Actions Speak Loudly to Employees

Building Trust and Loyalty: Three-quarters of employees trust their managers, well above the six in 10 who profess similar trust among top executives. Consulting company BlessingWhite of Princeton, New Jersey, surveyed 7,500 workers on three continents and found little variation. In the U.S., Canada and Mexico, 75 percent trust their manager, but only 53 percent trust senior management. Skepticism (or is it cynicism?) is a growing problem among North American companies, with nearly one-quarter (22 percent) expressing a distrust of top brass. The findings point up a correlation between an employee’s trust of management and their own engagement according to BlessingWhite. For example, nearly 30 percent of North American workers identify themselves as “fully engaged,” and of that percentage, 91 percent trust managers and 80 percent put their trust in corporate decision-makers.