HUMAN RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT RESEARCH STAFF
In The News: Does Lower Trust In The Workplace Lead To Lower Productivity?
August 17, 2023 ·
Contributed by: John Dujay, Human Resources Director
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Greater trust equals better outcomes
“If you trust those you’re working with and you feel that you are trusted, it’s much easier to relax and let go of image concerns and just focus on your work because you’re not managing conflicts or things like that. So it does jive with what we know about productivity,” says Erin Reid, professor of human resources and management at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Trusted employees are also prepared to work hard, found the study, as 40% of respondents will go above and beyond versus those who don’t feel trusted (33%).
This workplace perception plays a big role in worker performance, says Reid.
“A lot of my research is around image and identity and people trying to live up to idealized expectations about what it means to be a worker, and if I think about that from a trust angle, if you have high trust, you might be able to, as an individual, let go of those idealized expectations and just be yourself and do your work.”
“Whereas if you don’t have a lot of trust, that might be a situation where you’re trying to be the perfect reporter, for example, or the perfect lawyer and all the effort that you put into being the perfect incumbent of your role is efforts that you’re not putting into actually doing your work.”
Wellness goes down with lack of trust
By not feeling trusted, employees have worsened health outcomes, according to the Slack research. Stress and anxiety are greater by a factor of 2.3 times, which leads to a lesser sense of belonging by 4.2 times.
Feelings of distrust could have grown due to a new feature found in many workplaces, says Reid.
“We increasingly have all kinds of employee monitoring that happens now that didn’t used to happen, so people know that their email can be monitored, their internet usage as well, or if you’re working in a warehouse sometimes your steps are monitored; truck drivers, their mileage and their routes are monitored. All of that monitoring conveys that the employer fundamentally does not trust the employee — it’s baked into it,” she says.
Read the full article published in the Human Resources Director.
