Employee Engagement Easier for Managers: 7 Field-Tested Steps

Employee Engagement and Managers
Higher levels of employee engagement correlate to 18% greater productivity, 12% higher customer satisfaction, and 51% less voluntary turnover.  From a manager’s perspective, our employee engagement survey results tell us that higher employee engagement scores correlate to more:

• Discretionary effort.
• Advocacy.
• Loyalty from their team.

So, the question becomes, how can we make employee engagement easier for managers who already have so much on their plates?

Managers Drive Employee Engagement
Even with 100% commitment from HR to communicate the importance of engagement across the company, managers need to buy into the message, or employee engagement efforts will be diluted.  We know from assessing organizational cultures that managers must:

• Set the tone.
• Model the desired behaviors.
• Create the environment where engagement can take hold and flourish.

The Engagement Stumbling Block for Managers
Too often, employee engagement is framed for managers as just another item on an ever-growing to-do list. The real challenge for HR and senior leaders is twofold: first, to demonstrate how engagement directly supports managers in achieving team goals, and second, to remove barriers so managers can implement engagement initiatives effectively and confidently. When these elements align, engagement stops feeling like an obligation and becomes a strategic tool for driving team performance.

7 Field-Tested Ways to Make Employee Engagement Easier for Managers

To ease managers’ burden, leaders can provide managers with the right tools and technology to:

1. Find Out What Employees Really Think
   Survey employees so you can provide managers with meaningful employee feedback and insight on how to improve engagement. Ensure your survey reporting tool makes it easy for managers to analyze the feedback and identify the critical few leverage points that will have the greatest impact.
2. Measure Progress
   With the right engagement software, managers can work transparently with their teams to set goals and measure progress. Make it easy for managers to hold themselves and their teams accountable for taking specific actions to improve employee engagement.
3. Enable Sound Decision Making and Act
   Managers shouldn’t make engagement decisions based solely on personal opinions and gut reactions. With data readily available, managers should be taught how analyze the information to assess the pros and cons of various options to improve engagement.

   Then give managers and their teams the tools, time, and resources to take meaningful employee engagement actions.  Why?  Because employees who see action after an engagement survey are twelve times more likely to be engaged the following year compared to those who do not see follow-up.

4. Link Remote Workers
   Make the engagement results and the data behind them available to everyone — especially remote workers who may feel less connected to headquarters and the decision-making process.
5. Reduce Paperwork
   We have yet to meet a manager who looks forward to administrative paperwork. Your engagement software should be able to track employee evaluations, goals, feedback, and meeting results all in one place to reduce “administrivia.”
6. Boost a Healthy Workplace Culture
   With survey results and follow-up activities all tracked and accessible online, managers cam better demonstrate their respect for employee feedback and recognize superior performance. Provide managers with an easy way to show they value employees and set the stage for establishing a positive, healthy workplace culture.
7. Align Teams Across the Company
   Managers should be readily able to see how their team’s efforts compare with other teams across the organization. This creates performance pressure at work to follow through and makes collaboration and best practice sharing more likely.  Make it easy for teams to get aligned across the organization.

The Bottom Line
Employee engagement matters.  Make sure your managers understand its importance and support them by making it easy to more effectively engage their teams.

To learn more about how to make employee engagement easier for managers, download The Top 10 Most Powerful Ways to Boost Employee Engagement

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.