Employee trust is top predictor for business performance

Trust is at the heart of loyalty and growth. That’s true in our personal and professional lives but equally in our relationships with customers – as this recent Currys story shows us.

So why aren’t more brands ready to trust their own people to get on social and start talking to their customers?

While advocacy is prevalent in B2B, it has been less so in retail – until now. Once again, the pandemic has changed everything.

Back in Spring 2020, Harvard Business School wrote about how Covid-19 was already rewriting the future of business, with Michael Beer, director at the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, arguing: ‘Organisations will develop trust-based cultures with employees’.

His prediction proved accurate. A recent article from Willis Towers Watson shared evidence of how businesses who have successfully built employee trust in the past 18 months are set to thrive:

‘We know that a high-performance employee experience, and specifically employee trust, is a top predictor for business performance.‘

For example, low employee experience companies have lower gross profit margins, return on equity and revenue growth than strong employee experience companies.

Digging into the employee survey data from their own company, they found the employee experience that best reflects employee connection includes 4 contributing factors: collaboration; inspiration; inclusion and trust.

The area most likely to build more trust is when the employer trusts the employees judgement.

This data backs up what Currys already knows. Training and empowering your employees to engage directly with your customers on social media can build strong two-way relationships, increase trust and make you a more human brand.