BUS603: Managing People

Managers are crucial to employee engagement because they provide the (un)supportive context in which associates work. In fact, they account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.

During our interview, when Tracy described what "managing with open values" means to her, she explained several open leadership traits and styles that most impact the employees and their levels of passion, commitment, and investment to performance. Open values are relevant to any organizational role - but they're critical to managers seeking ways to develop trusted relationships with associates. According to Tracy, trust is the primary requirement for a positive work context for employees.

Trust shows employees that a manager has faith in them, allows managers to share information more readily with their employees, aids coaching relationships, and helps create mutually beneficial relationships. Trust allows us to be vulnerable and transparent, and to ask for help when we need it. It creates the foundation of confidence between people. From an innovation perspective, trust forms the basis for psychological safety, or the ability to feel safe being oneself, taking creative risks, and not being penalized for failure.

Data on attrition and employee engagement support the unique relationships that managers have to employees. People leave their jobs because of the impact managers have on them. For instance, when an employee takes a new role, they often cite "lack of growth opportunities" as a reason to leave. This may never have been necessary, however, because a conversation with their manager, based on mutual trust, may have alleviated that issue. At the very least, the manager could have helped the employee find new a new role with better opportunities within the organization, rather than the employee feeling they needed to leave altogether. As I highlighted earlier, the manager is where the boundary between employee and company intersects; managers represent the organization to their employees and teams. A trusted manager can help employees feel they are part of a trusted organization.

Employee engagement exists at the intersection of people, processes, tools, and culture - although it is really focused on people and their relationship to the other things. When employees feel like they're a priority over processes, they relate to their work and work environments in ways that benefit the company (such as through increased performance, commitment and innovation). Creating high levels of employee engagement requires consistent effort and focus from leaders, because engagement relies on the daily relationships that employees have with leaders, managers, and each other.