Only one-third actively working to build or maintain employee trust
Nearly all (96 per cent) of CEOs say that trust-building with stakeholders is a high or essential priority compared to other business priorities, with 42 per cent saying that they have placed greater importance on the matter in the past five years.
However, only 34 per cent actively work to build or maintain employee trust within their business by following defined specific plans or processes, found a new study from YPO (Young Presidents Organization).
More than six in 10 (61 per cent) say that they actively work on trust-building with employees but say nothing about having defined plans. Six per cent, meanwhile, claim they are not actively working to build trust with employees, according to a survey of 2,960 CEOs from 115 countries.
Only 37 per cent say that they have measured employee trust while 43 per cent intend to do so.
Among those who have actively worked on it and have defined metrics, 77 per cent say that their efforts have been very effective, compared with 56 per cent of those who work on it without mention of defined plans, says YPO.
Building trust
Nearly six in 10 (58 per cent) find it easy or somewhat easy to build trust with senior leadership, while 48 per cent and 45 per cent claim it is easy or somewhat easy to do so with suppliers and with investors, respectively.
However, confidence in the ease of building trust drops to 40 per cent when it comes to employees and 36 per cent when dealing with customers or clients.
CEOs also claim that regularly communicating (42 per cent) and being transparent or honest (35 per cent) are the most important actions to take to build employee trust, while competing priorities (41 per cent) and lack of time devoted to doing it (34 per cent) are the top obstacles.
Leaders learn how to build or maintain employee trust through personal experiences (67 per cent) and by hearing from their employees (42 per cent).
