The jury is no longer out. High trust organizations win, and low trust laggards lose. In fact, according to recent research from Deloitte, high trust firms outperform competitors by 400 percent. High trust workers achieve 200 percent more customer satisfaction and are almost 80 percent more motivated. These stats were derived from over 350,000 responses across 500 brands. Trust is Critical for Business Success.
Gallup concurs. In their State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report they found that low worker engagement is costing firms almost $9 trillion annually. Only 21 percent of workers trust leaders and only 23 percent are fully engaged. Nearly 60 percent are Quiet Quitting and over 18 percent are taking actions that directly harm employers. Ponder that for a moment. The global recruitment market is $762 billion. After spending that much to find talent, firms are losing over ten times this amount due to low trust and engagement.
Virtually every company on the planet is scrambling to find the best talent. When they do find great candidates, nearly 90 percent get hired by someone else. If lucky enough to be the winner, over 80 percent of new hires fail, according to research by Leadership IQ. Failure is defined as getting fired, quitting, or quiet quitting. Based on Gallup research, perhaps the latter is even more damaging to your organization. The Leadership IQ study discovered that almost half of new hire failures are due to a lack of the right soft skills, with coachability and emotional intelligence topping the list. LinkedIn studies also note that 90 percent of new hires fail due to the right balance of soft skills, not hard skills. The obvious bottom line is that high trust wins and low trust loses. But what is trust, and how do you increase it?
High Trust = Oxytocin
In two of my books, The 7 Secrets of Neuron Leadership and Start With Who, I offer extensive research relating trust to a brain chemical we all have called oxytocin. Dr. Paul Zak’s research on this topic is included in my books, as well as studies completed by Dr. German Fresco, a PhD neuroscientist, and the chief science officer for RemotelyMe—a veteran-owned firm offering recruiting services and assessments. The conclusions are even more eye opening than those provided by Gallup and Deloitte. Clinical studies validate that high trust talent can drive 106 percent more energy and 79 percent more engagement. Gallup research shows that high engagement drives 20 percent more revenue. So even if you hate people, focusing on their ability to trust can directly impact your bottom line.
Given the critical importance of soft skills, with an emphasis on trust, the burning question is how do we discern for these? Occupational Network Online, or O*NET, provides rich information to help match soft skills against job functions or roles. However, you’ll need to spend quite a few hours sorting through the information, and then figure out how to assess for the right balances. As for trust, given its relationship to oxytocin, do we need our employees to take blood tests or pee in cups? Fortunately, there’s a better answer.
RemotelyMe uses visual neuroscience to create the world’s only assessments that determine trust factors. Virtually all other talent assessments, most invented decades ago, are text or word-based. Neuroscience validates that we have three parts of our brain that are more logical (neocortex), instinctual (reptilian complex), and emotional (limbic system). Our logical brain is responsible for about 10 percent of our decision making, and prefers text, words, and numbers. Our other two brains prefer visual and auditory stimulation. This is a problem for text and word-based personality or assessment tests. They’re asking us to make decisions about who we are by only speaking to 10 percent of our brains. They often take 45 minutes to complete and have a 30 percent completion rate. Moreover, most of them—including the most popular one called The BIG-5—have only a 50 to 75 percent Cronbach’s Alpha validity. At 50 percent, that’s basically a coin toss. Even worse, none can assess for trust.
RemotelyMe’s approach is groundbreaking and economical. Using visual neuroscience storytelling, they’ve created an assessment that only takes 9 minutes, appeals to 100 percent of your decision-making brain, has a 97 percent completion rate, and an industry-leading 93 percent Cronbach’s Alpha validity. The assessment also scores for eight key soft skills and matches those against position requirements and top performer data. As an example, they assessed top performers at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate and determined they fell into three distinct neuroscience categories. This allows them to now assess candidates against those yardsticks. For smaller firms, RemotelyMe offers turnkey recruiting services that are far more affordable and effective than typical recruiting agencies.
Most importantly, RemotelyMe uniquely assesses for trust factors. Recent research from Korn Ferry shows that organization-wide transformation becomes tangible when only 10 percent adopt a new mindset. Imagine what could happen if trust in your firm increased by 10 percent. If you want to win against competitors, retain customers, and attract the best talent, trust is everything. You can schedule a call to learn more.
William Craig Reed is the New York Times bestselling author of The 7 Secrets of Neuron Leadership and Start With Who, that Ken Blanchard, co-author of The New One Minute Manager says is “groundbreaking.”
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