimental, so transparency is key.

• ‍Competing objectives are commonplace especially in large organisations. But too many goals that employees can’t link to an enterprise-wide ambition can drive a lack of belief. A confused narrative about the future can leave employees questioning an organisation’s direction and disengaging from the strategy or their leaders.

• ‍Breaking promises - one of the few building blocks of trust that is directly mirrored in personal and corporate relationships, going back on a promise. This is pretty much the cardinal sin when it comes to eroding trust, an organisation only has to renege on a promise once for any hard-won trust to be shattered.

Trust needs to be prioritised

Building and maintaining a culture of trust in a corporate organisation is no mean feat.

But, especially in today’s context, it’s not a nice to have, it’s critical for sustainable growth.  

‍

If you want to build trust in your business and don’t know where to start, contact us at hello@unitedcultureco.com.

‍