Manager Accountability – The Secret to Employee Engagement

Manager Accountability – The Key to Employee Engagement
Why should you care about manager accountability? And how does it apply to employee engagement strategies?

First, Employee Engagement Matters
The corporate world is finally convinced – employee engagement is simply good for people AND good for business. Engaged employees are more likely to stay on the job, be more productive, have a customer-centric attitude, and contribute more to the bottom line.  And workplaces that can boast high employee engagement levels adapt quicker, innovate more frequently, and grow faster.

Manager Accountability – How to Crack the Employee Engagement Code
Too many companies have not yet cracked the code on how to improve employee engagement.  Leading companies are able to improve employee advocacy, increase discretionary effort, and retain the top talent required to execute their strategies. Lagging companies have missed the obvious  – to create manager accountability to improve overall engagement by:

1. Increasing Leadership Commitment
   When your leadership team demonstrates their commitment, manager accountability will follow.  Ensure everyone fully understands and supports the all-company goal of improved employee engagement. The workforce needs to appreciate why it matters to the success of the business and why it matters to them personally.
2. Defining Engagement Success Metrics
   Make sure managers know that engagement is part of their own performance scorecard and that they are a big key to engagement success. Once managers understand that they will be held accountable for their team’s engagement, they will be motivated to make the effort to monitor and encourage improvement.

   After all, it is their job to supervise and coach their team.  An employee engagement survey and follow-up action items should simply be a part of the general management process.

3. Creating Simplicity and Focus
   Design the engagement initiatives so that they are simple to implement. Many managers worry that the coaching for engagement will take up too much time. It doesn’t need to.

   Their regular performance conversations can include a quick check-in on how the team thinks they are doing with engagement and what suggestions they have for improvement.

4. Providing Support
   Provide managers with the right management training, engagement tools, and resources to help them succeed. Send them reminders about the impact of engagement upon performance and helpful tips on how to boost the commitment of their employees to the tasks at hand.

   Support their efforts with training and job aids on engagement best practices.  The better managers are at raising the level of engagement, the better their business results.

The Bottom Line
Create manager accountability to create engaged employees.  Your managers are the ones with the most direct contact with employees. Leverage their connections to your workforce by making managers accountable for achieving team goals through improved engagement.

To learn more about what managers can do to improve team engagement, Download The Top 10 Most Powerful Ways to Boost Employee Engagement