15th July 2026
Why Workplace Trust Is a Business Priority
Employee trust in organisational leaders is declining, creating significant risks for performance and engagement. The article argues that trust is built through transparent communication, authentic leadership and capable managers rather than polished messaging. Organisations that prioritise honest conversations and invest in manager capability are better equipped to navigate change and sustain high performance.
This article was written by Allie Nawrat and published in Unleash.
Half of employees do not trust their CEO.
That’s the top line finding of Ipsos, Karian and Box’s 2026 IC index.
Furthermore, trust in leadership is on a negative trajectory, according to the survey of 5,000 workers.
In the last year, trust in CEOs dropped nine percentage points. The decline was seven percentage points for all senior leaders.
This is a huge business risk for employers.
“Change is the new constant…in times of uncertainty, trust becomes pivotal,” Ipsos, Karian and Box Senior Consultant, Joe Rollins, tells UNLEASH.
In fact, according to Dr Ben Granger, Chief Workplace Psychologist at experience giant Qualtrics, “trust may very well be the most valuable currency organizations deal in.”
The challenge is that low trust “shows up in commercial performance, decision-making and risk taking,” comments Tom Emery, a CHRO turned author and founder of people performance consultancy HEX.
The uncomfortable reality is that employers simply cannot afford to continue operating in this low trust reality. If companies want to thrive in a challenging, complex world, they need to act urgently.
As Emery shares, it’s easy to assume that “trust exists naturally in everyone,” At the same time “trust has to be built. It’s an earned behavior over time.”
Where should organizations focus to re-earn that trust with their people? UNLEASH put this question to Emery, Dr Granger and Rollins.
Change itself isn’t the problem – the issue is your communication
It’s impossible for organizations to solve their trust challenge without fully understanding the reasons underlying it.
It is understandable to attribute the unprecedented pace of change facing organizations and employees as the cause of falling trust.
But the data tells a different story.
Qualtrics’ Global Employee Experience Trends report found that change itself is not the enemy; what matters is how that change is managed.
This is confirmed by Ipsos, Karian & Box’s Work On What Matters data – the survey found that two in three say the pace of change is manageable within their organization.
The value of that change is what they are questioning.
Around half (44%) of employees said the benefits of recent organizational changes outweigh the disruption they caused, and just two in five said the changes made it easier to do great work.
“Change is omnipresent in organizations, but they fail to make it feel human,” Emery tells UNLEASH.
“It’s treated as a project rather than a human experience to be navigated together,” he adds.
“We plan, announce and cascade, but don’t sit and listen. Trust erodes during change because people feel like it’s done to them.”
It is simply human nature to want to understand the why behind changes.
Dr Granger shares that the trust problem is actually a “communication problem” – “the problem is how leaders are communicating changes: often with no clear ‘what’s in it for me’ from the perspective of employees.”
“We’re seeing trust eroding because employees are experiencing significant change without being given enough clarity, honesty and involvement from their organization,” adds Rollins.
Read the full article here: Low trust isn’t just a HR problem. It’s a business emergency.
