Reputation spillover effects in trust-based industries

Although a company’s employer and consumer brands can have starkly different images—one having primarily positive associations and one negative—this is far from ideal. Discord in the brand perception of one can have a spillover effect on another. 🚨 For example, consider a company that has a terrific consumer-based reputation and then fails to treat prospective job applicants with respect during the interview process. 😳 Research from Career Builder indicates that the majority of candidates who’ve had a negative experience during the application and selection process will tell at least three friends (and a significant number will tell considerably more). 👎🏻 That negative employer brand image is spread within and across the talent market over time. 📢 Now consider that many of these candidates (or someone they know) can be your suppliers, financiers, consultants, or candidates that the company would like to work with or hire. ❓How might the negative employer brand image spill over onto these relationships? ❓How might it impact the degree of trust in the company? ❓And don’t forget, all these candidates are also consumers. How might the employer brand image affect their desire to buy from the company?

Long before you speak, your reputation has already done the talking. In pharma and medical devices, the industry feels huge. Until you’ve been in it long enough to realize — it’s not. People talk. About who delivers. About who cuts corners. About who’s a nightmare to work with… and who makes the team better. Over 15 years in sales and leadership, I’ve seen careers accelerate because of a name that carried trust. I’ve also seen opportunities vanish before the first conversation — because the reputation arrived first, and it wasn’t good. Here’s what I’ve learned: • The way you treat people when you don’t “need” them matters most • How you handle setbacks will be remembered longer than your wins • Consistency builds trust — and one careless moment can undo it Your reputation is the most valuable thing you bring to a new role, a client meeting, or a leadership opportunity. Guard it like an asset. Because it will always walk into the room before you do.

Reputation shapes trust. But not all reputation travels equally. Trust in the workplace is built through consistent signals of: ↳ competence (can you do the job?)  ↳ character (can I count on you?) These signals form a person’s reputation. But research shows that negative reputations spread faster, stick longer, and do more damage than positive ones. In a field study, employees exposed to a dishonest colleague were more likely to become dishonest themselves, a measurable 5 percentage point increase in just one month. Working with honest peers didn’t have the same positive effect. In network studies, negative gossip about character is clustered more tightly than positive talk, meaning bad reputations move more directly through teams. A meta-analysis found that negative reputation had more than twice the impact on attitudes and behavior compared to positive reputation. This matters for building trust. People need multiple, consistent experiences to form a strong positive impression of someone’s competence or integrity. But a single breach (a missed commitment, an unfair decision, or a sign of dishonesty) can shift how others see you. To build trust across teams, organizations need to make positive signals more visible and repeatable, while containing the spread of reputational harm when based on isolated or unverified incidents. This asymmetry is even more pronounced in hybrid and remote teams. Opportunities to observe or casually hear about positive behaviors are limited. The informal channels that typically carry good reputation (side conversations, in-person moments of follow-through) are weakened or missing. Meanwhile, negative reputation still spreads with little friction, often through digital backchannels. As a result, building trust remotely requires more deliberate effort. That’s where recognition becomes essential. Recognition isn’t just about appreciation — when done well (timely, specific, and visible), it reinforces behaviors aligned with values and makes positive contributions observable across the network. It helps transmit reputation signals that support trust-building: this person delivers, this person helps, this person does the right thing. These are the kinds of consistent cues that grow trust over time. In a distributed workplace, recognition helps replace what proximity used to provide. To build trust in your workplace, don’t wait for good reputation to spread on its own. Design for it. Recognition is a practical mechanism to ensure that trustworthy behavior is seen, shared, and repeated. It gives people the reputation they’ve earned, and others the confidence to rely on them. -- 💡 Exploring the intersection of #peopleanalytics, #organizationalculture, and #behavioralscience to build thriving workplaces. Follow for insights, research, and ideas.