OTSP #10: The Decline in Employees’ Trust in Each Other

When companies talk about trust, the conversation usually centers on whether employees trust their leaders. But what happens when employees stop trusting each other? Edelman’s latest Trust at Work study found that trust in coworkers is falling faster than trust in managers or CEOs. That decline can undermine collaboration, weaken communication, and leave employees questioning their colleagues’ motives. Bad experiences with organizational change, including the introduction of AI, may be making matters worse. In this episode of *On the Same Page*, Shel and Mark explore why internal communicators should pay more attention to peer-to-peer trust. They discuss the everyday behaviors that build or erode trust, how managers shape relationships within their teams, and why candor matters when plans change or answers aren’t available. Along the way, they consider what communicators can measure, the behaviors they can reinforce, and where communication alone cannot solve the problem. Trust may appear in the company’s values, but keeping it alive takes more than putting the word on a wall. **Links from this episode:** - Coworkers say they distrust each other more than ever - Trust at Work: Transformation Triggering Trust Demise - New Workday Global Research Finds AI is Easing Burnout but May Be Deepening a Connection Deficit at Work - Gen Zers are more disconnected and distrustful of coworkers than their older colleagues—and they’re so lonely they’re taking days off work - Gen Z doesn’t trust anyone—especially their bosses, data shows - PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey - Companies overestimate their employees’ trust. That’s bad for business, PwC says. - Antecedents of coworker trust: Leaders’ blessings - How Managers Impact Team Productivity **Raw transcript:** **Shel Holtz:** Mark, trust is key to any organizational communication effort. When I think about trust as an internal communications factor, I think about it in several ways. How much do employees trust leaders? How much do they trust their managers? It works in the opposite direction, too: How much do leaders and managers trust employees? I also think about departments that may not trust one another. I’ve heard some interesting stories about departmental trust. But one thing I hadn’t considered was the possibility that employees simply don’t trust each other. Edelman just released its Trust at Work study, surveying more than 10,000 employees across 10 markets. Trust in coworkers fell from 82% in August 2024 to 73% today. Trust in direct managers dropped from 79% to 72%, and trust in CEOs fell from 70% to 66%. Each is a record low in Edelman’s data. Here’s what bothers me: Two years ago, coworkers were the group employees trusted most, ahead of managers and the CEO. Now, their trust is declining fastest. **Mark Dollins:** We often talk about culture and how, when it isn’t consciously attended to, things happen that usually aren’t what you want. I suspect trust, which is often expressed as a cultural value, is eroding partly because organizations and employees expect it to be there without thinking much about it. Add remote working and team structures in which people aren’t in the same location, and it’s easy to see how trust can erode. In one sense, that decline is shocking. In another, it isn’t surprising that it’s happening. The speed of the decline surprises me most. **Shel Holtz:** Me too. AI may have something to do with it. Some data suggests employees are turning to AI instead of reaching out to coworkers. The less interaction you have with colleagues, perhaps the less you trust them. There would certainly be implications for internal communications if employees trusted each other less. What do you see as some of those impacts? **Mark Dollins:** You’re less productive if you don’t trust each other, and you’re less likely to collaborate. Even when you do collaborate, you may not trust what you receive. People start looking for ulterior motives. It’s no longer just about the work. It becomes, “What is this person trying to accomplish? Am I truly a collaborator, or am I standing in the way of what they want?” We’ve all heard employees say, “I get the work done, but I don’t trust that person,” whether they’re talking about a manager, a peer, or somebody in another department. You still have to work together, get along, and build trust. **Shel Holtz:** It may also affect how employees receive our messages. Someone might say, “I’ll go along with this, but I don’t trust other people to pay attention to it.” What does that do to the impact we’re trying to achieve—the change in behavior, attitude, opinion, or belief? **Mark Dollins:** If we aren’t paying attention, this will continue. Communicators should be actively engaged in the issue. Trust discussions often focus on external stakeholders and whether they believe the company is doing the right thing. Internally, we’re now recognizing there’s much more to it. If we can’t trust each other to get the job done, we have a problem that starts much closer to home. This is ground zero for internal communicators. **Shel Holtz:** Some of Edelman’s findings should particularly interest you, given your focus on change. Three-quarters of respondents had experienced at least one transformation in the past year. The most common, reported by 53%, was AI implementation. Among employees who had a bad transformation experience, trust in coworkers with different values dropped from 77% to 50%. When change goes badly, it doesn’t just erode trust in leadership. People retreat into their own camps. **Mark Dollins:** Sadly, this is only the beginning of change on that scale. AI isn’t going away. I suspect it will become bigger and more complex, especially as regulation adds another dimension to how we use and trust it. That reinforces what we discussed about change management as an essential part of AI adoption or any significant technological change. We can’t treat this as simply a technology rollout. It’s change with a capital C, and it needs to be managed. **Shel Holtz:** I looked for other research exploring declining trust among employees. Workday’s Human Connection Workplace Index found that a third of employees rarely or never have a conversation with a colleague that goes beyond transactional work. PwC has made the point that people don’t trust what they don’t know. Without regular interaction, you don’t develop trust. Could part of the explanation be that simple? **Mark Dollins:** I suspect a good portion of it is. Think about what builds trust: setting an example, doing what you say you’ll do, following through, and establishing clear expectations. If you’re a leader, you explain the standard and address situations in which people fall short. Many of the behaviors that build trust between leaders and employees also apply between peers. If I tell you I’ll get something to you today, Shel, and I don’t, your trust in me begins to erode. I deserve that unless I take responsibility and explain: “I know what I promised. I can’t deliver it today, and here’s why. Here’s what I’ll do to make it right.” Taking ownership builds trust. These are simple things—common decency and human behavior—that sit at the center of peer-to-peer trust. **Shel Holtz:** It’s also about bringing people together and spending time together beyond work transactions. **Mark Dollins:** It’s easy to distrust people we don’t know. “You’re a stranger. I don’t know you, so I don’t trust you.” **Shel Holtz:** We talk about this with safety all the time. You can encourage people to speak up until you’re blue in the face, but it’s different when they know each other well enough to care personally. “I know about your family and the challenges you’re facing. I see you doing something dangerous, and I’m going to speak up because I don’t want you to get hurt.” That extends well beyond safety. **Mark Dollins:** A question for you, Shel: When you work with organizations on their values and how to bring those values to life, trust comes up in almost every set of company values I’ve seen. How do you make it a living, breathing part of the organization? **Shel Holtz:** For the past nine years, I’ve worked with one organization. Trust is one of our core values and one of the four planks of our strategic plan. We have committees working on it, we’ve researched it, and we’re taking tangible steps to build trust internally and externally. If I were advising an organization today, I’d start with measurement. You can say trust between peers has declined, but you can’t explain why without asking. You need to understand what’s underneath it. **Mark Dollins:** As you say that, I’m thinking about pulse surveys. They’re a common measurement tool, but I can’t say I’ve seen many that specifically focus on internal trust. Perhaps some of our viewers can tell us what they’re doing to measure trust in their organizations. Even when trust isn’t explicitly named as a value, it often appears in how organizations define respect. Respect is another value that comes up frequently, and its definition often includes building trust among stakeholders. **Shel Holtz:** We’ve talked about engagement before. I think one reason people have become skeptical of engagement surveys is that they don’t explore these underlying issues. Our engagement survey has 40 questions. We aren’t tying it to Gallup or another packaged survey. We want to understand the issues underlying engagement, and several questions concern relationships with peers. We do explore that where I work. I also found an older study, from 2008, showing that employees trust peers more when their formal leader trusts those peers. That effect was stronger when team performance was poor. Manager behavior helps shape who gets trusted. That connects directly to the manager communication work we do. **Mark Dollins:** Often, we don’t do enough of it. We can coach managers to lead in ways that build trust. Most of us have experienced a micromanager. Managers need to understand what that behavior looks like and how it affects their teams’ willingness to trust them. Whether or not it’s intentional, micromanagement communicates, “I don’t trust you.” It’s a two-way street. Empower employees to do their jobs and step back. If something goes wrong, address it. But give people the opportunity to demonstrate that they can do the work. That communicates, “I trust you to do the job I hired you to do, and you can trust me to fulfill my responsibilities to you and the team.” **Shel Holtz:** I’ve been thinking about what communicators can do. There are limits; we can’t fix every issue through communication. First, measure it. PwC found that executives overestimate how much they’re trusted, and most trust measures are subjective. If we don’t ask about peer trust in our surveys, we don’t know where we stand. Second, get honest about change. Edelman’s prescription is “truth well told”: Explain what’s changing, what isn’t, and how employees have a say. That requires a real conversation, not simply a rollout announcement. Third, equip managers. Gallup says managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. They help establish the conditions in which peers trust each other, yet many have never been trained to do that. **Mark Dollins:** A culture of trust begins at the top. In many organizations I’ve worked with, a lack of transparency and candor has interfered with trust, particularly during significant change. I’ve always advocated that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know,” or, “I can’t tell you,” provided you explain why. You might say, “Shel, I know the answer and would like to tell you. Here’s why I can’t, at least not yet.” Or, “About 80% is settled, but the remaining 20% could change what I tell you, and I don’t want to give you information that turns out to be wrong.” There are many ways to explain what you know, what you don’t know, and why you can’t share everything. The Dow–DuPont merger is a good example. People wanted specifics about the organizational structure, but we couldn’t provide them because divestitures were still being negotiated in the United States, the EU, and elsewhere. Those decisions would affect the portfolio and, ultimately, the structure. The discussions were difficult and confidential, including negotiations outside the company. Until those were resolved, we couldn’t fully explain the outcome. I advocated explaining that uncertainty, even if we had previously said we expected an answer in six months. We could say, “The negotiations are more complex than anticipated. The world around us is responding differently to our plans. We’re working on it, and we’ll update you.” Give people a revised time frame if you can: “We’re aiming for the next 60 to 90 days.” I kept pushing leaders not to stop at, “We don’t know,” or, “We can’t answer that.” After hearing that repeatedly for eight or 10 months, people may conclude, “Either you’re lying to us, or you don’t know what you’re doing.” You don’t want either conclusion. Transparency doesn’t mean revealing trade secrets or Willy Wonka’s chocolate recipe. It means giving people as much explanation and context as you can. **Shel Holtz:** I’ve encountered this during periods when communications are restricted around a merger or acquisition. Sometimes even explaining why you can’t say more can disclose something you shouldn’t. But there are usually things you can say instead of saying nothing. **Mark Dollins:** Right. You can refer to what you’ve already announced and explain that it’s taking longer than expected. “Hang in there. We’re working on it.” **Shel Holtz:** More recently, this has come up with AI. Initially, we told employees, “Use it. Experiment. Try things.” Now some organizations are saying, “We need to move beyond general experimentation and become more focused on how we apply AI.” They’re also saying, “Please stop burning through so many tokens. It’s costing a fortune. We need you to dial back what we previously encouraged.” Some leaders seem embarrassed by that rather than explaining what changed. Perhaps the organization moved from a subscription arrangement to token-based pricing. Explain it, and people can understand. **Mark Dollins:** Absolutely. This is new territory. We don’t have 10 years of experience with these tools in their current form. Change isn’t a straight line, and we’ll have to adjust as we learn. You can say, “Thank you for experimenting. You did what we asked. Now we need to adjust, and here’s why.” It’s about candor. **Shel Holtz:** AI could also contribute to declining peer trust. Suppose I use it to produce a polished document, save myself time, and send it to you. You start reading and realize it sounds good but has no substance. Now you have to spend two hours making sense of it. Your trust in me is likely to decline. **Mark Dollins:** I teach at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and I’ve seen students use AI in ways that make it clear they haven’t done the necessary work. In one case, a student advocated something that didn’t exist. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but it happens. It makes me examine that person’s work more closely because I can see they’re using AI without checking it. I start wondering whether they’re being careful. Why wouldn’t the same thing happen at work? If someone produces sloppy or substandard work, I don’t want that to reflect on me, particularly if we’re supposed to be partners on a project. **Shel Holtz:** We can address that during AI adoption. You may save time, but if the result is slop, you’re transferring work to colleagues, and their trust in you may suffer. There’s also a generational dimension. The Workday report found that Gen Z employees were 16 times more likely than Gen X employees to say they don’t trust their coworkers. That makes communication across generations an interesting challenge. **Mark Dollins:** It does, and we need to pay attention. A one-size-fits-all approach to trust won’t work. Different generations may have different expectations about what matters and how trust is established. Something else occurs to me about working in teams. Whether someone has submitted inaccurate AI-generated work or simply made a mistake, trust can be built through how others respond. If it’s an honest mistake, that’s an opportunity to say, “I understand how that happened. I’ve done something similar. What can I do to help? Don’t beat yourself up over it.” Intentional misconduct is different. But when somebody makes an honest mistake, showing support can go a long way. That’s especially relevant if you’re aware that others don’t trust you. Supporting Joe or Sarah when they make a mistake can help people see you differently. Again, these are basic human behaviors. Getting to know people and standing up for them when there’s a problem can build or rebuild trust. **Shel Holtz:** This is an area where communicators can play a significant role because it’s a culture issue: “This is how we do things around here.” We can reinforce those behaviors through communication and encourage leaders to recognize people who demonstrate them. Leaders also need to address behavior that works against trust. **Mark Dollins:** Leaders have opportunities to build trust through how they manage conflict. Almost every team has people who don’t get along. Managers can help find common ground between individuals or groups. Communicators, working with people who have the right expertise, can develop content and experiences that help managers and employees learn to navigate conflict. **Shel Holtz:** Having the managerial courage to hold those difficult conversations is a big deal. That might be a topic for a future episode. **Mark Dollins:** Exactly. You don’t need a master’s degree in conflict resolution. A few useful tools can help you accomplish a lot. **Shel Holtz:** Can you get a master’s in conflict resolution? I didn’t know that. Somewhere you can, no doubt. **Mark Dollins:** I’m sure you can, Shel. I’ll find it for you and get back to you. **Shel Holtz:** Sounds great. Listeners and viewers, we’d love to hear what’s happening in your organization with peer-to-peer trust. Are you measuring it? Have you noticed a decline? Email [FIRcomments@gmail.com](mailto:FIRcomments@gmail.com), leave a comment in the show notes at FIRPodcastNetwork.com, or respond on LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, or Threads, where we announce new episodes. We’ve received comments and will collect and share them in an upcoming episode. Until then, thank you, everybody, and thank you, Mark. It’s been fun. **Mark Dollins:** Thanks for joining us. Good to see you, Shel. Take care. The post OTSP #10: The Decline in Employees’ Trust in Each Other appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.