WIRC Webinar Series: Trust in Challenging Work Environments

This Work Inclusivity Research Centre event, chaired by Professor Mark Saunders and Dr Margarita Nyfoudi, aimed to investigate trust in challenging work environments.

The full recording of Trust in Challenging Work Environments is available here. 

The talks included:

From trustworthiness to trustfulness, and back, Professor Guido Möllering, PhD, Director, Reinhard Mohn Institute of Management, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany

 It is common to assume that trust depends on the trustworthiness of those who would like to be trusted. However, our own readiness to trust shapes even the way we perceive others as more or less trustworthy. The interaction between trustfulness and trustworthiness can explain how relationships at work and beyond can become difficult, but also how taking little “leaps of faith” can trigger a spiral of positive trust development. The key question is: Which error is worse – trusting an untrustworthy other or not trusting a trustworthy one? 

Heads will roll! Strategies for overcoming executive transgressions, Dr. Cecily D. Cooper, Associate Professor of Management University of Miami 

Executive transgressions are a common storyline in today’s business press. Such incidents result in the need to repair trust for both the executive and their associated organization. Trade-offs might exist, however, with certain repair strategies offering more benefit to the errant executive and others offering more benefit to the organization that has been concomitantly affected. I will discuss some of these strategies and highlight the key psychological repair mechanism underlying each. 

Trust? Did it leave on horse back? Studying trust in a distrustful world,  Prof. Rosalind Searle, Chair in HRM & Organisational Psychology, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow 

The focus of this short talk will be to consider whether trust continues to be an important topic is a more distrusting world? Drawing on a range of her prior studies Prof Searle will outline the challenges of studying trust in the current context. She will consider why trust might be one of the most significant elements required to sustain and aid resilience in workplaces. 

How COVID restrictions have taught us to Trust, Billie Major, Corporate Vice President – Capgemini

We don't want to go back to the old ways of working because we've seen how much more successful we can be with these new ways of working, and actually, how much better it is for people. People respond best when they feel they can relax, when they can be themselves and they can work in a way that suits them, allowing work to be a harmonious part of their overall life, fitting in seamlessly and productively with all else. They know they’ve got to work but it can in a way that works for them, rather than overshadows them. And by moving from a mindset of presenteeism to a mindset of trust, and giving people that flexibility, we have found that we've got great results. This is what leadership needs to look like from now on: trust, flexibility and measuring by results, rather than the old one-size-fits-all mode of working