When trust breaks down: navigating continuous change in an age of uncertainty – the internal view

Katharina Auer:

Trust is the bedrock of any organization. It enables teams to collaborate openly, leaders to inspire confidence, and employees to stay engaged and committed through uncertainty. Yet, in times of rapid change, employee trust can erode. 

For internal communicators, trust is a critical success factor.

However, today’s workplace is in a near constant state of flux, with change & transformation continuous in many organizations, and with many change programs running in parallel. Combine that with change drivers such as artificial intelligence disrupting roles, decision making, traditional organizational structures, as well as shifting cultural and demographic expectations, hybrid working, geo-political uncertainty – and we are looking at a pile-up of disruption.

In this climate, trust can quickly fracture and erode, and when it does, it does so quietly, with speculation, doubt, defensive behavior, and disengagement. With engagement as a driver of performance, disengagement may well damage business performance in the longer term. It’s important to note that it will also impact external stakeholder trust and company reputation. Research shows that engaged employees are more innovative and productive, leading to roughly 10% higher customer loyalty. A 1% rise in engagement can lead to a 0.41 point increase in customer satisfaction.

Change management & communications vacuum?

Returning to our internal stakeholders, are we looking at a vacuum when it comes to change management and communications? A vacuum created either by too much, conflicting, too little communication? A vacuum created by not listening to the voice of the employee, but driving changes top down? A vacuum created by the disconnect amongst organizational layers? 

This vacuum would be a key contributor to eroding trust.

Transformation and change projects are announced on internal channels, but managers lack ‘ownership’ and the ability to answer follow-up questions. Employees can’t see what it will mean for them individually. Yet, as humans, when we feel threatened, we revert to ‘fight or flight’, focusing on ‘me, myself, I’ before anything else. Thus, where organizational changes impact individuals, they should be briefed in advance by their manager, who would also provide the team and individual context. But often this no longer happens, potentially fracturing trust.

What can communicators do?

Ideally, as communicators, we should anticipate any trust erosion before it becomes visible, through employee listening, sentiment monitoring from internal survey data and our internal channels and try to get ahead of it.

• Diagnosis before noise

When multiple change factors collide, we should not push out more content. Instead, we need to help the organization to connect the dots to create and tell a joined-up story. We need to gain insight – employee listening sessions, pulse check data, global survey data. That way we can gauge confidence levels, test understanding, and identify emotional hotspots or triggers that need to be addressed.

• Close the feedback loop

Using data and feedback, we need to make sure that we play it back to people and show what actions or decisions the feedback influenced. Where technology/AI cause anxiety, we need to help make sure people know what it means for them and make them more comfortable with the topic.

• Make it human

Any transformation should be framed in human terms and with tangible, real life, examples and case studies. People need team and individual relevance, how it will impact their work and the whole organization. Leader & manager communication need to combine their perspective with human empathy and context. Communicators can help them to do that.

• Lead & communicate with consistency

Behavior must reinforce our messages, and both need to be consistent and meet employee needs. Communicators can ‘hold up the mirror’ to the organization with employee feedback and data and build on that data to communicate. The adage of ‘walking the talk’ or ‘walking the walk’ applies; words must be matched by actions; messages must reflect behavior and vice versa.

Conclusion

For now, we can expect multiple change factors and a degree of uncertainty to be constant features of organizational life, and trust is not static.

Trust is a cycle of earning, reinforcing and sometimes repairing. The critical success factor for successful transformation and change is how openly and humanely we navigate and communicate. Technology and structures evolve, but the foundation of culture and organizations remains human.

If employees can feel and see that business leaders communicate transparently, act consistently, listen actively, it will maintain or strengthen trust. If team managers are equipped to communicate with ‘ownership’ of topics and equally transparently, trust can be even stronger. And all this needs to be at the heart of everything the Communications team creates and does to support people and organizations in a rapidly evolving landscape.

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Katharina Auer is VP/Global Head of Internal, Service, HSE, Suppliers & Partners, SD Communications, Communications Business Solutions at Hitachi Energy. She is a recognized corporate communications & change leader and strategist with focus on measurable outcomes. She has worked for companies such as GE, AstraZeneca, Shell, Rio Tinto, Zurich Insurance, ABB and gained multi-cultural experience in the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and South Africa. She has also served as a non-executive board member and co-chaired the Conference Board’s European Corporate Communications Council.