As a team, we’re always sharing articles around topics that resonate with us and support our mission to scale trust and belonging in the workplace. More often than not, trust is highlighted in many of our favorite pieces.

But, why keep these insights to ourselves? Starting now, we’ll be spotlighting some of our favorite articles as part of our weekly blog series. Let’s dive right into a piece by Paul J. Zak in Harvard Business Review entitled “The Neuroscience of Trust.”

In this piece, scientist, author and public speaker, Paul J. Zak, outlines a framework for leaders to transform their workplaces into high-trust environments with employee centric cultures. The facts are clear: higher engagement leads to positive outcomes for both an organization and its bottom line, and employees at high-trust companies are more productive, more collaborative and more satisfied.

In order to build his framework, Zak embarked on a variety of scientific experiments that measured the brain activity of people while they worked. The methods he outlines include: recognizing excellence, sharing information broadly, facilitating whole person growth, showing vulnerability and most notably, intentionally building relationships.

What we love most about his framework is the immense focus on the human aspects of work. At MixR, we’re dedicated to providing organizations with a platform to promote well-being, trust and belonging at work. We do so by creating a way for organizations to facilitate the intentional creation of workplace communities. These communities, or as we like to call them, communities@work, are the perfect backdrop for many of the activities Zak outlines: recognizing excellence, information sharing, facilitating growth, building relationships - you name it.

Enough about us though. We’ll leave you with some of the most valuable figures highlighted throughout this article that make the business case for high-trust work environments.

• Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives and 40% less burnout.
• Those working in high-trust companies enjoyed their jobs 60% more, were 70% more aligned with their companies’ purpose and felt 66% closer to their colleagues.
• Compared with employees at low-trust organizations, the high-trust folks have 11% more empathy for their workmates, and experienced 40% less burnout from their work.