Opening remarks

Beyond Engagement: The Era of Employee Trust and Its Impact on Business Success at Web Summit Lisbon 2025

Rosie Turner, Co-founder and Co-CEO of InChorus, welcomed attendees to the People Summit stage at Web Summit Lisbon 2025, emphasizing the critical role of trust in organizational culture. She highlighted a significant decline in employee trust, with 68% believing business leaders are purposefully lying to them, a 12% increase since 2021. This erosion impacts employee engagement and openness to new ideas.

Referencing Edelman’s Trust Barometer, Ms. Turner outlined historical shifts in public trust across institutions. While business trust peaked during the pandemic response (2020-2021), 2025 marks a “crisis of grievance and trust.” Approximately 61% of employees report high mistrust, feeling unsupported and unmet by their organizations, hindering innovation and transformation efforts.

Key challenges include a 10% surge in fear of discrimination and harassment, now concerning 63% of employees, a trend corroborated by InChorus’s own data on reported bullying. This contributes to an unprecedented global decline in employees believing their businesses will “do the right thing,” fueling a leadership credibility crisis within organizations.

Further, deepening social divides manifest as a “trust inequality gap” of 16%, with lower-income employees exhibiting significantly less trust than their higher-income counterparts. A pervasive “future pessimism” is also evident, with only 36% of respondents believing the next generation will be better off, impacting overall workforce outlook and resilience.

Despite these issues, Ms. Turner asserted that trust is not merely a “soft skill” but vital infrastructure for innovation and growth, offering a crucial competitive edge. High-trust organizations, according to the Great Place to Work survey, experience 50% lower employee turnover rates compared to industry competitors, demonstrating tangible benefits.

These organizations are also 60% more likely to adopt AI and new technologies, fostering adaptability and progress. Furthermore, those in the top quartile for high-trust innovation cultures achieve five times higher revenue growth than those in the lower quartile. This data clearly demonstrates a direct link between fostering trust and achieving substantial business outcomes and financial success.

InChorus champions “the era of employee trust,” advocating for a shift in focus from past metrics like engagement and belonging to ethics and trust. Organizations must actively understand, measure, and improve trust to enable crucial work, recognizing it as the foundational element for all other cultural initiatives and progress within the workplace.

To practically build trust, Ms. Turner proposed three actionable strategies: First, “leave echo chambers” by actively seeking diverse perspectives, especially from unheard voices. Second, “build robust speak-up systems” by creating safe, anonymous channels for feedback, as direct approaches often fail in low-trust environments. Third, implement “targeted interventions” to address trust and grievance, measuring impact over time for continuous improvement.

Ms. Turner concluded by emphasizing trust as the fundamental infrastructure for innovation and growth, underpinning all discussions at the People Summit. She urged attendees to integrate this understanding into their organizational strategies and invited further discussion on high-trust cultures and speak-up platforms with InChorus.