14 Mar Employee Well-being Takes Center Stage
Shifting Reputation Drivers: Employee Well-being Takes Center Stage
In 2025, tangible factors like product quality, value, and employee experiences have emerged as the primary drivers of corporate reputation. Brands that rest on their historical reputations and fail to prioritize ongoing quality and value risk reputation decline.
Our 20 years of research experience on reputation and trust have helped us develop a proprietary approach—The Four Pillars of Reputation Advantage (Brand, People, Societal Impact, and Financials)—to understand these evolving dynamics.
Reputation is crucial to success, taking years to build and moments to lose. Consumers expect organizations to consistently fulfil promises and proactively resolve issues when things go wrong. You build your reputation on this trust; your operating license depends on it.
The falling impact of trust in leadership:
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2025, employee trust in their employers in the U.S. has declined to 74%, by 5 percentage points, compared to 2024. Additionally, the number of consumers and stakeholders who believe business leaders are misleading them has risen to 68%, by 12 percentage points, since 2021. This shift highlights a growing skepticism toward business leadership.
Treating employees has a key impact on reputation:
In 2025, employers that care for their employees could be the difference between a healthy brand reputation and losing your consumers and employees. Our research shows that treating employees well is gaining importance among Americans, making it a core pillar of reputation management.
Reputation Leaders surveyed 922 American adults in February 2025 to understand the factors influencing an organization’s reputation. They have found that ‘treating employees well’ has spiked by 12 percentage points (more than any other factor) since the last quarter. Alongside ‘high-quality products’ and ‘providing good value,’ it ranks among the top three factors. Notably, women (58%) are more likely to measure an organization’s reputation by how it treats its employees than men (42%).
At the most foundational level, employees who are not cared for face stress, burnout, depression, and anxiety. Simply, caring for your employees is the right thing to do.
However, neglecting your employees may also impact your company’s performance more than ever. Research shows that mistreatment harms individual workers and negatively impacts employee engagement and overall organizational efficiency.
“Employees are among your most effective brand ambassadors” – David Lyndon
Consumers are shifting their reputational focus to scrutinizing business practices, with employee well-being becoming a key reputation driver. Organizations that invest in their workforce will not only earn consumer trust and loyalty but also build a resilient and future-ready brand.