Businesses should treat employees better if they want to keep the public's trust, a survey of corporate "opinion leaders" says.

After making quality products, "corporate social responsibility (CSR)" is the key trust issue, a survey by the public relations firm Edelman shows.

And within CSR, "employees are the new green," the survey says.

Fair treatment of employees edges out environmental practices as the most important CSR factor. 

It also says that unethical labour practices are the single biggest issue that undermines trust in companies, ahead of a list of corporate negatives that includes excessive pay for executives, defective products and environmental problems. 

Trust matters because the respondents say that if they don't trust a company, they won't buy its product, will ignore its attempts to market itself and will support more government regulation of the company.

The issues that undermine trust in companies:

  • Unethical labour practices.
  • Environmental problems.
  • Defective products.
  • Accounting scandals.
  • Excessively large executive pay.
  • Investigation by a regulator.
  • Large layoffs.

Human rights, poverty and global warming are three key issues that companies should address to improve trust.

Edelman, an international PR firm, based its conclusions on half-hour interviews with 3,100 business leaders from 18 companies. Most countries, including Canada, had 150 people in the poll; the U.S. had 450.

The subjects have a post-secondary education, are in the top quarter of household incomes, are between 35 and 64, and work in "media, economic and policy affairs," the Edelman presentation says.

Among other conclusions:

  • In the Canadian sample, NGOs are the most trusted institution, followed by business, with religion very slightly ahead of media and government, which are tied for last.
  • Trust in all institutions has fallen since last year, back to the level of two years ago.
  • By industry, technology is the most trusted, followed by health care and biotech; media is the last.
  • Canadian companies are in the top ranks worldwide.