There’s a tendency among businesses to regard Trust as an abstract and amorphous concept. It’s important to have it – but how do you know when you do, and how do you quantify it? At the organisational level, Trust often gets attention when it takes a nosedive – a reactive, crisis-management strategy that’s often too little, too late.

It’s time to leave that mindset and approach in the past because the Future of Trust impacts the future of organisations. Trust is evolving from a chance outcome to a strategic priority, as forward-looking companies take steps to measure Trust and its quantifiable components, and cultivate and manage Trust proactively.

Trusted organisations know the importance of Trust in:

• Building shareholder confidence – which then influences market capitalisation.
• Improving financial performance – with trustworthy organisations outperforming non-trustworthy ones by 2.5 times^[1]. In addition, nearly 9 in 10 customers^[2] who highly Trust a brand have bought from that same brand again.
• Improving job performance – with 79 per cent^[3] of employees who trust their employer feeling motivated to work (compared to only 29 per cent of those who don’t).

Welcome to the Trust Age

Trust has always been at the core of interpersonal relationships, but only recently have businesses started to recognise its strong and direct impact on organisational outcomes as well. Today, businesses are operating in the “Trust Age,” where (mis)information is omnipresent, individual perceptions reign supreme and digital security and data privacy face constant threats.

It’s also a time of intense scrutiny, as myriad stakeholders—including customers, shareholders, employees, the board, partners, regulators, media and the community at large—hold organisations accountable for doing the right thing. They demand that companies today are trustworthy whether it’s in protecting personal data; making a positive impact on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues; providing financial transparency; affording safe working conditions; and much more. Every stakeholder counts.

When Trust is managed proactively, prioritised, acted upon and embedded in organisational culture it can become a competitive advantage.

What comprises Trust?

Research^[4] affirms that Trust in an organisation is an ongoing relationship between that entity and its stakeholders. So, what can organisations do to strengthen these relationships and earn Trust? Competence refers to an organisation’s ability to execute and deliver consistently on its promise of the provision of goods and services. Equally important, is the intent behind those promises and actions. An organisation’s actions, performed with a high degree of competence and authentic intent, earn Trust with stakeholders.

Trust is built from the inside out, through levers and actions that cut across the functional areas of an organisation.

Organisations today can consider enacting Trust-driving actions that span a variety of functional areas, with a focus on:

Measuring Trust

Because Trust is measurable, organisations that take steps to continuously measure and manage it are better positioned to build a critical asset.

Deloitte has created a structured approach^[5] for helping organisations quantify and enhance Trust using a suite of diagnostic solutions that can effectively gauge an organisation’s Trust score, including TrustIQTM.

Deloitte assists companies to take the following steps in support of their journeys to becoming Trusted organisations:

• Explore – Gaining an understanding of Trust within the organisation’s industry and sector; getting initial perceptions of Trust within the organisation’s walls (along with any variances across departments, business units and geographies); assessing Trust expectations among the organisation’s shareholders.
• Diagnose – Evaluating an organisation’s ability to act with competence and intent; creating a detailed, quantifiable, objective and multidimensional view of the organisation´s performance through the lens of Trust; measuring levels of stakeholder Trust to provide insights into future stakeholder behaviours.

Prioritise – Focussing on key areas to enhance, protect and rebuild Trust.

Activate – Taking concerted actions to remedy Trust gaps.

Because strategic priorities and focus areas change for organisations over time and different expectations arise from various stakeholders, Trust also rises and wanes. Therefore, organisations may look to make exploring, diagnosing, prioritising and acting on Trust as part of their DNA, considering it an ongoing journey rather than a one-time exercise.

Building Trust equity

When bonds of Trust break, are they severed for good? Research^[6] shows that it takes a long time to both build and break Trust – so the more Trust an organisation builds up, the harder it is to lose when a negative Trust event happens. In other words, for highly trustworthy organisations, levels of Trust are likely to be preserved and regained more quickly^[7] if a crisis occurs.

By investing in Trust across the enterprise and making it a strategic priority, organisations can, in essence, “bank” Trust that will help keep them resilient in the face of potential adverse events.

The Future of Trust is here – and it’s no longer just at the heart of personal relationships, but also at the core of organisational strategy. No company should wait for a crisis to start focussing on Trust. The Trust Age calls for organisations to measure Trust and to build Trust equity every single day.

^[1] Stephen M. R. Covey and Douglas R. Conant, “The Connection Between Employee Trust and Financial Performance,” Harvard Business Review, July 18, 2016.

^[2] Ashley Reichheld, Mark Allen, Michael Bondar, Deirdre O’Connell, and Andy Sussman, A new measure of trust for consumer industries, Deloitte Digital, 2020, p. 2.

^[3] Ashley Reichheld, Mark Allen, Michael Bondar, Deirdre O’Connell, and Andy Sussman, A new measure of trust, p. 2.

^[4] Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta, “The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, and Regain It,” Harvard Business School.

^[5] Michael Bondar, Don Fancher, Holly Tucker, and Samantha Parish, 2021. "Importance of Trust In Your Organization". Deloitte United States. Accessed July 29, 2021.

^[6] Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta, “Broken Trust,” Harvard Business Review, August 2, 2019.

^[7] Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta, “The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, and Regain It,” Harvard Business School.