How Do Managers Affect Employee Engagement?

If you're wondering why your employees are not engaged, first look at your leaders!

In my work with HR teams and organizations striving to create an engaged and effective workforce, I have witnessed a very common trend: a team's engagement level rises or falls depending on the engagement level of their leaders. This is because leaders and managers are the ones who directly drive change in an organization, so their teams and subordinates naturally reflect their leaders' level of employee engagement. Managers are the ones who relay information from the top of the organization to employees, and they set the course for how that information is perceived by their teams.

More importantly, leaders in every organization have a critical choice to make, either to be advocates of the company's vision and goals or to despise the company's mission. This choice of a leader directly affects his or her subordinates, colleagues and superiors, and indeed the choices of leaders affect the entire organization.

Of the many powers that leaders inherently possess, one of the most potent is, of course, the power to influence the behavior of others. While this influence is often productive, it can also be damaging. When the power to influence others is used inappropriately, leaders can create anger, dissatisfaction and ultimately disengagement, depending on what they communicate and how they communicate it.

Our partner Decision Wise'sresearch with 252 leaders and their subordinates in a multinational manufacturing organization was a striking demonstration of the idea thata manager or leader's own level of engagement is directly linked to the level of engagement of their team .

The Numbers Don't Lie:

• The percentage of "fully engaged employees" in organizations led by leaders in the Fully engaged category is 38%, the highest of all engagement categories (Fully Engaged, Key Contributors, Opportunity Group, Completely Disengaged).
• In teams led by leaders in the Completely Disengaged category, the percentage of "completely disengaged employees" is 22%, which is significantly higher than the global average. Consider that 22% of Wallmart's 2.2 million employees, or 540,000 people, are completely disengaged. It is almost impossible for companies with these rates to run their operations sustainably and create a successful customer experience.

An in-depth study of the impact of leadership on employee engagement in these organizations found that, regardless of the manager's level of engagement, half of the employees in the teams fall into the category of "significant contributors." These people have a general satisfaction with their work and the work environment, but are not in a mental state that would define them as fully engaged or fully disengaged. In other words, it takes fully engaged leaders to achieve full employee engagement. ''5 Keys to Unlocking the Power of Employee Engagement'' In our webinar, we gave brief tips on employee engagement. You can watch the recording of this interesting webinar by clicking the link above and decide on the steps to increase employee engagement in your company.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SAMPLE SURVEY