CEOs Think Staff Trust Them. Only 46% of Employees Do

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Nearly 90% of CEOs say they are confident or very confident that their employees trust their leadership. Only 46% of employees agree, according to The BCG CEO Insomnia Index, published this month. Deborah Lovich of Boston Consulting Group cites the figures in a commentary for Fortune.

Lovich writes that every person decides each day how much energy, creativity and discretionary effort to bring to work, and she compares employees to customers choosing whether to buy a product. That product is day-to-day work: routines, culture, administrative processes, interactions with managers, and how the CEO and senior leaders engage with staff. In her analysis the most important features are emotional, such as feeling that work matters and feeling respected, supported and connected. Pay, benefits and flexibility matter, she writes, but they are "table stakes."

Two examples

Her first example is Dropbox, which redesigned work after Covid with its "Virtual First" approach. The company used customer discovery and design thinking and tried out flexible workdays instead of rigid schedules, clearer windows for collaboration, simpler rules for meetings and more intentional reasons to meet in person. It tested the changes with employees and adjusted them. According to Dropbox's internal data, the share of employees who felt "successful at work" rose from 48% to 92%. Offer acceptance rates rose, attrition dropped, and most candidates now cite Virtual First as a reason to join.

The second is a BCG client that wanted better operational productivity without big spending. BCG's analysis showed some teams performing much better than others, and the difference came down to how frontline leaders inspired, motivated and coached. The team worked with the best of those leaders to change daily routines. Shift handover meetings were redesigned so that leaders explained the reason behind directions, celebrated someone for something done during the shift, and asked people to help each other instead of bringing every question to the leader. Lovich says this eased the bottleneck on leaders' time, and the client's CEO named it in the annual report as a driver of financial performance.

She lists five daily practices. Leaders should recognize good work right away instead of waiting for an annual review. They should go to where the work happens and help, for example by grabbing lunch for a busy team, checking inventory or covering calls. They should ask people about their goals and lives outside work, sharing something about themselves first if someone is reserved. They should involve affected employees from the start, and Lovich suggests that, like Amazon's empty chair for the customer, a rotating employee takes a seat in meetings with a mandate to collect peers' input. And they should do first whatever they ask the organization to do.

Source: Fortune