psychology

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Organisations that have the trust of their workforce have a competitive advantage over their rivals, suggests a new book co-edited by Open University lecturer Dr Rosalind Searle.

Trust and Human Resource Management, co-edited by Dr Searle and Professor Denise Skinner of Coventry University is a well-timed look, given recent events in certain sections of the newspaper industry, at what has previously been a neglected area of human resource management (HRM).

The book brings together the most current thinking by key scholars into how organisations can build, develop and maintain the trust of their employees.

Studies have demonstrated that such employees put greater effort into their roles and work more co-operatively with others while those who do not trust their organisation work less effectively, engage in devious and counter-productive behaviours, or simply leave.

Dr Searle, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology and Director Research Degrees Programme of the Faculty of Social Science said the effects of mistrust or misplaced trust were corrosive, particularly in cases of harassment or bullying where staff can be reluctant to report cases and organisations can be protective of bad managers.

Failure to deal effectively with bullying at work, the book concludes, can threaten an organisation’s on-going viability and sustainability.

Employees looked to an organisation for reassurance about behaviour but the old maxim ‘do as I say not what I do’ is still all too common said Dr Searle.

Organisations have mission statements and codes of practice, “But too often they are just pieces of paper,” she said.

The book looks at key areas of HRM where trust plays a pivotal role including recruitment, training, career progression, promotion and exit, including redundancy.

The book concludes that building, developing and maintaining trust has positive commercial benefits to an organisation and need not require an increased investment in HRM, “just increased transparency,” said Dr Searle.

But can a major shift in how organisations deal with the issue of trust find a place in the current climate when managers are often occupied with ‘fighting fires’?

“There has never been a better time,” said Dr Searle.

“Much of it is common sense and in the book we show why it works.

“And with trust, organisations will be better equipped to fight those fires,” she said.

• The Organisational Trust website

Could you recreate a face from memory? It's hard, says Graham Pike, the Open University's Professor of Forensic Psychology,  who works with the police to develop more intuitive ways of helping witnesses to produce accurate images of criminal suspects.

He says: "The problem for eyewitnesses is not only to  have a mental picture of the face of the perpetrator, but to translate this into a verbal description. Both of these actions are very hard to do."

The OU has developed an app which mimics the latest PhotoFit systems in use by police. Have a go and see if you can recreate the face of a friend, family member or celebrity.

Go to PhotoFit Me