Ready for Change?
An Article by Deb

On your mark, get set, ready... Go! These are the directives that we have heard for years in our quest to win. There are many individuals and organizations that are so intent on making changes so they can get ahead in the game yet in their quest to win, they lose sight of planning and readiness for change and often make preventable false starts. The major disadvantage these people have when false starts take place is they don't have an official or referee shooting off a gun or blowing a whistle to get their attention to stop, evaluate, and restart - they essentially, have no check and measurement. Instead, these folks keep running toward a goal in a way that will unknowingly contaminate their outcome. Read more...

Declining Levels of Employee Trust are a Major Threat to Corporate Competitiveness

"Falling levels of employee trust are a major threat to future corporate competitiveness," says Ilene Gochman, Ph.D., Watson Wyatt's national practice leader for organization measurement and author of the survey. "Unless Corporate America can resolve the crisis of confidence among its employees, it has little hope of restoring the trust and confidence of investors that is so crucial in these economic times."

Watson Wyatt's WorkUSA 2002 survey - conducted earlier this year - found that:

• fewer than two out of five (39 percent) employees trust senior leaders at U.S. companies.
• Moreover, there was a five-point drop from 2000 to 2002 in both the percentage of employees (45 percent) who say they have confidence in the job being done by senior management and the percentage of workers (63 percent) who believe their companies conduct business with honesty and integrity.

Trust and the Impact on the Bottom Line:

• Left untouched, low employee trust levels will exact a high financial price, Gochman warns. "Employee trust levels and corporate performance are closely linked. In fact, our survey found that the rate of three-year total returns to shareholders is almost three times higher at companies with high trust levels than at companies with low trust levels," she explains.
• To restore employee trust and confidence, companies must focus their efforts in several areas, including assessment, communication and effectively managing business change.