How to Measure Trust and Belonging: Knowing if you have a high-trust workplace
Leaders can boost employee engagement by cultivating trust and belonging. The first step is measuring current sentiment with surveys, interviews, and indirect evidence.
Trust and belonging are two critical, but often overlooked, qualities of highly effective teams and workplaces. When employees trust their colleagues and feel connected to the mission of the organization, they are happier and more productive. Crucially, they are also more engaged and enthusiastic about their work. Trust and belonging translate into better customer satisfaction, higher-quality products, and increased profitability.
The Boston Consulting Group examined stakeholder perceptions of 1,000 of the world’s largest companies to gain a better understanding of trust in the workplace. This study found that the 100 most trusted companies generated 2.5 times as much value as comparable businesses. The study also discovered that trust is highly dynamic: Fewer than half of the Top 100 companies from any given year were still in the Top 100 the following year. For the Bottom 100, turnover was as high as 70%. Trust and belonging can’t be taken for granted; leaders must measure and manage trust on an ongoing basis.
