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Trust and Agility: The Secret to Scaling Without Losing Control

By
Jacob Shaffield
March 17, 2025
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The Intersection of Trust and Agility

Imagine walking away from your high-volatility business for a month, a week or even just a weekend, knowing with absolute certainty that everything will run smoothly in your absence. That confidence doesn’t come from wishful thinking—it comes from trust. But trust alone isn’t enough. In today’s fast-paced world, businesses that can’t adapt quickly will fall behind. That’s where agility comes in.

Trust and agility are the twin pillars of scalable success. Trust ensures that teams can execute without micromanagement. Agility ensures that businesses can pivot, expand, and respond to challenges without losing momentum. Together, they create an operational structure that is both reliable and dynamic—a business that can scale without losing control.

Trust without agility leads to stagnation. Agility without trust leads to chaos. The most successful organizations build both.

In industries where precision and reliability are non-negotiable—like manufacturing and logistics—a lack of trust slows decision-making, while a lack of agility prevents businesses from keeping up with market demands. And yet, these industries face a unique challenge: constant change. High turnover, frequent onboarding, and shifting demand create an environment where both trust and agility are difficult to maintain.

The challenge is clear: How do you build trust in a constantly changing workforce? How do you scale operations without losing control? The answer lies in an approach that prioritizes both workforce agility and operational consistency. This is where Veryable comes in.

The Importance of Trust and Agility in Teams

Great teams run on trust. It fuels collaboration, communication, and accountability. A meta-analysis by De Jong and Dirks (2016) found a 0.33 correlation between trust and team performance, showing its tangible impact on efficiency and success. But agility is what enables those high-trust teams to respond to changes, adapt to new challenges, and scale effectively.

A high-trust, agile environment leads to stronger engagement, fewer sick days, and a more cohesive workforce. Studies highlight that trust also fosters psychological safety, empowering employees to speak up, take initiative, and drive continuous improvement, while agility ensures that these improvements can be implemented seamlessly.

Trust enables employees to act decisively. Agility ensures they can adapt when the situation changes. Without trust, businesses hesitate. Without agility, they get stuck.

The Revolving Door Challenge: A Barrier to Trust and Agility

For many leaders, stepping away from daily operations feels impossible. Every new hire introduces a period of uncertainty. Are they ready? Will they make mistakes? How long until they become reliable? In industries where efficiency is critical, even a small dip in reliability can ripple across the entire operation.

The manufacturing sector faces a significant skills gap, with 88% of companies struggling to find qualified workers. Many new hires lack experience with industry-specific machinery or safety protocols, requiring extensive onboarding before they can contribute effectively. This onboarding period creates a trust deficit—leaders simply don’t know if they can rely on new employees in critical moments.

Turnover further complicates things. A 2023 report found that 44% of new hires require significant upskilling before they can meet productivity expectations. And in logistics, where split-second decision-making is required, slow ramp-up times can create costly bottlenecks.

This cycle erodes both trust and agility. When leaders have to constantly wonder whether their workforce is ready to perform, it creates stress, inefficiency, and a reluctance to step away from daily operations. Agility suffers when teams can’t move forward confidently. But what if there was a way to bypass this problem altogether?

Veryable’s Your Labor Pool: A Trust- and Agility-Building Solution

Veryable’s Your Labor Pool, or YLP, removes uncertainty by providing a flexible workforce already trained and ready to go. Unlike traditional hiring, which requires weeks or months of onboarding, this model allows businesses to scale their teams instantly with workers familiar with their operations. The result? Less disruption, faster execution, and most importantly—trust and agility.

Your Labor Pool functions as an extension of your team, made up of workers who have been rated based on performance, reliability, and attitude. Businesses like Lone Star Overnight (LSO) have used this approach to flex capacity daily, meeting productivity targets without sacrificing trust. Case studies from Veryable show that companies like PhoLicious and Gold Coast Eagle have successfully leveraged the labor pool to fulfill large orders, improve on-time deliveries, and reduce overtime.

By eliminating the uncertainty that comes with new hires and turnover, Your Labor Pool creates consistency and flexibility. And that combination is what builds both trust and agility.

Trust and Agility Unlock Growth

Trust isn’t just about feeling comfortable—it’s about enabling growth. Agility isn’t just about speed—it’s about adapting with precision. Without trust, leaders micromanage. Without agility, teams struggle to scale. Together, they create a workforce that is both dependable and dynamic.

Veryable offers a way to maintain that trust and agility, even in an industry where turnover and training gaps are constant challenges. By providing a flexible, pre-trained workforce, it ensures that businesses can operate at full capacity—whether their leaders are in the office or halfway around the world.

The strongest organizations don’t just build teams—they build trust and agility into their culture.

The freedom that comes from a trusted, agile workforce translates into higher efficiency and long-term growth. Leaders who trust their teams can step away from daily operations to focus on scaling the business, improving processes, and fostering innovation. Trust doesn’t just stabilize operations—it fuels forward momentum. And agility ensures businesses don’t just keep up but stay ahead.

When trust is strong, operations run smoother. When agility is built in, teams respond faster. And when both exist together, businesses scale without losing control.

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Jacob Shaffield
Jacob is the General Manager for Veryable in Houston, and previously for Central Kentucky and Southern Indiana – including Louisville, Lexington, and Evansville. Prior to Veryable, Jacob spent 20 years in logistics, marketing, ecommerce, and retail management roles – including as a VP for a furniture SMB and owner of e-commerce and brick and mortar retailers. With leadership from Fortune 10 to start-ups, he understands operational impact throughout the supply chain across many sectors.

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