While most employees surveyed reported being satisfied with their jobs, fewer than half said they’re happy with factors such as professional grown opportunities.  More troubling, only about half of these U.S. workers felt their employers are upfront with them and a quarter went so far as to say that they simply don’t trust the companies they work for.

These findings were reported by the American Psychological Association (APA), which began asking about trust in this year’s annual workplace well-being survey.  They polled 1,562 working adults in January and February.  (Disclosure: The APA has been a client of PRofessional Solutions, LLC on several occasions.)

While the head of the APA’s workplace initiative, David Ballard, attributes employees’ distrust and cynicism to unhappiness that they haven’t seen what they perceive to be a share in the gains of the recovery (wages have barely budged since 2009 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), PRofessional Solutions wonders about other possible contributors, like communication.  What are employers doing to communicate the realities of today’s business challenges to employees?  Do they share information about competition, business costs, state of sales, and issues that influence their business?  And, do employees feel free to explore ideas to improve productivity, new projects or products, and other ways to contribute to both organizational and personal success and growth?