Business leaders today recognise the value of establishing trust in their organisations, but few classify their organisations as having a high level of trust maturity, and almost one-third of global leaders reported having no consistent plan for maintaining trust or only prioritise it in the wake of a crisis.
Specifically, 39% of business leaders considered their organisations as having a high level of trust maturity, while 45% reported a moderate a moderate level and 16% said their organisations had a low level of trust maturity.
Business leaders also concur that trust is a vital factor for their organisations to succeed, with 94% of those recognising its importance and 6% seeing it as “somewhat important”, according to a new survey by the Deloitte Global Boardroom Programme. The survey, which was conducted among 177 directors and C-suite executives across 30 geographies, showed that the level of trust an organisation has with stakeholders has a high impact on business relations (81%), employee engagement (79%), customer loyalty (76%), financial performance (66%), and market value (60%).
When assigning responsibility for managing trust, respondents feel that CEOs and boards have a leading role to play, with 82% indicating the CEO is responsible for trust leadership and 95% believing the board should play a key part. However, only 28% said their boards discuss trust twice a year or more and 10% reported not discussing trust at all.
How organisations respond to events also impact on stakeholders’ level of trust. 67% of business leaders stated that overcoming pandemic-related challenges was the primary way in which stakeholder trust was built over the past 18 months, but environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are becoming increasingly important for building corporate trust with 61% of business leaders citing it as a priority over the next three years.
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