Managers’ Vital Role in Employee Engagement

Manager Effectiveness Evaluation or Upward Evaluation, when done well, can drive employee engagement and business profits.

Successful companies know that employee engagement drives business outcomes and is a leading indicator of future business success. Engaged employees are more productive, more customer-focused, and are less likely to leave their job. In fact, research substantiates a direct correlation between engagement and occurrences of turnover, profitability, and productivity, estimating that managers account for at least 70% of the discrepancies in employee engagement scores in U.S. businesses. Measuring manager effectiveness is critical for manager’s development and company’ growth.

The High Cost of Employee Turnover

The cost of employee turnover for businesses can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity and re-hiring costs. Recruiting and training a new employee requires time and money. Companies generally pay about one-fifth of an employee’s salary to replace that employee. While the highest-paid employees cost businesses more to replace, the costs do become less significant for those with low earnings.

Good Help Might Be Hard To Find…But So Are Good Bosses

It’s no secret, “people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.” The number one reason employees quit their jobs: “to get away from their manager.” It is estimated that one in two employees, at some point in their career, have left their job to get away from a manager.

Millennials, now the largest demographic in the workforce, are a generation that requires more frequent manager feedback than any previous generation. Feedback should be clear, specific, and ongoing (e.g. monthly)—not reserved for formal performance reviews. The best way to ensure that managers invest more in providing feedback is to make it a part of their own performance metrics.

Deficient Performance Feedback Drags Down Manager Effectiveness

Consistent and open communication—whether in person, via telephone or electronically—is connected to higher engagement. Managers who conduct regular meetings, help team members understand and establish goals and responsibilities are more likely to increase their employees’ engagement. A good boss needs to be committed to their job, and encourage their workers to feel the same and deliver their best performance. Good communication with employees is imperative.

Tying Employee Engagement to Business Performance

How do you gain the valuable insights needed to create and sustain a thriving business? Engaging employees begins with asking the right performance-based questions in a well-designed questionnaire that identifies specific outcomes. Through their “People Analytics” department Google utilizes a precise set of questions for team members to evaluate their managers, enabling Google to reward their best managers, and improve their worst ones. The good news: manager effectiveness survey is something every company, regardless of size, can use to help improve their managers.

Avoid rote surveys. Leading companies allocate significant resources to carefully preparing employee engagement surveys. They ask clear, pointed questions that go beyond measuring “satisfaction,” and capture employees’ beliefs about their managers’ effectiveness, values, behavior, and leadership qualities.

Carefully analyze the data. Identify areas of efficiencies and hidden accounts of what’s working within the organization, and gain insight to where there are areas of dissatisfaction.

Engage senior management. Act on survey results; use the information to inform effective engagement strategies and policies, and implement best practices to sustain organizational growth going forward.

Creating a culture of employee engagement demands a well thought out strategy that includes accountability, great communication, and manager and employee development strategies that are aligned with proven metrics and performance goals. By using the right employee engagement approach, companies see increased productivity, profitability, retention, quality, and customer ratings. Businesses that conduct manager effectiveness survey the right way, will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage.

So, if you’re ready to start building a high-performance company culture that encourages employees’ growth and development, check out our sample manager effectiveness survey designed to help you realize all the benefits that come with asking the right survey questions.