Do Your Employees Trust You?

There’s a good chance your employees may not trust you.

U.S. workers have serious doubts about their leaders, according to a recent survey conducted by New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting. In fact, just 40 percent trust top management to communicate honestly with them, while only 38 percent believe their leadership does a good job explaining important company decisions.

Among Mercer’s other findings:

• 39 percent of workers believe senior management does a good job confronting issues before they become major workplace problems.
• Less than half – 49 percent – believe their organization is well managed.
• Likewise, 49 percent agreed with the statement “senior management communicates a clear vision of the future direction of my organization.”
• 52 percent agreed that “senior management does a good job of establishing clear objectives.”
• Of employees who believe management does not communicate well, 63 percent believe their organizations are not well managed.
• Of employees who do not trust management, 56 percent believe their organizations are not well managed.

“Our survey found that US workers feel pride in their organizations, but they don’t exhibit much trust in the people running their companies,” says Rod Fralicx, Mercer’s global employee research director and the survey’s manager. “It’s the responsibility of top management to make sure everyone understands where the organization is going and why it’s going there. It’s a line-of-sight problem with employees not getting enough clear information about the direction of their company. If they don’t address it, employees’ cynicism about the quality of their leaders will mount, and that will lead to a less committed and less engaged workforce.”