The No. 1 Employee Benefit That No One’s Talking About … (Having Great Mangers!)
People leave managers, not companies.
You’ve heard it before.
One in two employees have left a job to get away from a manager and improve their overall life at some point in their career, according to Gallup’s State of the American Manager report. Big Hint From Alysia … download this report.
Writes Tom Nolan and Jane Smith of the Gallup Organization: “Bad managers are abundant, and they leave an impression. Almost everyone can relate to the sense of dread about coming to work when a manager makes an otherwise good job feel like a dead end.
But the effects of bad management reach farther than just engagement — they can actually undermine your company’s efforts to help employees improve their health.
From the State of the American Manager report,
“Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and putting their well-being in peril.”
Your company likely makes a significant investment in benefits programs aimed at employee retention and lowered healthcare costs.
According to Mercer’s National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, the average health benefit cost per employee has increased by over 16% in just the last five years.
Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars in this area, but the actions of a poor manager negate the positive effects of your company’s benefits programs.
When employee health suffers, your company suffers.
Unhappy, unhealthy employees affect:
- Absenteeism
- Performance
- Customer ratings
- Quality
- Profit
Big Hint From Alysia: Use the below example when talking with your executives on doing leadership and coaching training for your managers …**
**Your company would never promote smoking or other bad practices that are scientifically linked to health problems — you’d be undermining all of your efforts to improve employee health and well-being.
It’s time to think of management the same way — a bad manager is damaging to your employees’ health and, as a result, to your company’s bottom line.
The good news is, this finding works both ways. According to the State of the American Manager report,
“Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.”
Just as a bad manager can ruin a good job, a great manager can make a good job even better. Total agreement from Alysia here!
So if people leave good jobs because of bad managers, why don’t they seek out jobs that offer great managers?
Probably because they don’t know where the great managers work.
Big Hint From Alysia: Publicize that benefit to prospective employees.
‘To attract the best employee talent, every company should publicize great managers as part of their employee value proposition (EVP).
And to keep the star people you’ve worked so hard to find and hire, you need to deliver on the promise of great management.’
You should select for specific managerial talents when hiring managers and offer training and development for managers throughout their careers.
Big Hint From Alysia: Coaching and Mentoring skills training to managers is a must!
The Crazy Cycle in the Workplacetraining program (facilitated by Alysia Kehoe) promotes showing Personal Care to Employees by the Manager and discusses How Employees can show Respect to their Employer.
Effective people management could be the most difficult aspect of sustaining a thriving enterprise.
Companies need to devote more attention to promoting and developing good managers, and then start letting the world know they have these good managers.
Here’s Gallup’s advice for building a healthy and thriving organization, starting with your managers.
1. Understand the characteristics of a great manager.
Gallup’s research reveals that about one in 10 people possess high talent to manage.
That 10%, when put in managerial roles, has a strong natural ability to:
- Put the right people in the right roles
- Create a culture of clear accountability
- Engage employees with compelling Vision, Mission, and Values
Big Hint From Alysia: Periodically managers / leaders during the year, we should have our individual team(s) review the organization’s Vision, Mission, and Values; and ask the questions:
- Are we currently executing our Vision, Mission, Values to be more productive and effective?
- Are we showing our customers how our Vision, Mission, Values positively affect the customer?
- Motivate every employee individually (Alysia agrees: Through daily coaching)
- Coach and develop their people by focusing on their strengths
- Make decisions based on productivity, not politics
- Build trust and dialogue with their people about both work and life outside of work
According to the State of the American Manager report, “18% of those currently in management roles demonstrate a high level of talent for managing others, while another 20% show a basic talent for it. Combined, they contribute about 48% higher profit to their companies than average managers do.”
Big Hint From Alysia: More Great manager insights in the next two parts of this series!