Business First May-June 2017 Business First May 2017 | Page 74

The Final Word
The importance of
TRUST
by Chris Brown, Director, Brown O’Connor Communications
rust is an important value to have in any
walk of life. In business, politics or even
at a family level, we all need to believe
that the person or organisation we are
interacting with is reliable and truthful.
Political upheaval, the evolution of media
and changes to personnel at the top of big
companies can be attributed at some level to
shifts in the degree of trust held by, for
example, voters, consumers or shareholders.
Understanding the capital of trust is
extremely important thing to comprehend. As
a communications professional, it is vital to
assess trustworthiness of the people and
products we are promoting or defending.
Who we perceive as a trusted source of
information is being challenged all the time.
This is reflected in the annual Edelman
Trust Barometer – a global survey from one
of the big beasts of the communication
industry, sampling around 33,000
respondents with Ireland and UK included.
Released several weeks ago, the 2017
T
QUOTABLEQUOTE
Who we perceive as a trusted
source of information is being
challenged all the time.
This is reflected in the annual
Edelman Trust Barometer – a
global survey from one of the big
beasts of the communication
industry, sampling around 33,000
respondents with Ireland and UK
included.
72 www.businessfirstonline.co.uk
Edelman Trust Barometer for Ireland made
interesting reading.
General Findings
• Family businesses and employee owned
businesses are most trusted;
• Social media and media as an institution
showed the steepest decline in trust;
• A good reputation does not always
guarantee trust;
• The mass population now has influence
and authority over the Establishment;
• Majority feel that the ‘system is failing
them’ as they have a sense of injustice and a
lack of hope.
Trust in Media
The Ireland study found that trust in media
fell by 10 per cent from the same time last
year and was now regarded as the least
trusted institution.
From that media trust evaluation, it found
that traditional media was most trusted with
online media dropping seven per cent in the
last year. These dips were also reflected in
the UK study with trust in media dropping by
12 to 24 per cent.
Confirming our own bias and positions, the
study also found that respondents in Ireland
favour search engines (53 per cent) over
human editors (47 per cent) and are 2.5 times
more likely to ignore information that
supports a position they do not believe in. 49
per cent stated that they never or rarely
change their position on important social
issues.
Trust in Spokespeople
CEO credibility in Ireland has dropped 16
points from the previous year to 27 per cent,
which now puts it on par with government
officials and boards of directors as the least
credible spokespeople.
Academic experts (61 per cent), technical
experts (58 per cent) and ‘a person like
yourself’ (54 per cent) are the most credible
spokespeople in Ireland, according to the
research.
Employees are seen as the most credible
spokespeople on issues including
employee/customer relations (64 per cent),
innovation (33 per cent) and industry issues
(36 per cent).
Trust in Business
Despite confidence in business tumbling, of
the four institutions, it is viewed as the only
one that can make a difference in the
community it operates in.
Sixty eight per cent of respondents agree a
company can take specific actions to both
increase profits and improve economic and
social conditions in the community where it
operates.
However, there are worries amongst the
workforce in Ireland that business must
respond to.
People in Ireland expressed worries about
losing their jobs due to the lack of training
and skills provided to them (49 per cent),
foreign competitors (44 per cent) and
automation (37 per cent).
It will be very interesting to see the read
out from the barometer in the next 12 months
as Brexit negotiations take hold, new leaders
across Europe settle into their jobs and the
Northern Ireland Assembly threatens to be
reinstalled. It certainly won’t be boring.
Connect with Chris @cb_prandpa and
@brown_oconnor