Trust and employee happiness: What you need to know

The fact that trust is a massively important issue in company communications shouldn’t be breaking news for anyone. And who employees tend to trust shouldn’t come as a surprise, either. The answer? Employees put their trust in other employees.

Here’s our latest installment in our series of six articles for captivating and engaging your company’s biggest asset, your employees. In the last installment, I talked a bit about the importance of brevity in Why Short is So Sweet, and another pressing issue: employee contribution.

After all, from an early age we learn to count on our peers. Our formative years are filled with blindfolded trust walks and often terrifying trust falls. We’re told that trust is one of the cornerstones of any kind of group interaction—from games of hide and seek to science projects.

And that doesn’t go away once we graduate from juice boxes to lattes, or from passing notes during algebra class to keeping up with internal company content. We place our trust in our fellow employees rather than people in positions of power.

To learn more proven tips with employee communications, read our new ebook, 6 Ways to Attract And Keep Your Employees’ Attention.

According to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, one-third of employees don’t trust their employer. In fact, trust tends to diminish the further down the company hierarchy you get: 64% of executives trust their organization, as opposed to a mere 48% of regular staff.

We have some bad news and some good news when it comes to trust. First, the bad news: worldwide trust is slipping and dramatically, which affects businesses. A good example is the credibility of CEOs alone fell to 37% globally, down 12 points from last year.

The good news? It’s possible to harness the trust that employees have in each other. According to Firstup’s findings, employee generated content (EGC) resonates better (and more trustworthy) than corporate content. There’s a greater chance your employees will stay connected if you give them a chance to contribute and exchange company stories because people want to hear from their peers.

And we’re not alone in the conclusion that employee-generated content is advantageous. The Harvard Business Review found several benefits in encouraging content contributed by employees. The content was higher quality and more varied, and employees actually experienced a boost in engagement when they produce—rather than merely consume—content.

You may remember from my first post in this series, Go Mobile or Go Home,  employee engagement is one of the three most important factors in determining business success.

When you empower employees to post content that highlights company perks (that new burrito bar in the cafeteria or those pre-work yoga classes) or aspects of the company culture (a team dinner to celebrate a big anniversary or a company-sponsored marathon run), you’re inspiring employee engagement and nurturing a climate of trust. Because while companies may have a ways to go when it comes to employee trust in CEOs, peer confidence is going strong.

And what better way to celebrate that fact than with a newsfeed packed with employee-submitted content?