If you don’t have trust, you don’t have anything. This applies to relationships—and the workplace.
A woman named Lexi (@rjalways.trippin) put her workplace on blast when she shared in a TikTok video that employees were forced to tape their pockets closed.
It’s likely this was done to prevent workers from stealing. But the harsh requirements backfired when 10 workers decided to quit, as Lexi shared in the text overlay of her video.
“When 10 people quit bc we had to start taping up our pockets at work,” Lexi wrote as she stood in the employee bathroom and spun around to show red tape on both front pockets.
@rjalways.trippin ♬ original sound – brooke
The comments on her video were turned off, but it’s to a company’s benefit to build and foster an environment of trust for its employees.
A 2017 article by Harvard Business Review found that people who work at high-trust companies have positive statistics, such as 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, and 13%fewer sick days. They also have higher productivity, more satisfaction with their lives, and less burnout.
Lack of trust isn’t something that only happens in traditional workplaces in America. It’s also found in unconventional workplaces like Hollywood.
Take Friends for example, the hit ‘90s sitcom that actress Lisa Kudrow worked on for 10 seasons as the quirky Phoebe Buffay. She holds fond memories of the show—except for one.
During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Lisa revealed that the network had strict rules on taking props home.
“I mean, my car used to get searched every night when I left,” she revealed. This was despite the fact that the cast members often said that the team dynamic on the show was like a family.
At the end of the series, she was given a memento instead: the “Cookie Time” jar that was in Monica and Rachel’s apartment.
Friends isn’t the only show to be super strict with their props. In an interview with Metro, Big Bang Theory set designer Ann Shae revealed that her team was instructed to add microchips to their props.
“Warner Bros. was so strict,” she told the publication. “And they micro-chipped every single item on all of the sets and made sure they could track it. We were instructed to give everything we had for archives and so we did. It took months and months of packing and logging.”
You’d assume that cast members of the show would have enough notoriety to take the items they wanted. But Ann explained that that wasn’t the case. They would have to deal with Warner Bros. directly if they wanted an item.
So, how can workplaces start to trust their employees? Well, they can let their pockets breathe, for one.
