An evaluation of the relationship between trust and communication satisfaction between personnel and managers: An application at Dumlupınar University

This work discusses two concepts that are essential to interpersonal relationships: communication and trust. It is thought that healthy relationships between managers and their personnel who spend considerable amounts of time together at their workplace are crucial in benefiting both personal and corporate aspects in a work environment. Hence, exploring the relationship between managers and personnel from the perspective of trust and communication is deemed valuable and worthy of research in this paper.The main goal of this research is to investigate the levels of trust and communication satisfaction of the personnel working in an academic institution, and to identify the presence and direction of the relationship between these metrics. In the first part of this research, the levels of communication satisfaction of the personnel is explored within the dimensions of organizational perception, communication climate, organizational integration, quality of media, personal feedback, lateral communication and upward communication; this exploration has shown that the highest levels of communication satisfaction occur within the dimension of organisational integration. Moreover, it is seen that the lowest levels of communication satisfaction occur within the dimension of personal feedback. When the overall communication satisfaction level of Dumlupınar University personnel is taken into account, it is seen that the level is at a medium level score of 3.66 points. In the second part of this research paper, the trust levels of the personnel towards their managers are investigated. It has been concluded that the most important criterion that increases the level of trust towards managers is the honesty of the managers. Managers' conformance has been found as the dimension with the smallest impact on the levels of trust. In the final part of the paper, the relationship between the communication satisfaction level and the trust level has been discussed and it has been found that there is a positive relationship between these two metrics. Keywords: Trust, communication satisfaction, relationship between managers and personnel