The Trust Index™ Survey
Measure what makes a great workplace
Go beyond engagement with the Great Place To Work Trust Index™ Survey. Understand the workplace experiences that build trust, uncover where your culture is strongest, and identify opportunities to improve employee and business performance.
Trust is good for people—and business
Body: More than 30 years of Great Place To Work® research shows that high-trust workplaces don't just create better employee experiences. They outperform on the business outcomes that matter.
Stock performance is higher
Stocks at publicly traded Certified companies outperformed the market by 19% over the four-year period ending in 2023.
People work harder and adapt faster
Employees at Certified companies are 46% more likely to say they give extra effort and 34% more likely to say they adapt quickly to change.
Employees stay longer
Employees at Certified companies are 38% more likely to say they plan to stay at their company for a long time.
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Don’t just measure engagement.
Measure what creates it.
Engagement tells you how employees feel. Trust helps explain why. The Trust Index™ is built on the Great Place To Work Model—a research-backed framework for understanding the leadership behaviors and workplace experiences that create high-trust, high-performing organizations.
Understand What Employees Are Really Experiencing
Measure the experiences that build trust, including credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and belonging. See where your culture is strongest and where employees may be having a different experience.
- Understand how employees experience leadership, their work, and each other
- Identify strengths and opportunities across your culture
- See where the employee experience is consistent—and where gaps exist
- Understand the experiences that can influence retention, agility, innovation, and performance
See How Your Culture Changes Over Time
Culture isn't static. Growth, new leadership, market pressures, M&A, and other changes can reshape the employee experience.
Regular Trust Index and pulse surveys give you a consistent measure of trust over time—helping you understand where the employee experience is improving, where challenges are emerging, and how your culture is evolving as your business changes.
Put Your Employee Experience in Perspective
A Trust Index™ score means more when you know how it compares. Benchmark your results against relevant organizations and the world's best workplaces to understand where your culture is strong and where there’s room to improve.
Great Place To Work's extensive workplace data gives you the context to set meaningful goals and measure your culture against a proven standard.
The proven model behind the Trust Index™
For more than 30 years, Great Place To Work has studied what makes great workplaces work.
Our research shows that a great workplace is one where employees trust the people they work for, have pride in the work they do, and enjoy the people they work with—and where that experience is consistently great For All™.
The Trust Index turns that proven model into something you can measure.
Survey
Measure the Experiences That Build Trust
The Trust Index measures employee experience across the dimensions that define a high-trust workplace, including credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and belonging.
Insights & Benchmarking
Put Your Results in Context
Understand how your workplace compares with relevant organizations and the world's best workplaces using Great Place To Work's extensive workplace data.
Certification
Validate Your Employee Experience
Trust Index results provide the employee feedback used to determine Great Place To Work Certification™—independent recognition based on the experience of your people.
Best Workplaces Lists
Be Recognized Among the Best
Certified companies are eligible for Best Workplaces™ Lists, creating opportunities for additional recognition across industries, regions, company sizes, and more.
FAQs
In broad terms, the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey measures the level of trust in your organization and the consistency of the employee experience. In other words: How often can employees count on something happening in their workplace, such as clear and honest leadership, fair treatment, and employee recognition?
More specifically, the Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey measures individual employee experiences of five focus areas of a high-trust company culture through 60 statements and two open-ended questions. Three of the focus areas are connected to the actions of leaders and building trust: credibility, respect, and fairness. The other two focus areas measure the workplace experience of employees in relation to their colleagues and the wider organization: pride and a sense of belonging.
These five focus areas create a workplace culture where employees feel empowered and encouraged to do their most meaningful work. High-trust cultures are shown in Great Place To Work research to outperform their competitors in recruitment and retention, productivity and innovation, and financial performance.
Survey answers are assessed on a five-point scale, revealing the most common experience of employees in the organization. Employee scores are averaged to provide an organization-wide assessment of workplace culture: the Trust Index score.
Employees answer 14 demographic questions and respond to 60 statements across a five-point consistency scale as well as two open-ended questions. Employees generally take 10 to 20 minutes to complete the survey.
We take our ethical obligation to survey takers very seriously. Employees can rest assured that their participation is completely confidential and voluntary. Survey responses come directly to Great Place To Work. Employers cannot see who has or who has not completed the survey while the survey is live. We remove unique identifiers once the survey closes. For employers, company participation in the Certification program and the survey results are completely confidential. We do not disclose our clients’ names, information, or scores to the public until they are Great Place To Work Certified.
Yes. Once your survey is closed, you’ll immediately get (at minimum) an overview of your scores so you can see how your employee experience measures against our key evaluation areas, and how you stack up against our Best Workplaces benchmarks. You’ll be able to see how your company compares to top workplaces in the country with access to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® and the Fortune Best Small and Medium Workplaces benchmarks. This is exclusive benchmark data only available through the Great Place To Work survey platform. If you’d like even more in-depth reporting and benchmarking, contact support@greatplacetowork.com to learn about upgrade options.
Yes, our Trust Index survey is available in over 70 languages, and they’re all available for you to use at no additional cost.
Our Trust Index™ Survey platform is designed to support a wide range of feedback collection needs. You can use it to gather insights from various groups across your organization — whether you’re running engagement surveys, onboarding feedback, pulse checks, or other internal assessments. This flexibility allows you to include different types of workers depending on your goals, such as contractors, interns, or even franchise employees in some contexts.
However, the criteria for Certification eligibility are more specific and must be followed closely. If you’re unsure how to best capture feedback from various populations within your organization, or if you have any other questions, our team would be more than happy to talk to you.
To be eligible for Certification, you must include all individuals who are legally employed by your company, paid directly by your company, and classified under one or more of the following at the time of survey launch:
- Employment status: All part-time and full-time employees
- Job roles: Including the CEO and all levels of staff
- Locations: All company locations
- Union status: Both union and non-union employees
- New hires: Including those from mergers or acquisitions
- Remote workers: Telecommuters and those working from home
- Employment type: Seasonal, casual/per diem employees, interns
- Age: Employees under 18, as permitted by local laws
Important: Failure to include any eligible group — whether intentionally or inadvertently — or failure to invite the required number of employees will result in disqualification from Certification and Best Workplaces™ list eligibility.
Do not include individuals who are not legally employed by your organization at the time of survey launch, such as:
- Contractors: Employed by another company or self-employed. These individuals should be surveyed by their legal employer.
- Furloughed employees: Temporarily not working and not expected to perform any duties during the furlough period.
- Franchise workers: Typically employed by the franchisee, not the franchisor. Only include them if they are legally employed by your company.
See What Your Employees Are Really Experiencing.
Measure trust, understand what's shaping your employee experience, and uncover where your organization has the greatest opportunities to improve.
