Putting trust at the centre of workplace culture

“I feel that decisions impacting staff and the way they have been implemented in the last few years lacks a sense of humanity and respect for staff well-being. Faculty and higher administration often speak about the importance of staff and their role in the success of the University, but actions rarely align with the way we are apparently seen and valued. I feel less empowered and supported in the last year than I have in my long tenure at the University. This is a concerning trend.”

I was hopeful that the new Flexible and Hybrid Work Guidelines released in October 2025 would help shift the culture for the better, if not convince UW leadership that staff should have greater agency in their work. And where managers follow and encourage the flexible guidelines in their staff teams, I believe this has made a positive impact for their staff—and our survey results show as much. But, of course, I don’t hear from those who feel trusted and supported in their roles as much as from those who are truly struggling. And our member survey results also indicate that one in five staff members are not being provided the level of flexibility described in the guidelines, and one in four say their area’s hybrid practices don’t align with the guidelines. That’s a significant gap between the guidelines and reality.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, leadership had no choice but to trust that employees could ‘pivot’ and work differently; they had to trust that work would get done with less direct supervision. And despite the disruption and uncertainty of that time, staff did a remarkable job, demonstrating what employees can accomplish when given trust and autonomy. Yet some leaders are now actively clawing back that autonomy.

Effective leaders—and we do have many at Waterloo—are emotionally intelligent: they foster trust, demonstrate empathy, empower their staff, and communicate openly. They understand that when employees seek flexibility, they are not asking to avoid responsibility; they are asking for the support they need to succeed. When leaders listen, respond with compassion, and trust their employees, both employees and the University benefit.

But we also hear—frequently—about leaders who don’t extend this trust, and the harm this is doing. Insisting that work must always be done in a particular place, at particular hours, is neither an innovative nor an effective approach to management. This control issue has negatively affected the culture at Waterloo and is affecting the physical and mental well-being of staff—and it also walks a fine line with the law.

Under the Human Rights Code, employers have a legal duty to accommodate “the needs of people with disabilities who are adversely affected by a requirement, rule or standard. Accommodation is necessary to ensure that people with disabilities have equal opportunities, access and benefits”.

In other words, workplace structures, rules, and norms can be barriers for some staff, and accommodations are designed to reduce those barriers. But there’s been resistance to reducing certain barriers at Waterloo. We would never say to someone with mobility challenges, “we are a university with stairs,” and suggest that since the stairs have always been there, they’ll just have to deal with them. We understand that stairs in the workplace are easily navigated for some and not as easy to navigate for others, and so we have elevators and ramps to accommodate those who need them. But there’s a serious failure to understand that, for some employees, mandatory in-person work creates barriers that can and should be addressed through accommodations.

There’s also a persistent misunderstanding that accommodations give some employees an ‘unfair advantage,’ when the opposite is true: accommodations remove obstacles so everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.

Challenges arise when the allowed number of work-from-home (WFH) days in a particular unit are used as a reason to disapprove a workplace WFH accommodation. This is a fundamental misapplication of both the Hybrid Work Guidelines and the accommodation process: Workplace accommodations are modifications or elimination of existing rules to help employees with disabilities or protected characteristics (for example, Family Status) do their jobs effectively and engage fully in the workplace. By definition, workplace rules cannot be used to deny an accommodation, and yet we’re seeing this frequently.

The accommodation process is supposed to be a collaborative effort between the employee and employer, yet we’re often seeing accommodations involving work from home in particular denied unilaterally, without discussion. This failure to engage in the process respectfully leaves staff feeling unheard and unsupported, and it may help explain why only about half of survey respondents who have recently participated in the accommodation process agree that their accommodations actually supported their success at work.

This mismatch between needs and accommodations suggests that the process is often starting from a place of skepticism, not trust. I see this frequently and cannot understand why we aren’t prioritizing employees’ preferred methods of addressing their limitations and barriers. When someone tells you what they need to work most effectively, why not believe them? The reasons behind those needs may involve personal or medical information that they are under no obligation to share.

We also hear concerns about privacy, especially when accommodation requests are forwarded up line management so that leaders become privy to, and even involved in, the details of accommodations. Unless an accommodation requires a large expense— and the overwhelming majority do not—this involvement is unnecessary, intrusive, and goes against the first principle of accommodation in the workplace: respect for dignity.

Seeking an accommodation is difficult enough. Leadership-level involvement increases the chance that an employee feels stigmatized, devalued, a burden. It is not respectful of the staff member’s privacy nor their comfort in seeking what they need to ensure success within their role.

Accommodations are an important tool, but a truly inclusive workplace doesn't rely on accommodations alone. The more flexibility, autonomy, and trust we build into our everyday practices, the fewer employees will need to seek exceptions simply to do their jobs successfully.

Some formal accommodations will always be necessary. However, many requests arise because the workplace is not designed with enough flexibility from the outset. When we make work more adaptable by default, more people can thrive without navigating a formal process to access support.

As an institution, we have an opportunity to think more creatively—innovatively—about how work gets done. Instead, we're creating barriers and then requiring employees to ask for help removing them. When those barriers become too much, some staff end up taking sick leave when greater flexibility or appropriate accommodations might have helped them remain at work. This comes at a cost to the employee, their colleagues, and the University. Meanwhile, we are losing talented staff to organizations that have embraced more flexible and respectful approaches to work.

We often describe our highly diverse workforce as a great strength. That’s why it’s particularly troubling that employees managing disabilities, raising young families, or caring for aging parents continue to face unnecessary workplace barriers. At an institution dedicated to learning, inclusion and equity, this is difficult to justify. In my experience, the challenges in requesting flexibility disproportionately affect women, placing an unfair burden on those who are already navigating competing personal and professional responsibilities.

So as much as I appreciate the former president’s remarks to be true and validating, a real problem of culture remains. But now UW has a new president and a new opportunity for change.

In his recent welcome message, President Rosehart noted that our values—think differently, act with purpose, and work together—“shape how we learn, create, discover, and support one another.”  I agree, and I would like to see leaders held to these values so that they can be meaningful and effective for staff.

Here’s what living our institutional values would look like for staff:

• Supporting staff needs. Staff who have the flexibility and accommodations they need are better able to contribute, collaborate, and thrive. Supporting employee well-being benefits staff, their colleagues, and the University as a whole.
• Listening to and trusting staff. Managers should be encouraged and empowered by leadership to ask staff what they need to work effectively, and default to “yes” for preferred accommodations until they’re proven not to work.
• Rewarding leadership that encourages trust, demonstrates the value of employees, and fosters a positive culture that empowers staff—and taking appropriate action when leaders don’t live up to our values.

What staff need is bigger than flexibility or hybrid work, or accommodations. We need to rebuild a culture of trust: Trust that staff know how to do their jobs, that flexibility can coexist with accountability, and that employees understand what they need to be successful. A culture of excellence grounded in trust and respect is not an aspirational goal—it is what our values call us to create.