Johannesburg - A lack of trust between employees and management is a reason for the country’s slow economic growth and employment disengagement, says management training and assessment services company FranklinCovey.
The organisation released its first national corporate trust index on Tuesday which showed that trust was significantly low in South African working environments.
The index revealed a national trust score of 57 out of 100. A score below 60 is viewed as very low according to global research standards.
FranklinCovey SA CEO Marlinie Ramsamy said the element of trust in an organisation was often overlooked.
“An absence of trust in the workplace impacts negatively on innovation, engagement, team co-operation and agility. Organisations that operate at a low level of trust do not enjoy business confidence, sustainability or financial success. Building trust is a long-term strategy to achieve sustainability, you can achieve quick results in a culture of fear and mistrust, but these results won’t be sustainable,”
Results also indicated that 52 percent of respondents gave their organisation a low trust rating, as well as 15 percent who were interviewed said there was either a very low or no trust in their workplace.
Despite results proving to be very low, research also showed that some organisations said trust is viewed as a vital asset in growth for their organisation.
Ramsamy emphasised on the fact that a high trust culture will inevitably increase organisational excellence and performance.
“The ability to establish, extend and restore trust with all stakeholders, whether they’re customers, business partners, investors or co-workers, is the key leadership competency of the new global economy,” she said.
“Leaders of sustainable and profitable organisations are looking beyond the common view of trust as a soft, social virtue, and learning to see it as a critical, highly relevant performance multiplier.”
Ramsamy said that if there was not trust, employees were reluctant in collaborating and being creative.
“Think about it would you be collaborative in a no trust environment? Would you be innovative and bring your best thinking to the fore. I don't think so. This will of course impact longevity and performance of an organisation. It is not the organisation that we need to look at it is the people.”
Private companies displayed the highest levels of trust, scoring 66.3 on the index.
Publicly traded companies scored 56.7 and government departments and state-owned enterprises had a low score of trust at 48.8.
The lowest level of trust was among junior and middle managers, with a score of 50. The highest score on the index was found among senior and top management at 65.
Labour Bureau