Memo to Senior Leaders: Engage!

Workers say they trust their manager 20 percent more than their organization's senior leadership, according to new research. Can HR build a bridge of trust between the C-suite and the workforce? Experts say yes, but only if the top leaders are willing to do some of the heavy lifting.

By Michael O'Brien

Every great relationship is built on trust, which may help to explain why so many relationships between corporate executives and their workers are on the rocks these days.

From bailouts to excessive executive compensation, it seems the nation's corporate leaders are taking a beating on the trust front, and that battle is becoming evident in the workplace: Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of workers say they trust their managers, compared to just about half (52 percent) who express trust in their organization's top leaders, according to research by BlessingWhite.

While that low level of trust in the C-suite may not come as a surprise to anyone following the news, the research also uncovered the startling finding that trust in executives has a stronger correlation to employee engagement than trust in immediate managers.

According to the Employee Engagement Report 2011 by the Princeton, N.J.-based consulting firm -- which is based on interviews of 10,914 employed professionals in North America -- 50 percent of employees who trust their senior leadership say they are engaged in their job, compared to 40 percent of those who trust their direct boss.

BlessingWhite CEO Christopher Rice says individuals can enjoy their work and have a strong sense of accomplishment, "but if they don't trust their boss, or their boss' boss, they'll begin to question how they fit in with the company and have less pride in the organization overall."

And, while most immediate supervisors and managers can exhibit trustworthiness in their daily actions and become known as individuals and not just titles, executives don't have that luxury, he says.

"The workforce scrutinizes what they do, see and hear -- and will draw the most unexpected, unfortunate conclusions if leaders do not communicate carefully," he says.

Rice recounts a recent conversation with one senior leader who couldn't understand why trust in executives was so low.

" 'I've never violated any federal laws,' " Rice recalls the executive telling him. " 'I don't understand that low score.' "

"So I told her, 'Well, [executives are] held to a higher standard than the federal government,' " he says.

Lindsay Hutter, Washington-based U.S. practice leader for change and internal communications for consultancy Hill and Knowlton, says the study's findings are understandable. She links it to the growing importance of personal branding.

"Executives have brands their companies spend considerable time and resources to develop those executive brands. Managers are not as much focused on their own brand and companies do not cultivate them to the degree they cultivate leadership personas," she says.

Patrick Kulesa, global research director at New York-based Towers Watson, says his firm's data also suggests a gulf between the C-suite and the cube farm.

"For example, in our 2010 Global Workforce Study, we found that the most desired leadership characteristic is to be trustworthy, but [only 47 percent] of respondents agree that their leaders are, in fact, trustworthy," he says.

"Closing these gaps between what is desired and what is displayed are just crucial to improving engagement and getting the most from the workforce," Kulesa says.

Good leadership, he says, is about taking action and being visible just as much as it is about setting direction and being good communicators.

"As far as building trust, actions are judged every bit as important as words," he says.

He says that many "enlightened HR departments" are now focusing on how corporate leaders can show concern for employee well-being as a way to sustain employee motivation.

That concern, he says, "might mean promoting positive team environments and being innovative in terms of meeting flexibility and work/life balance needs."

Rice says employee engagement "doesn't receive the attention" that it should in many organizations.

"Employee engagement should be a shared responsibility between HR and senior management," he says. "This should be a daily priority: 'How do we improve engagement?' "

And, it's all the more important, he says, because the downturn forced many organizations to thin their ranks, so that organizations "tend to have the employees that they really want on the field right now."

Should those workers leave, it would be even more devastating to the organization, which makes a positive, trusting relationship with the C-suite all the more important, he says.

"It all ties back to the retention of employees," he says.

He says HR leaders must improve not only their own communication skills, but also strive to get senior leaders to become more of a presence to workers.

"During the last recession, senior leaders didn't travel as much [due to cutbacks], but workers still need to see them face-to-face," he says.

Rice says HR leaders also should say directly to the C-suite: "You have to reveal things about yourself," but adds that the personal, dirty laundry of those leaders should be left in the hamper when it comes to topics to share.

A first step to constructing a bridge of trust with employees may be asking for their thoughts, he says.

Organizations that survey their workers and then take visible follow-up action on the information report a 47-percent level of employee engagement, according to BlessingWhite.

That's compared to 27-percent engagement levels for employees who were not surveyed at all and, even worse, a 24-percent engagement for employees who were surveyed, but saw no follow-up from the company.

"It's better to do nothing at all than to just survey, with no follow-up action," he says. "A survey with no action is actually worse than nothing."

Although levels of engagement are low, they have been stable, he says.

On a global level, the BlessingWhite report shows that "engagement did not decline since late 2008," he says, adding that, in China, which has the lowest engagement anywhere, it actually increased since the last report.