With the rapid rise of remote work, many researchers have examined how this shift affects employee performance — but far fewer have looked at its impact on managers themselves. An article published in Personnel Psychology by Timothy Golden and Michael Ford explores a rarely asked question: do employees trust their supervisor as much when that person works remotely? And if not, what drives that loss of trust?
To answer this, the authors conducted three studies, including one in a large U.S. company with over 100 managers and 300 employees. They focused on affective trust — the kind based on personal connection and the intuitive sense that someone is reliable. Their findings show that the more a manager works remotely, the more employees tend to feel psychological distance and to doubt their manager’s intentions. Even when the manager is competent, the lack of concrete interactions makes their actions seem more abstract — and therefore, more ambiguous. The more distant someone appears, the easier it becomes to see them in simplified terms, stripped of nuance or context. And in human relationships, that rarely helps trust.
The study also found that monitoring makes things worse. A manager who works remotely and closely supervises their employees — through frequent check-ins or a suspicious tone, for instance — risks eroding trust even further. Without emotional or contextual cues to soften these behaviours, employees are more likely to interpret them as controlling or distrustful.
Practically speaking, these findings call for caution in hybrid models where managers are seldom present. Relationship quality depends not only on deliverables or virtual meetings, but on genuine human interactions that foster affective trust. When distance becomes the norm, leaders need to make an extra effort to maintain relational presence — even through a screen.