Company distrust, employee mistrust

Internationally, there is growing distrust with individuals and organisations in public life directed particularly at familiar institutions and office holders. Britain, like several other countries, is in the grip of what many claim is a deepening crisis of trust directed at its most familiar institutions and office-holders and many accusations of betrayal are routinely levelled at politicians, officials, hospitals, examination boards, companies and schools. Consumers do not trust businesses, especially big businesses, or their products. People appear not to trust each other. In Britain, Brian Groom asserted an emerging picture of a “surly, self-centred society in which citizens are suspicious of their neighbours, their colleagues, those who provide them with goods and services and those who govern them.” Lord Hurd, former British Foreign Secretary, felt the lack of trust made it more difficult to achieve anything in Britain. He commented: “The idea used to be that if you were a headmaster, you knew something about running a school and you were trusted to do that. Now governments or councils set targets and ask all sorts of questions and the moment anything goes wrong the media pounce on you. All this makes jobs more difficult and less attractive.”

Here, regular BWIA customers felt their trust in the company had been abused recently when the electrical blackout in several parts of the USA led to their being stranded at Piarco airport. Similarly, in Britain recently, British Airways customers felt their trust was abused when strikes by check-in staff left them stranded. Lack of trust in each other is increasingly evident here. The upsurge of crime in Trinidad and Tobago has led to a decline in the number of motorcar owners who previously offered a lift to complete strangers awaiting public transportation. Even mothers accompanied by small children are now denied this trust being regarded as possible foils for criminal activity. Neighbourhood Watch Groups regard non-inhabitants of the area seen in their districts as potential criminals, although they may be innocently in search of a friend’s home or perhaps employment in what they regard as a more prosperous neighbourhood. Service personnel suffer a similar fate. Homeowners demand identity cards from health and other service personnel and after viewing them still suspect these workers of surveying the surroundings with an intention to return with accomplices at nightfall on more devious missions.

Lack of trust in the ability of the police authorities to solve crimes of kidnapping, related murder and theft has contributed to change in behaviour.
Businessmen seek licensed firearms as a measure of personal protection and surveillance cameras have become a desirable feature in most business places. Many families keep their young children at home rather than allow them to play with neighbourhood children lest they be snatched by criminals and placed in a stolen kidnap vehicle. Parents who previously allowed their children to find their way home from school now ensure paid transport via school and home, to soften the possibility of their children becoming kidnap victims. Michael Jacobs, general secretary of the Fabian Society, a Labour think-tank in Britain, says: “There has been a decline in blind trust, which was like deference. The automatic reflex of trust in institutions and people in authority has gone.” He says: “We are more sceptical, which is not a bad thing.” We need more “evidenced-based trust,” which institutions have to earn by their behaviour.

Mori, a United Kingdom polling organisation, conducts an annual survey of whether members of professions can be trusted to tell the truth. Doctors (91%), teachers (87%), professors (74%), and judges (72%) generally emerge at the bottom, ranging from 18-28%. Trust in clergymen and priests has fallen, while trust in civil servants and trade union officials has risen sharply. Trust in individuals with whom people have most contact such as front-line staff is often higher than in organisations. The survey also asked which institutions were trusted. The top four were the army (82%), television (71%), police (65%), and radio (55%). At the bottom of the scale were political parties (16%), the press (20%), and big companies (22%).
It will be interesting to know what would be the respective rankings in Trinidad and Tobago.

In this country, The Employee Benchmark survey conducted over the last three years by local consultancy firm Quality Consultants Ltd examined multi-national and local energy sector companies. Participants included Atlantic LNG, British Gas, Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd, Powergen, Algico, First Citizens Bank, RBTT Ltd, National Flour Mills, TIDCO and UWI. Results showed that employees of some of this country’s largest businesses have a serious mistrust of their employers. Encouragingly, Dr Kwame Charles Director of Quality Services advised that all organisations which took part in the 2001 survey improved their 2000 performance. Employees were seeking among other things, respect and simple courtesies like being bid the time of day by managers.
(To be continued next week)

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