HR has a trust problem. And most HR leaders know it.
Ask employees why they avoid going to HR, and the answers are almost always the same: HR protects the company, not me. Nothing stays confidential. They show up after the damage is done. They've never done my job.
These aren't irrational fears. They're learned responses — shaped by years of speaking up and being met with silence, retaliation, or a policy citation instead of support.
The data backs up the skepticism
The Edelman Trust Barometer identifies competence, transparency, and shared experience as the foundations of workplace trust. Yet employees consistently point to a lack of transparency and feeling disconnected from decision-makers as the primary reasons trust breaks down at work.
Gallup's research adds another layer: employees who distrust leadership disengage faster and leave sooner — regardless of pay or benefits. When HR is perceived as distant from the actual work, it doesn't just lose credibility. It loses relevance.
The moment proximity changes everything
Jessica Winder, Chief People Officer, chose a different path early in her career — and it started in one of the most unlikely environments imaginable.
As an HR leader at a crime scene cleanup organization, Winder was faced with a workforce defined by emotional labor, physical danger, and high burnout rates. She could have managed from an office. She didn't.
She went into the field. She cleaned crime scenes alongside employees.
"I couldn't build policies for work I didn't understand," she said. "So, I went to learn it."
The effect was immediate. HR stopped being an abstract compliance function. It became something employees hadn't experienced before: present, human, and on their side.
Real understanding leads to real change
What followed wasn't performative empathy — it was structural reform.
By doing the work herself, Winder could see which policies made sense and which ones simply made employees' lives harder. She eliminated unnecessary controls. She challenged outdated requirements. She pushed back on benefits that looked generous on paper but created friction in practice.
The policies that replaced them were built on reality, not assumptions.
This is the part most organizations miss. Trust isn't rebuilt through messaging campaigns or town halls. It's rebuilt when the people making decisions actually understand what they're deciding about.
Treating people like adults
Winder's philosophy cuts against the instinct many HR functions have to control through rules.
"I treat people like adults," she explained. "If you build everything around fear, you get silence. If you build around trust, you get accountability."
Harvard Business Review research supports this: organizations that lead with trust consistently outperform rule-heavy cultures on both engagement and retention. Employees who feel protected — not policed — show up differently.
What proximity does to an organization
The impact went beyond HR's reputation. By taking the time to understand every role through participation, Winder quietly dismantled the invisible hierarchies that fragment most organizations.
Executives gained credibility. Frontline employees gained voice. Departments stopped operating in silos and started aligning around something more durable: shared respect for the work.
MIT Sloan research confirms what Winder demonstrated in practice — employees stay when leaders show real understanding of their work, not just appreciation for outcomes.
The lesson HR can't afford to ignore
This isn't a feel-good story about one empathetic leader. It's a case study in how trust is actually built — slowly, through proximity, patience, and participation.
HR's reputation problem won't be solved with a rebrand or a new engagement survey. It will be solved when HR leaders step into the reality of the people they serve and stay there long enough to earn trust back.
People don't distrust HR because they dislike HR people. They distrust HR because, too often, HR has never truly understood the work.
That's the uncomfortable truth. And it's also the clearest path forward.