Workers’ trust in employer up, says survey

The average employee looks to their employer to improve their welfare as well as drive change in society, a new report shows.
This is contrary to the common expectation that government, activists and media, among other agencies, bring the most change.

According to PR firm Edelman, trust has changed profoundly in the last 10 years with “my employer” emerging as the most trusted institution. 

“Globally, ‘my employer’ (75 per cent) is significantly more trusted than NGOs (57 per cent), business (56 per cent), government (48 per cent) and media (47 per cent),” says Edelman in its 2019 Trust Barometer report.

The firm’s president and CEO Richard Edelman said the last decade has seen a loss of faith in traditional authority figures and institutions.

“More recently, people have lost confidence in the social platforms that fostered peer-to-peer trust. These forces have led people to shift their trust to the relationships within their control, most notably their employers,” he added.

Informed public

Mr Edelman said the shift to localised trust is unfolding against the backdrop of a return to the largest-ever trust gap of 16 points between the informed public (65 per cent) and mass population (49 per cent). 

The separation is driven by record-high spikes in trust among the informed public in developed markets, while mass population trust remains relatively flat. 

“The trust gap is severe in developed nations (UK 24 points, Canada 20 points, France 18 points, US 13 points) and has now moved into the developing world (India 17 points, China 12 points),” said Edelman.

At the same time, he said the trust disparity is also partly explained by gender where the gap is in the double digits in several developed markets, such as Germany (12 points) and the US (11 points), mostly driven by women’s lower trust in business.