Only 33% of employees say they trust their senior managers

This is one of the key findings from the latest Employee Outlook survey report from the CIPD.

Does this matter? Well, if you don’t trust someone you are unlikely to want to pull out the stops for them, or their company. Test this on yourself – would you go the extra mile for someone you didn’t trust?

Trust can often be an undervalued aspect of the work environment. The signals we tune in to which indicate whether or not to trust a person come from the voice tone and body language as much as the words they use. Electronic communication needs to work much harder to accomplish this.

Global teams understand the importance of trust. They know that to successfully complete an international project requires a good degree of trust – and to know where trust starts and stops.

John Spiers of Reuters UK conducted an excellent NLP modelling project on global virtual teams. You can read about it in my book NLP Business Masterclass.

What are the consequences of ignoring the value of trust for your business?

Read the free report from the CIPD to find out more about employees’ attitudes towards management, workloads and the recession.

David Molden, FCIPD.
Quadrant 1 International