When people feel worn down at work, advice often turns to personal habits: sleep better, set boundaries, build resilience. Those things matter, but a 2025 study from Poland asks a different question: does the way an organisation is run, including fairness, recognition and leadership, relate to how well its people feel, and does trust sit in the middle? The answer was a qualified yes, within the limits of a one-time questionnaire.
Researchers from SWPS University in Warsaw and the Silesian University of Technology surveyed 1,113 employees from a range of Polish organisations. The average age was 45, and 41 per cent had higher education. Participants completed questionnaires on several areas: the main features of their working life, authentic leadership, their general tendency to trust, and their trust in supervisors, co-workers and the organisation. They also answered questions on wellbeing at work, job satisfaction and work stress.
The team used structural equation modelling, a statistical method that tests whether a proposed set of relationships fits the data. They looked at three broad ideas: a well-functioning organisation (values that match the person’s own, fair rewards, recognition, authentic leadership and supportive peers), full trust in the organisation, and wellbeing in the workplace. The question was whether trust explained the link between the first and the third.
The study was published in September 2025 in the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health.
The model that fitted best had trust in the organisation sitting between a well-functioning organisation and wellbeing. In statistical terms, trust completely mediated the relationship: once trust was included, the direct link from organisational context to wellbeing was not needed in the model.
A well-functioning organisation explained 90 per cent of the variance in full trust in the organisation. It explained trust in the organisation as a whole most strongly (81 per cent) and trust in supervisors next (68 per cent). It explained trust in co-workers less well (37 per cent).
In turn, trust in the organisation explained 87 per cent of the variance in wellbeing at work. Wellbeing was strongly related to job satisfaction (70 per cent of variance) and negatively related to work stress (34 per cent of variance).
Put plainly, in these employees’ answers, workplaces seen as fair, recognising and well led went together with higher trust, and higher trust went together with better wellbeing and satisfaction and lower stress. Trust in the organisation and in supervisors appeared to matter more than trust in co-workers.
Everyone answered a questionnaire once. A mediation model like this describes a pattern of statistical relationships; it does not prove a chain of cause and effect, and the arrows in the model are the researchers’ interpretation. People who feel well may also rate their organisation more generously, so the links could partly run the other way.
The percentages are variance explained within the model, and they are unusually high. Because the same people reported on all the measures in one sitting, shared ways of answering can inflate such figures. They should not be read as the share of wellbeing that any one change would bring about.
The participants were Polish employees from various organisations. Australian workplaces, awards, laws and cultures differ, and nothing here is Australian workplace or legal advice. The abstract also does not say how the employees were recruited, so we cannot tell how well they represent Polish workers in general.
The study does not show that a particular management change, such as a new recognition programme or a pay review, will lift wellbeing or reduce stress in any given workplace. It supports a narrower point: that how people experience fairness, recognition and leadership is closely tied to trust, and trust is closely tied to how they feel at work. That is a reason not to treat strain at work only as a matter of personal coping, though personal coping still matters.
If stress is affecting your health, consider speaking with your doctor or another qualified health professional. In Australia, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, and 000 is for emergencies.
Source: Trust in the organization as a mediator in the relationship of good organizational context with employee well-being DOI: 10.13075/ijomeh.1896.02615
Conceptual illustration of fairness, recognition and trust at work. AI-generated editorial illustration. This article summarises published research in our own words and is general information, not personal health advice.
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