When I talk about how employee trust boosts business performance, audiences often nod in agreement. Companies do better when their people trust them. That makes sense to most people.

But then comes the question: “Can trust be measured indollars and cents?”

Let’s look at the 2025 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, using a common business metric: revenue per employee (RPE), which reflects the productivity and efficiency of a company’s workforce.

On average, the 100 Best Companies earn 8.5 times more revenue per employee than the U.S public market RPE. This astounding outperformance includes both public and private companies, with public companies reporting RPE that’s more than 9.4 times higher than market RPE, while private companies see more than 7.7 times higher. This financial advantage trends across industries, reinforcing the financial benefits of high-trust workplaces.

RPE success must be measured in tandem with the employee experience. The 100 Best Companies don’t hit high RPE numbers by slashing headcount and overworking their teams. Well-being isn’t sacrificed for productivity. Quite the opposite. They outperform their peers in every employee experience metric from retention and well-being to innovation and productivity, with 90% of people describing their workplace as caring.

The 100 Best Companies also more than triple their stock market performance. 

More nodding from the audience. That’s what they want: Financial returns that light up Excel reports. High stock prices and skyrocketing profitability. A workplace brimming with innovation and agility, and record levels of productivity and efficiency.

Their next question: “How?”

I love this question, but not everyone loves my answer: It’s all about leadership behaviors, not just benefits. Trust isn’t built through more PTO. It’s in how leaders make people feel and the actions they take.

The 100 Best Companies have built a foundation of employee trust that fuels performance in all areas of their business—not just some areas, and not just for some people. They are more profitable and productive because they’ve created consistently positive work experiences, lower burnout rates, and higher levels of psychological and emotional health compared to typical workplaces.

Employees at these companies give extra in droves and are extremely agile, fueling high RPE levels. That doesn’t happen by giving them perks like free food or Apple watches. If it were that simple, every workplace would be great. It happens by listening to people and involving them in decisions that affect them. These leaders ensure all employees have opportunities for special recognition and make sure they believe that what they do matters; that they matter as human beings first and workers second. They’ve built organizations where transparency, well-being, and high levels of cooperation are cornerstones.

That is how business is done: with people, not to people. When that happens, the business benefits all stakeholders—from frontline workers to executives, shareholders to local communities. 

The 100 Best exemplify how high-trust cultures drive business success: Leaders shape the employee experience, which in turn shapes the culture, and that culture drives business performance.

Great leaders understand that it is because of their people that they outperform. It’s why they work on the nine high-trust leadership behaviors, so their people want to show up for them, work hard, and innovate when given a chance. They listen, evolve, and meet the moment.

In an age of distrust, AI fears, geopolitical uncertainty, and record-low employee engagement levels, that moment is now.

Agility and extra effort drive productivity

The 100 Best are more productive than their competitors, thanks to high levels of agility and discretionary effort, which boost their impressive RPE numbers.

Employees don’t give extra because they’re told to work harder or adapt faster. They go the extra mile because they work in cultures of collaboration, special recognition, and purposeful work.

At the Best Workplaces, 84% of employees say they can count on people to cooperate. Why does that matter so much? Because the likelihood of extra effort skyrockets by a jaw-dropping 720% when employees work in a cooperative workplace. And when employees feel everyone has opportunities for special recognition and their work is meaningful, they are 60% and 50% more likely to give extra, respectively, according to an analysis of 1.3 million employee surveys from Great Place To Work.

Leaders make sure people feel a sense of purpose in their work, which can boost stock performance. They build cultures of camaraderie and cooperation through training and modeling leadership behaviors.

Accenture, for example, intentionally builds and tracks cooperation through its “Leader Network Diagnostic tool” and accompanying workshop, which helps break down silos and expand and strengthen connections among colleagues.

Synchrony’s President and CEO Brian Doubles redefined leadership by incorporating high-trust leadership behaviors into the company’s values and strengthening its culture of cooperation. Over the past three years, these efforts have led to Synchrony’s stock price doubling and voluntary turnover hitting an all-time low. Its ranking on the 100 Best has jumped from No. 44 in 2020 to No. 2 in 2025.

Not only do employees at winning companies give more effort, they’re able to quickly adapt to changes because they’re well-informed, understand their impact on the business, and feel empowered to voice their opinions.

But it’s when organizations celebrate new and better ways of doing things, regardless of the outcome, that agility soars—by 250%, according to 1.3 million survey responses.

For that to happen, you must have psychologically safe workplaces for people to speak up, as Harvard professor and bestselling author Amy Edmondson shared. Eighty-one percent of people at the 100 Best describe their company as psychologically and emotionally healthy compared with 56% at typical companies. When employees can try new things without fear, innovation thrives, as does financial success. Companies that excel in “Innovation By All” experience 550% faster revenue growth.

Listening to and empowering employees to innovate has led to business success at Credit Acceptance, where leaders hold themselves accountable for acting on employee feedback. The company publishes a report on how many questions have been asked year-to-date, the number of up and down votes, and the status of those on which they have committed to “take action.” 

Agility is also 50% more likely when employees believe their leaders have a clear strategic vision, and 40% more likely when they are actively involved in decisions that affect them. It’s why leaders at Hilcorp Energy give employees access to the same financial information they have. They hold monthly meetings to keep everyone informed and involved in discussions about the company’s financials, breaking down details so employees learn how their contributions are linked to the company’s success.

Every leader today can create a culture that fuels business performance, no matter the company size, industry, or budget. The building blocks of employee trust are the same.

Focus on leadership—at all levels and for everyone. When you do, your business will be more profitable, productive, efficient, innovative, and resilient.

Michael C. Bush is CEO of Great Place To Work and coauthor of “A Great Place to Work For All.” Follow him on LinkedIn.

Do you have what it takes to make a Best Workplace list? Find out.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• President Trump is set to unveil potentially the biggest hike in U.S. import duties since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act nearly a century ago, and reports suggest staffers are still jockeying for the chance to change his mind up until the final moment.

President Donald Trump and his economic team had not yet decided on the size and shape of his “Liberation Day” tariff plan 24 hours before it was set to be revealed in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, according to reports.

Bloomberg cited anonymous sources in the administration as saying Trump was undecided whether to impose a simple, easy-to-understand flat tariff (of 20%, for example). The alternative is to opt for a more targeted approach where hikes are tailored to hurt more protectionist trading partners, such as the European Union, the most. 

The arrival of broad punitive tariffs—expected to take effect within 24 hours of their announcement—could force companies to scramble to redirect cargo already en route to the United States.  

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “with his trade and tariff team right now perfecting it to make sure this is a perfect deal for the American people and the American worker.”

Foreign leaders continued to attempt to influence Trump’s plan and carve out exceptions for their countries as the Wednesday deadline approached. 

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unilaterally dropped all duties levied against U.S. goods.

This came without the previous negotiation of a free trade agreement, meaning all World Trade Organization members are now within their rights to sue Israel under the organization’s bylaws in order to win similar treatment.

The White House did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment by press time.

‘2025 tariffs could be so much more devastating than Smoot-Hawley’

Trump’s late tweaks to any tariff announcements speak to the complexity of rewriting long-existing trade relations and uprooting entire supply chains.

Financial markets have not been able to predict the likely effects on gross domestic product, inflation, or asset prices.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs hiked its probability for a U.S. recession from 20% to 35%, as planned investments are postponed and the economy risks grinding to a halt.

Investors sent gold to a new all-time high above $3,000 an ounce on Tuesday, fueling fears about what the changes will mean for U.S. stock and currency markets.

Spencer Hakimian, founder of New York macro hedge fund Tolou Capital, also warned that tariffs could backfire worse than the punitive duties that deepened the Great Depression.

“The economic damage from the 2025 tariffs could be so much more devastating than Smoot-Hawley,” he wrote. “The economy is five times more exposed to tariffs today than it was 100 years ago when we learned our lesson.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• President Donald Trump announced long-awaited reciprocal tariffs on America’s trading partners Wednesday. The U.S. will impose tariffs at about half of what other countries do, with a minimum 10% tax. “We subsidize a lot of countries,” the president said. “We’re not taking it anymore.”

It’s a day of tariffs that President Donald Trump vowed would “make America wealthy again.”

Trump on Wednesday announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs with the U.S.’ trading partners, to be set at about half of what other countries are charging America. The U.S. will impose a 10% minimum tariff, too, Trump said in a speech from the White House Rose Garden.

“They do it to us, we do it to them,” Trump said during the event, saying it was America’s turn to prosper. 

As the president delivered his speech, he held up a sign dense with charts, and shared specific examples: China taxes the United States 67%—a number Trump said accounted for currency manipulation—so the United States will tax China 34%. The European Union’s total levies against the U.S. amount to 39%, so the U.S. will tax about 20%, Trump said. The U.S. will impose 25% on South Korea, 24% on Japan and 32% on Taiwan. 

“None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries,” he said. “I say that, friend and foe, and in many cases the friend is worse than the foe.”

Trump also reaffirmed that he would place 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars and parts, effective midnight. “We subsidize a lot of countries,” the president said, blaming the trade deficit for the U.S.’ debt problem. “We’re not taking it anymore.” 

Even before Trump’s Election Day victory, some economists warned the tariffs he promised on the campaign trail could be inflationary. Ever since, his on-again, off-again tariffs and the threat of a global trade war not only pushed the S&P 500 into correction territory and tanked consumer sentiment, but set off recession calls from big banks and others in the finance world. It’s kept the central bank in wait-and-see mode, too, when it comes to interest rates. 

The fear surrounding the levies is that when companies face an extra tax on imported goods, they tend to pass those costs on to consumers. Americans are still suffering from exorbitant prices after inflation hit a scorching-hot four-decade high almost three years ago. The Federal Reserve itself sees tariff-induced inflation coming, even if it may be transitory. If business and consumer spending declines as a result of price hikes, it could slow economic activity and even usher in stagflation—a mix of stagnant growth and elevated inflation. One think tank recently called tariffs “a recipe for making Americans worse off.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com