Trust

PwC's Kim Jones on Improving Workplace Trust

2024-10-22T04:00:54-04:00

"Leaders forget that you can't just tell people what they should do, you also have to model it yourself. There's a little bit of, 'Do as I say, and not what I do.' It's so important to model that behavior, and show that you believe in it."

Kim Jones, managing director of talent strategy and people experience at PwC, shares insights on the importance of trust in the workplace, the role of middle managers in building a positive culture, and how PwC is using AI to create an equitable workplace on this episode of the Better podcast.

She also opens up about her personal journey to better well-being — a powerful reminder of the importance of self-care, especially in high-pressure environments.

On why leaders often overestimate the trust their employees have in them:

Sometimes leaders forget that you can't just tell people what they should do. You have to model it yourself, so there's a little bit of, "Do as I say and not what I do." It's so important to model that behavior, and show that you believe in it.

Another thing I've seen is there's lots of good listening going on across organizations — at PwC, we have a listening program and platform. But sometimes we fall into a trap of getting a lot of feedback from our employees, but then not acting on it, not showing them what we're doing with what they're telling us, and how we're using that feedback to make things better.

On mistakes leaders make when building workplace trust:

One might be that you say you want your team to come up with a recommendation, a solution for something. But yet, all along that process of them coming to that recommendation, you're micromanaging. You're inserting your own opinion when it might be best to let them do their thing.

Micromanaging can be a bad habit that undermines feeling trusted. You need to trust people to do their work, and to do good work. Not just say that you do, but show that you do.

On how middle managers can build trust with their teams:

One of the things that we try to do at PwC is help our managers see that they are part of driving the strategy. This is not, "Sit back and let's see what the leaders do for us." You are a leader, too, and it's part of your role to create the environment that we want.

On how My Marketplace, PwC’s internal AI platform, works:

One of the first big AI technologies that we built and rolled out is called My Marketplace, and it's similar to a talent marketplace. It matches individuals who have a profile that describes their skills with job opportunities. The platform uses AI to more efficiently and effectively do those match-ups and in a more fun, consumer oriented way,

We've had some successes already, in terms of it being easier for people to understand other things they could do within PwC. They can go into My Marketplace and see the different opportunities that are available, and express interest in those opportunities. And the system can match them up with the skills that they already possess and what a particular opportunity needs, and offer it up to them.

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On how AI technology makes PwC more equitable:

We have 75,000 people, and what tends to happen is, you know who you've worked with in the past and you tend to want to go back to those people bcause that's who you know. But there might be 74,500 other people that you don't know who might also be really great to work with.

And so you're using technology that is not based on who you know, but on skills needed for an opportunity. You are served up new names, new people that maybe you didn't know existed in the firm before that moment. In that way, opportunity feels very democratized, and we're thrilled about that.

On why leaders should prioritize AI:

When you say, "My current system works just fine, I don't have anything like a My Marketplace." Perhaps, but for how long will it work just fine? Next year, will you still be saying that? Five years from now, will you still be saying that? And on the day when you stop saying that, how far behind are you in now getting yourself ready for whatever the current environment is?

I would also challenge, "It feels like it's working fine," because it's all you know. What if it could work 10 times better? Just, what if? Go through the mental exercise of reimagining the way that you do things to see if you could perhaps do it much, much better. I think there's almost always an opportunity to do something better.

On the importance of work-life balance:

I learned that your body keeps the score, and your body will tell you. Even if your brain thinks you are doing fine, there can come a point where it'll be a huge surprise, but it will happen — you will stop. That happened with me and it was scary.

And after that, I thought that was very important to be in tune with my body, and to practice self-care, well-being, much more intentionally and much more deliberately.

Without Trust, Your Company Will Resist Rapid Innovation

2024-01-31T07:01:52-05:00

Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer shows growing resistance to innovation. Here’s how you can measure if your workforce is ready for change.

Don’t assume your audience is ready for something new, whether that audience is employees, consumers, or a mix of both.

Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer shows growing distrust around innovative ideas and new technologies, from vaccine advances to artificial intelligence. In an online survey of over 32,000 respondents, now in its 24th year, Edelman found people are twice as likely to say innovation is poorly managed versus well managed — 39% compared with 22%.

While the report found that business is the most trusted institution to make sure innovation is safe and accessible (compared to government, NGOs, and the media), no institution had more than 59% approval.

Resistance to innovation was shared by respondents across gender, age, and socioeconomic status. Trust was particularly lower in post-industrial countries like the U.S. and those in Europe.

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That lack of trust has big implications for whether new products and tools will be adopted or rejected.

In the global survey, people who said innovation was managed poorly were ready to reject innovation like AI (43%) and gene-based medicine (41%). Only 26% rejected AI when they said innovation was well-managed.

And the impact will be seen in the bottom line.

Companies with the highest “Innovation By All” metric have 550% faster revenue growth compared with companies that have a low score, according to ��[�ʘ��® research.

Facing a trust crisis

These findings support recommendations from ��[�ʘ�� on the biggest mistakes threatening employee trust amid the rise of AI technology at work.

Top of the list? Don’t assume that everyone already trusts you.

“Business’s trusted status in society is not a given, and without active management could go the same way as trust in government,” wrote Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman. “The trigger could be mismanagement of innovation, where past failures are still visible today.”

The innovation currently on center stage: AI.

“As you embark on GenAI, check how much confidence your employees’ have in their executives’ judgement,” says Marcus Erb, vice president of data and innovation at ��[�ʘ��.

Consider how confidence levels change across roles, departments, and personal identities.

“Weak confidence means more doubt, slower progress, and less enthusiasm shared with customers,” Erb warns.

Edelman’s data suggests that a good portion of your audience — whether customers or employees — don’t fully trust you. To find out your weaknesses, it will be crucial to survey and run employee listening sessions to uncover barriers to innovation.

A global trust crisis

Almost every country has more people who see innovation as mismanaged rather than well-managed.

In the U.S., 56% said innovation was mismanaged compared to 14% who believe the opposite. The number of respondents who say innovation is mismanaged is 17 points higher than the global average of 39%.

Respondents were more likely to say they trust their employer, with a global average of 79% saying they trust their company to be ethical and competent.

In the U.S., 79% of respondents said they trust their employer, a 3-point increase from the previous year.

Every employer starts out with a certain amount of trust in the bank — a level of trust built over time with employees.

“Every interaction with your people is a chance to build that trust — or break it,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president, global recognition at ��[�ʘ��. The more trust you have in the bank, the faster you will be able to adapt to the AI transition.

“The key to the best companies’ financial outperformance has always been their ability to gain the confidence and trust of their people,” Lewis-Kulin says. As an example, employees at the Best Workplaces™ are 47% more confident that their managers are ethical and honest, compared to a typical U.S. workplace, and 43% more confident in their ability to get truthful and direct answers to direct questions than at a typical workplace.

It’s these kinds of high-trust workplaces that create the conditions where companies on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® List outperform the market by a factor of three.

How to build trust

Edelman’s research identifies some common strategies to build trust and ensure new ideas can take off:

1. Listen to your people

Across all institutions, including business, government, media, and non-profit agencies, Edelman found that listening was a top three action to build trust.

That’s especially true in the workplace, where ��[�ʘ��’s research has shown the importance of employee listening to drive important outcomes.

Listening is the most important of the nine high-trust leadership behaviors and a key ingredient for increasing the speed of innovation at your company.

2. Offer employees a say in how new tools will be used

Edelman’s research found that audiences were much more likely to accept new innovation when they felt people like them had a lot of control over how these new tools would affect their lives.

One way to consider how employees feel included or disconnected from innovation is to examine your Innovation Velocity Ratio.

��[�ʘ��’s proprietary platform can identify how many employees at your company are ready to innovate, versus the number of employees who experience friction.

Ask your employees if they feel included in decision-making that affects their jobs. The more agency and power employees feel they have, the more ready they will be to adapt to change.

3. Use your mission to inspire employees to grow

“Leaders might see AI as the ‘next big thing’ and focus all their attention on how that will affect their business,” says Julian Lute, senior strategic advisor at ��[�ʘ��. “They will need to give equal attention to communicating how AI will positively impact employees, and create opportunities for growth.”

It’s important for employees to feel a sense of purpose when dramatically changing their work environment. ��[�ʘ�� research has found that even well-meaning organizations can struggle to connect frontline employees to a deeper purpose around their work. When that happens, these employees feel excluded from innovation, and innovation rates are slowed.

To overcome reluctance, Lute recommends finding ways to connect change to a desired final outcome — and lean into your mission as an organization.

You can’t assume that everyone in the organization understands how new technology like AI might connect to your company purpose.

“Talk about the new technology through your organization’s values, how it supports your purpose, and how it will benefit your customers and employees,” Erb says.

Edelman’s research again confirms the need for top executives in your company to speak openly with employees about the future. Almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents said they expect CEOs to manage changes occurring in society, not just in their business. In particular, respondents said it was important for CEOs to speak publicly about issues like future job skills (82%), ethical use of technology (79%) and the impact of automation on jobs (78%).

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Why Trust Is Fundamental to AI Success in the Workplace

2024-01-22T07:00:49-05:00

In today’s workplace, employees are more likely to embrace the integration of artificial intelligence tools if organizations prioritize trust, transparency, and open communication.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an indispensable part of the modern workplace, revolutionizing the way we work and offering significant benefits, such as efficiency, automation, and more. However, many workers are uncertain about whether it will help or hurt their jobs.

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A recent Gallup survey of more than 18,000 workers revealed that 53% of workers say they don’t feel prepared to work with AI, while just three in 10 think that AI can be beneficial to their work.

As business leaders feel the increasing pressure to implement AI, establishing trust and understanding of how AI affects their workflows with employees is crucial to fully embrace its potential across an organization.

Recent insights from a global UKG study underscores a critical revelation: If organizations prioritize transparency around AI’s impact on workflow and usage, three out of four employees say they would accept, and get excited about, the integration of AI into their roles.

Trust is the foundation of modern workplaces

Michael C. Bush, CEO of ��[�ʘ��, a global authority on workplace culture, stresses the pivotal role in AI has in binding employees and organizations together. More than an abstract concept, he says, trust is necessary for an environment where everyone feels valued and heard.

The same goes for AI implementation.

“If I could create a backdrop for the world right now, I’d spell out the word trust as large as I could,” says Bush. “That’s what the conversation around AI and workplace dynamics is all about. Employees must understand how AI affects their workflows to fully embrace its potential, and this culture of trust must extend to building confidence in AI systems.”

Companies, such as Adobe, stand out among the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For because of their employee-centric approaches to AI. Adobe actively involves employees in the testing of new capabilities powered by Firefly, its family of generative AI models.

Prior to the beta launch of Firefly, the company conducted a voluntary employee session addressing the ethical aspects of generative AI, attracting thousands of attendees and showcasing substantial employee interest and investment in issues surrounding responsible AI innovation.

Adobe has also emphasized a commitment to transparency internally and across the industry in a few ways, first of which was cofounding the Content Authenticity Initiative to help combat the threat of misinformation by driving adoption for Content Credentials—essentially a “nutrition label” for digital content. In addition, the company established AI Ethics Principles to guide thoughtful deployment of AI in its products, as well as its AI Ethics Committee and Review Board made up of employees from diverse professional backgrounds and life experiences.

The company is also engaging with industry leaders, organizations, and policymakers around the world to promote responsible AI regulations to better manage AI-related risks—such as the spread of misinformation, harmful deepfakes, and biases—to individuals, organizations, and society.

“Trust comes down to transparency, empathy, and reliability,” says Allie K. Miller, former global head of machine learning for startups and venture capital at AWS. “And longevity is built into trust.”

Building the framework for transparency

UKG itself is committed to making AI accessible to all employees over the long term. The company initiated a cross-functional curriculum with nine learning paths, encouraging all employees to engage in AI training. This emphasis on training aims to bridge the gap between those who already know and leverage AI and those at risk of being replaced by it.

“We want to make sure all our employees get to know how to use these tools and feel comfortable with them,” says Hugo Sarrazin, chief product and technology officer at UKG. “Then, they can define their own AI journeys.”

Additionally, UKG established an AI governance group, including members from various departments, and organized a generative AI hackathon for the entire company, during which employees were encouraged to use existing AI tools for creative purposes. This hackathon served as a teaching moment, allowing employees to explore and apply AI in their respective roles, from HR to tech support.

The intention is to expand AI access beyond specialized groups, making it part of a collective learning and innovation culture within the organization.

Such an inclusive approach emphasizes that AI can empower employees across different functions, help build confidence in AI systems, and disseminate crucial insights about which use cases and applications work and which don’t.

To support these initiatives, the company created a new UKG Great Place To Work Hub, which leverages AI to guide HR leaders on behaviors and best practices to create great workplace cultures, integrates decades of benchmarks and Trust Index survey results with UKG Pro human capital management (HCM) data. Through open conversation around these empowering insights, HR leaders can decisively shape workplace cultures anchored in trust.

“There are all sorts of signals that exist inside an organization,” says Sarrazin. “If we can use that data as an element to inform decision-making while engaging our employees to be part of the solution, we can do some great stuff with that data.”

With 75% of employees reporting that they would be more accepting about AI if their companies were more forthcoming about how they are using AI, greater transparency and collaboration seems to be the way to increased trust between employees and their companies.

“When employees trust the intentions behind AI, they are more likely to embrace and collaborate with it. Companies on our list have worked very hard to have a high trust level with their employees,” says Bush. “Change can make people fear the unknown, but they won’t panic about their job safety and financial security if the foundation of trust already exists. Instead, they’ll want to learn more.”

This article was created in partnership with FORTUNE Brand Studio.

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Cisco’s Kelly Jones on Making Hybrid Work Successful

2024-01-09T02:00:29-05:00

“People need flexibility and choice. It's crucial to employee engagement, particularly during times of change, which we're all kind of living in all the time.”

On this episode of the Better podcast, Kelly Jones, chief people officer at Cisco, shares what's on her mind as we start a new year. (Hint: trust.)

We also dive into new research around remote and hybrid work, and the impact mandates have.

And, she shares the five questions people managers at Cisco ask in every check-in, including what did you loathe about your week?

She also reveals the secret behind making the Fortune 100 Companies To Work For® List for 26 years.

On navigating hybrid work successfully:

We don't have a mandate. We were very flexible even before flexible work became a thing. It's been a differentiator for us in how we attract and retain talent.

People need flexibility and choice, it's crucial to employee engagement, particularly during times of change, which we're all kind of living in all the time. What we learned wasn’t that people don't want to come in. They just don't want to come in and work asynchronously. What doesn't work is just saying, "Come in these two days because I want to see you."

The types of things that work that we've seen are aligned to learning, collaboration, and different moments and innovation cycles for brainstorming and celebrations.

On why HR and culture leaders should prioritize trust:

One of the things that is really on my mind is trust. It's the most valuable currency that we have with our employees. Trust followed by time — the amount of time that our leaders spend with our teams.

How we navigate in an increasingly complex world and ensure that our teams always understand the why behind any decisions that we make is really important. One of the things I've noticed is whether your employees always agree with you or not on decisions that you're making — if they trust you and they know that you're doing it with their best interests in mind, and they have a history of knowing that you show up for them, that trust is a very valuable currency for organizations.

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On what questions people managers ask in weekly check-ins:

We have kind of a ritualized weekly check-in with our leaders and teams. We ask them to check in and answer a few top-line questions that end up driving a conversation.

Did you get the opportunity to use your strengths every day this week? One to five.
Were you able to provide great value this week? One to five.
How do you feel about the value that you provided?
What did you love that happened this week?
What did you loathe that happened?

“Loathe” is intentionally a divisive word because what we're trying to find out is are our employees working in their strengths? And when leaders understand when they're truly leveraging the strengths of their employees, they can better direct them to the type of work where we're going to get the best outcome.

On the secret to making the Fortune 100 Companies to Work For® List:

Cisco is a big company and I think there's this misperception that there's this huge financial engine. It's not it at all. What is at the center of everything is understanding the experiences of all of our employees.

We have a powerful team in our employee listening space, and one of the things we do at Cisco is we put that at the center of all of our employee design. We've learned that when you design with a community not for a community — even if that community is your entire ecosystem — you are going to get better results.

We are not an organization that sits around as a people team and says, "Gosh, this is a good idea, let's go do it." We don't incubate like that. We incubate through the voices of all of our employees and understanding that becomes incredibly important. That's very much woven into the fabric of our people team and how we go about our work.

I think sometimes you look at talent programs and you assume there's a smart person making decisions about the talent programs. The smart people making our decisions are our employees. They're guiding how we make these choices.

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The AI Revolution at Work: Lessons from OpenAI's CEO Scramble

2023-12-06T13:21:49-05:00

It was the threat from 700 of the company’s 770 employees to quit that brought ousted CEO Sam Altman back.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and Dall-E, has leapt to the front of the generative AI wave crashing into workplaces and companies around the world.

Companies like Microsoft have made big bets on the start-up, and ChatGPT has become the fastest growing consumer product in history with 100 million active users in just two months. So, when the non-profit’s board suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman, the news shook the industry.

Why the company would try to remove an executive that oversaw such historic growth has much to do with the company’s unusual corporate structure and stated mission to build artificial intelligence outside the usual tech ecosystem.

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The palace intrigue of who wanted to remove Altman and why offers few lessons for business leaders trying to navigate the disruption generative AI promises to unleash. Instead, the episode draws a clear picture of the role workplace trust has on the success or failure of a robot-assisted workplace.

Start with trust

As AI disrupts workplace norms, trust will come at a premium. Companies will only succeed in developing new technologies with AI if they can build trust with important stakeholders.

“We believe that companies and people are going to think about who they trust,” shares Michael C. Bush, CEO of ��[�ʘ��®. Speaking with other leaders at a virtual roundtable for Fortune, Bush made the case for trust as the key ingredient in bringing AI successfully into the workplace.

To figure out who to trust, many will look at how employees feel about their company, he says. “One of the considerations: finding companies where the employees trust the companies … not a bad place to start.”

A messy leadership shake-up can undermine that trust, and OpenAI’s board discovered just how those missteps can drive employees to act.

More than 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees signed a letter demanding that Altman be reinstated as CEO, including board member Ilya Sutskever, who had been part of Altman’s ouster. The employees threatened to join Altman at Microsoft to build AI technology directly for the company that had invested billions in OpenAI.

Such a letter from employees demonstrates how the board lost the trust of the rank-and-file workers at the company. The board eventually brought Altman back, and it’s been remade with new additions like former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

Now OpenAI will have to try and rebuild trust.

“We’ll look back on this period as a very brief, highly dramatic blip that gave us a public and dramatic reset,” said Aaron Levie, chief executive of Box, to The New York Times. “This needs to be a trustworthy organization that’s aligned with its board, and at the end of it all, OpenAI is a more valuable organization than it was a week ago.”

How to build trust

��[�ʘ�� has identified three key ingredients in a high-trust workplace culture: credibility, respect, and fairness.

Each of these ingredients is tied to leadership behaviors which can help build trust with employees. “The trend for 2024 is leaders have to up their game,” Bush says.

When OpenAI removed Sam Altman, it violated a core tenet of a high-trust workplace culture: communication and transparency.

The board lost credibility because it didn’t communicate clearly about its decisions. An initial statement that Altman had failed to be “consistently candid in his communications with the board” didn’t satisfy employees.

At the Best Workplaces™, leaders take care to listen to the concerns of employees with surveys and listening groups. More importantly, leaders take action on the issues raised.

“If you don’t do anything, people aren’t going to take the next survey,” Bush says.

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4 Ways To Build Trust With Hispanic and Latino Employees

2023-09-28T07:01:23-04:00

The best workplaces ensure Latino culture is celebrated, every employee has opportunities for learning and development, and employees are recognized for their unique gifts. Here are four ways to build trust with Hispanic and Latino employees.

The Latino workforce in the U.S. has been growing exponentially, with Hispanic and Latino employees expected to account for 78% of net new workers between 2020 and 2030.

The Latino community is a powerhouse in the workplace. Latino employees build deep relationships, have a strong work ethic, and show great care and love for their extended family. When they can bring their full self to the workplace, they become passionate and determined leaders that deliver unmatched results for their organizations.

In a 2023 market survey of 4,400 workers aged 18 and older, ��[�ʘ��® found that only 72% of Latino employees feel they can be their true selves at the typical U.S. workplace. At companies that made the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® List in 2023, nine in 10 Latino employees say they can be their true selves.

��[�ʘ�� analyzed the responses of nearly 40,000 Latino employees received in 2022 and 2023 and found important business benefits for workplaces where Latino employees had a positive experience.

When Latino employees feel they can be their authentic selves, they are three times more likely to stay with their company. When they report having overwhelmingly positive experiences in the workplace, they are 30% more likely to give extra effort at work and six times more likely to recommend their workplace to friends and family.

As Latino workers become a bigger and bigger part of your workforce, the companies that focus on diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging will have a competitive advantage.

Here are four ways to ensure Latino employees feel supported and encouraged to grow:

1. Celebrate Hispanic and Latino culture and the impact it has on your workplace.

Employees shouldn’t have to change or suppress their identity to advance within the organization. Make sure to weed out microaggressions and evaluate the path to promotion to ensure every employee has a fair work environment.

Companies on the 100 Best list consistently outperform on measures of fairness, with nine in 10 Latino employees saying they feel treated fairly regardless of identifying characteristics like gender, race, age, or sexual orientation.

Employee resource groups and other programming to celebrate Latino culture can ensure employees feel there is a place within the organization where they can bring their full identity to work. It’s also crucial to pay attention to the onboarding experience, with nine in 10 Latino employees (94%) at 100 Best companies reporting they feel welcomed when joining the organization.

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2. Make sure everyone has an opportunity for training and career development.

In ��[�ʘ�� research, there is a clear link between opportunities for training and development and the level of engagement for Latino employees.

At the typical U.S. workplace, only six in 10 Latino employees report having training or development opportunities. At the 100 Best, nine in 10 Latino employees say they get training and development.

3. Connect employees with opportunities to give back to local communities.

At workplaces who made the 2023 PEOPLE® Companies that Care List, employers take great pains to ensure every employee has an opportunity to volunteer and give back in their local community.

Latino employees care deeply about relationships within their community, and place great value on opportunities to engage their neighbors.

At the 100 Best, nine of out 10 Latino employees feel great about the ways their company contributes to local communities. At typical U.S. workplaces, fewer than seven in 10 Latino employees (67%) say the same.

The best companies tap into employee resource groups and their Latino employees to identify programs that will make a difference for Hispanic and Latino communities.

4. Ensure all Latino employees have opportunities for recognition.

Hispanic and Latino employees believe in hard work. According to a 2012 Pew survey, 75% of Hispanic employees believe that most people can get ahead if they work hard.

However, this dedication and tenacity is often not recognized by leadership. Only six in 10 Latino employees at a typical U.S. workplace reporting that management shows appreciation for their hard work. At the 100 Best, nine in 10 Latino employees feel appreciated for their hard work.

��[�ʘ�� research has shown that recognition is a key experience for creating a workplace that employees feel is fair. When employees feel consistently recognized at work, they are 2.6 times more likely to believe promotions are fair and two times more likely to say people give extra effort at work.

With more and more of the workforce identifying as Latino, employers should consider every opportunity to build and increase trust within this group. The Best Workplaces are already outperforming their peers by unlocking the full potential of their Latino employees — just one of the reasons these workplaces consistently outperform the stock market by a factor of three.

Learn how to support your Hispanic and Latino employees

Want to know how your Latino workers are experiencing their workplace? Benchmark your performance against the best global data available with our Trust Index™ Survey.

How to Preserve Employee Trust During Times of Disruption

2023-09-13T16:29:21-04:00

When employers take the time to check in on staff during times of disruption, it ensures employee trust is not broken.

They say timing is everything, and any leader who has ever had to manage people during layoffs, mergers, or other company changes would undoubtedly agree.

It’s an obstacle we’ve heard from many leaders, including ��[�ʘ��® Certified™ workplaces. These are companies that fully appreciate the importance of the employee experience, but even they worry sometimes that the timing isn’t right when it comes to seeking employee feedback.

Now is always a good time

Does the statement below sound familiar?

“We just had layoffs/leadership changes/a merger, so things need to settle first.”

It’s understandable. After all, administering an employee engagement survey right after a series of layoffs probably isn’t a good move, right?

Actually, it is.

While things like mergers and layoffs bring big changes to the workplace, they also bring big opportunities. Our research into common HR challenges has shown that when leaders take the time to foster trusting relationships, employees embrace change better.

If a disruptive event has created a culture of uncertainty in your workplace, building trust during this time is one of the smartest strategies you can implement. It signals to employees that their experience is a high priority to you. Even if you anticipate the results may be impacted by recent events, you still want to know what your people are experiencing.

5 tips for overcoming bad timing

If you’re in the midst of a major disruptive event, you can help restore calm and dismantle fear by leaning into the vulnerability, rather than suppressing it for the sake of “saving face.”

Here are five tactics to use if your workplace is undergoing change.

1. Communicate with and check in on employees

Even if you don’t have all the answers, acknowledging people’s fears and offering continued assurance that you will tell them what you can, as soon as you can, is a trust-building activity.

Managers often have to deliver the message of layoffs, budget cuts, and restructures. Rather than sugarcoating, which dismisses employees’ feelings and impedes trust, the best leaders:

Are authentic, honest, and forthright about what has to be done
Promote that everyone is facing change together
Supply employees with all information available and outline next steps
Use adversity as a catalyst to bond and work together to develop solutions
Offer a sense of safety and support

2. Involve employees as much as possible

When real estate investment company Camden Property Trust underwent a reorganization in 2022, it did the opposite of what many companies do in the face of layoffs: It chose to confront the elephant in the room.

Immediately after the restructuring, Camden set up working groups to provide feedback on what was and wasn’t working. Not all the feedback was good. But through that honesty, the company was able to empower employees and give them a voice.

Reengaging employees after a difficult time builds trust. And when employees trust that management is doing everything it can to avoid another layoff, employees are:

9x more likely to give extra effort
2x more likely to adapt quickly to business changes
4x more likely to stay with the company

3. Consider all solutions and possibilities

When stress levels are already sky-high, it’s easy to turn to whatever solution is the quickest and easiest to implement.

But it’s important to take your time and address changes with careful thought — even if that means overhauling how your team works in the new setup.

Global digital entertainment provider Vrio had to address this after a restructuring of its territories into new regions and reporting lines. Diego Benavides, country managing director at DIRECTV Peru, said that optimizing the new structure took several months of discussions with focus groups to analyze the challenges facing them.

Rejecting the traditional top-down approach, the team has since been able to churn out new product designs and solve issues with cross-departmental collaboration.

4. Honor the results of change

While all change is difficult at first, good change should bring forward new and improved ways of working. Look for opportunities to pause, seek feedback, and bring employees together to reflect or honor the results of that change. At Camden, participants in the working group said they valued the chance to help shape the company’s future.

5. Focus on strengths and build from there

Examine what your people do best and how those advantages can be applied to the new circumstances. When you focus on strengths, it enables everyone to find their footing faster and manage change with less fear and more trust in their company, co-workers, and abilities.

While transitioning to remote work during the pandemic, ALKU leaned into its biggest strength — their deeply ingrained recognition culture — to ensure a high level of employee trust and appreciation, maintaining its company values, even in unprecedented circumstances.

Despite a drastic change from a 100% office-based work environment to a fully remote setup, 99% of employees reported feeling appreciated in their employee survey.

ALKU achieved this through new remote-friendly recognition strategies such as the weekly “Corporate Cup Program,” which highlights outstanding efforts of individuals or groups.

These initiatives, tuned to the work-from-home scenario, not only helped in retaining the essence of their vibrant work culture but showcased ALKU’s commitment to employee well-being, thereby forging a stronger bond of trust and camaraderie amidst challenging times.

In times of disruption, stay consistent

A final note: Don’t let change undo the employee trust you’ve cultivated to date, such as diversity initiatives (often the first to fall away during layoffs) or commitments to transparency (often absent during M&As). To better position your team for success in the new setup, double down on clear communication and show employees that you care.

When software companies Kronos and Ultimate Software merged to create UKG, one of employees’ primary concerns was benefit retention. In response, the leadership team recalibrated benefits across both companies, which resulted in an even more generous package.

This was a change that wouldn’t have happened without input from employees — something that UKG requested to ensure the merger went as smoothly as possible for everyone.

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How To Survey Employees During A Crisis

2023-05-19T15:23:37-04:00

6 Common Mistakes Leaders Make About Trust at Work

2022-11-08T15:56:55-05:00

Trust at work is crucial for business operations. So, why do so many organizations get it so wrong?

The concept of trust — particularly in the workplace — is deceptively simple.

What is trust at work? It’s a measure of relationships, how one group (employees) feels valued and understood by another (management). The presence of trust indicates healthy workplace culture, as well as a host of benefits to the organization, from resilience and innovation to stock market success.

Yet, it’s something that even the most well-meaning leaders can get wrong.

��[�ʘ��® has been measuring high-trust work culture for 30 years and has defined the elements of trust for employees (credibility, respect, and fairness). Data has shown how diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging must be embraced to build trust across an organization.

Over the years, our experts have learned a thing or two about the more misguided notions business leaders have about trust. Here are some of the most common mistakes.

1. Building trust is HR’s job.

Even the most hands-on leaders often fail to understand how central a role they play in building trust with employees. A CEO will make a speech about the importance of culture to the organization — and then pass the baton to the HR team.

Julian Lute, senior strategic advisor with ��[�ʘ��, explains that leaders often fail to ask questions about how they influence company culture:

How are we making decisions about the business?
How are we communicating our decisions?
How are we listening to feedback and incorporating it into future activities?

“It’s almost like culture lives on this island,” Lute says, when in fact culture has everything to do with the actions of leaders. “It’s really about how people experience their leadership.”

2. Trust can be built quickly.

After a company surveys employees, it often expects to put things right immediately. However, trust is something that can only be built over time, through a continual process of delivering on promises again and again.

Lute says leaders are often frustrated when results don’t change by the next fiscal quarter or before the next pulse survey. His more realistic timetable for seeing meaningful movement is 18 to 24 months.

But that doesn’t mean you should wait to start building trust.

“Your opportunity to build trust always starts now,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president of global recognition at ��[�ʘ��. And while it is more difficult to build trust in a crisis, you always have the opportunity to start building for the future.

“The decisions people make today are critical to the workplace they will have in a few years,” she says.

3. Money can buy trust.

Many leaders mistakenly think they can buy trust with expensive perks and benefit programs.

Lewis-Kulin explains that employees often separate the parts of their work experience that feel transactional. If an employee is dissatisfied with their work culture, their colleagues, or their leadership team, a superb childcare benefit won’t tip the scales.

Employee programs and benefits are important, Lewis-Kulin says, but they won’t make up for a lack of trust. They’re tools that leaders can implement, but they must coincide with complementary company values.

“When you launch the new parental leave program, you must actually allow people to use it and still promote people when they decide to become parents,” Lewis-Kulin offers as an example. “It's that kind of consistency that makes employees feel like they can genuinely trust leaders.”

4. Employee trust is the same as engagement or happiness.

When looking at data from the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work For® list that ��[�ʘ�� produces each year, it’s tempting to interpret it simply as a measure of employee engagement, or even individual happiness.

That’s a mistake.

Lewis-Kulin argues engagement or job satisfaction alone are poor indicators of the overall employee experience. They might be part of the picture, but all workers go through phases of engagement and disengagement, to say nothing of emotional peaks and valleys.

What ��[�ʘ�� measures is trust — and it’s trust that has a transformational business impact on retention, recruitment, and stock prices.

5. Employees don’t have to trust you to get their job done.

Does it really matter how employees feel?

“People will say: ‘Do we pay them? Do they show up to work? Do they have a job?’ That’s the thing that should motivate employees to do what we need to do for our customers,” Lute says.

But employee trust shows up in their work. Employees who feel empowered by their organization are more likely to innovate and go above and beyond for their organization. ��[�ʘ�� research found that the biggest difference between typical U.S. workplaces and great workplaces is the willingness to give extra at work. Great workplaces — and the Best Workplaces — enjoy 55% and 81% more discretionary effort, respectively, than a typical workplace.

Employees also notice when care and concern shown for customers is never extended to them.

It’s not uncommon to hear employees say, “We will do anything for our customers — but when we as employees need any sort of support, it’s a fight,” Lute says.

The best companies know that employees deserve the same level of care and consideration. “It’s that same intimacy you would have with your customers,” Lute says.

6. It’s no big deal if some employee groups don’t trust you.

Without numbers, it’s easy to miss how some groups of employees feel left out at work. Frontline employees often have a worse experience than in-office workers and senior management — and the experience of culture can be deeply divided across an organization.

“If you’re out on the field, you don’t get to go to the birthday party,” says Lute. If your work culture only exists in office activities — workers who don’t participate find it harder to think of themselves as part of the whole.

That’s a problem because often frontline workers are also your brand ambassadors in the community. Employees performing services in the community are the most tangible expression of your brand for most customers.

“If that person’s late, if that person doesn’t finish the job, if that person is rude, if that person has lots of other stuff on their mind, blocks your driveway, hits your car — that person is your representative in that moment,” Lute says.

For companies that wonder how employee trust is affecting customers, Lute recommends going back into your customer experience data.

In his experience, where trust is lacking, so is the experience for customers.

Measure trust today

If you want to get a pulse on how much trust is at the center of your workplace, ask us about the ��[�ʘ�� Trust Index™ Survey.

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2022-06-08T18:14:36-04:00