Why companies need to invest in their managers
Great managers bring high employee engagement
“I hate my manager”
Let’s accept it — everyone has gone through this phase. Statistics says that 5 out of 10 people quit their jobs due to managers. People complain of bosses who micromanages them, steal credit, behavioural issues, and otherwise make them unhappy. Well, my first reaction was to feel bad for this person. That’s a horrible way to face your day. And I can certainly relate to that feeling!
But it also got me thinking. I can attest first hand to the plenty of horrible bosses out there. And it’s pretty easy to blame them for our misery. But honestly, I feel, the burden is as much on us, as on our managers.
Let me explain. People quickly adapt to behavioural change when they see the quick wins. But it sure isn’t fun to wait for someone to make the first move. And that’s a behavioural change that needs to culminate from the organisation to drive a team-centric culture.
The trend is shifting from org-driven to team-driven values and Managers become the key stakeholder to drive it from bottom to top.
Why managers have the greatest power to improve the employee experience
An employee’s interaction with their manager is one of the most important factors in an employee journey. Consider a few facts below
- 70% of the variance in employee engagement is created solely by Managers
- 69% of Managers feel uncomfortable communicating with employees in general
- Only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work
- 52% of exiting employees say that their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job
Clearly, if you want to radically change your employee experience, you need to empower your managers with the right set of tools and learnings to build high performing teams.
Now the question arises. Despite these alarming facts, we don’t see companies prioritize their employee success or experience solution. Do we not see its long-term impact?
We build comprehensive frameworks for customer onboarding, retention and personas because we care for them. Why can’t we do the same for our own people?
As per the Deloitte HCM report, 80% of executives see the importance of employee experience but only 22% have implemented it.
That’s a big gap. So what’s going on?
- The traditional approach of engagement surveys are not enough to check the pulse of their people — lots of recency bias, one size fits all, long and time consuming & just one way flow of information. Hence managers need a continual assessment to know the actual picture.
- The belief that only the HR team is responsible for driving the workplace culture is a misconception. As I said earlier, the teams should be the core focus while driving the values.
- External factors like the remote working & distributed workforces.
- Technology is one major factor to drive employee engagement effectively. The current tools available in the market follow the traditional top-down approach of building the company culture, and not built for teams.
We’re almost there.:)
When all that said & done, boosting the employee experience isn’t just about attraction and retention. Companies with highly engaged workforces see a 21% improvement in the bottom line.
As Josh Bersin says “the customer experience is dependent on the employee experience.” Every time we make employees’ lives better, we better serve customers as well.
There’s the motivation to take this topic seriously!
