I love it when a compelling piece of research confirms what we intuitively know to be true. Modern-day workers are primarily motivated by personal and professional development and increasingly want to work with managers who coach, not bosses who tell.
Last week Gallup published their most recent meta-analysis covering 1.8milllion employees, 230 organisations, 49 industries, in 73 countries.
What they found is that the relationship we have with our manager is still the most important one in the business; 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.
More importantly, managers who adopt a coaching mindset and focus on developing their people, deliver the strongest engagement and performance results including 41% lower absenteeism, 20% higher sales, and 21% higher profitability.
And yet, managers who prioritise the development of their people are the exception, not the rule. Because still, after 50 years of Gallup research, only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Only 15% of the 1.8million people surveyed! How much faster could we all be progressing our families, communities, economies, environment, if that 15% was reversed to 85% worldwide?
Here are some of the reasons why managers continue to demonstrate this knowing / doing gap:
Training your leaders and managers in how to coach & how to give proper feedback; supporting them implementing these new skills with their teams; and holding them accountable to these behaviours; is important.
In fact, Gallup says that “if leaders could prioritise one action, it should be equipping their managers to become coaches. This means putting engagement front and centre as a primary role responsibility”.
Source: Gallup Report 2019. “Building a high development culture through your employee engagement Strategy.
Contact Stephanie now to secure your dates for the first quarter of 2020
My Team Alchemy program is a proven initiative to develop the skills of leaders to set clear expectations, give constructive feedback, and coach to strengths.
Leaders who have participated in this program consistently demonstrate increases in their teams’ engagement and performance measures.
If you’d like to start next year with a positive action towards sustainably increasing your organisation’s engagement – talk to me before the 20th of December to secure your dates for the first quarter of 2020.
MORE ABOUT STEPHANIE BOWN
Stephanie Bown is obsessed with performance and helping people move from simply functioning to fully flourishing. Since she was in her early teens, Stephanie has studied the deep inner workings of the mind and how people survive or thrive at work.
Having completed over 9 years of tertiary education and over 5 professional accreditations, Stephanie has devoted her life to discovering the dynamics of individuals, teams and organisations at work and lives to share her insights with her clients. Her mission is to deliver life-changing learning experiences.