Line management is the single most crucial component of employee engagement. No one else exerts as much influence on employees as their immediate managers. It is the line manager who directly impacts employee perception of the organization’s goals, mission and values. Employees carefully observe how their managers act, what they say and whether or not the walk the talk.
What Is a Line Manager?
A line manager is someone who is expected to deliver a specified output from a staff for whom he or she is responsible. If the target is met or exceeded, the manager will be rewarded, regardless of whether or not the staff is performing at top capacity. The line manager conveys and transmits the organization’s objectives to the staff, sets priorities and establishes the tenor of the workplace.
How Do Managers Stack Up?
Unfortunately, this crucial part of the organizational population is sadly neglected when it comes to fundamental characteristics that impact employee engagement. How often are they:
- Aligned with the organization’s vision and goals?
- Able to enthuse others with the vision?
- Able to employ the necessary people skills to bring out the best in their people?
These are the critical leadership skills that all organizations need most and yet which most organizations find to be missing, according to the IT and management consulting firm, Accenture. This lack of skills also begs the question, how often are managers appropriately selected and trained?
And Yet Mangers Hold the Key to Engagement
Line managers have the biggest impact on the employee’s immediate working environment. They directly influence employee perception on key engagement factors, such as:
- Clear expectations
- Support needed to perform the job
- Recognition
- Belongingness
- Development opportunities
- Alignment with organizational mission
The Management Scorecard
Given the importance of the manager in employee engagement, it naturally follows that for employees to be engaged, their managers must be engaged, as well. Unfortunately the percentage of managers who are actively engaged proves to be dismal, according to John Gibbons’ review of employee engagement research. And worse, the more likely they are to have impact on employees (i.e., the lower their management level), the less they are likely to be engaged themselves.
- Senior executives: 53% actively engaged; 4% actively disengaged
- Directors/managers: 26% actively engaged; 10% actively disengaged
- Supervisors/foremen: 18% actively engaged; 18% actively disengaged
Eighty-two percent of supervisors and foremen, the line managers who most directly impact employee engagement, are not themselves actively engaged. At worst, they exert a significant negative effect on their employees. At best, they hardly inspire them. Even worse, nearly one in five actively repudiate the goals and values of their organizations.
How the Line Manager Builds or Kills Engagement
Through their direct impact on employees, managers can build or kill the six necessary components of employee engagement:
- Job content: The manager can make the daily routine of the job enriching or stultifying.
- Ability to cope with the demands of the job: Managers can provide or deny the necessary support (training, equipment, etc.) necessary for the job. Moreover, the manager can make the employee feel empowered and confident or humiliated and enraged.
- Compensation: Line managers have the power to make the employee feel appreciated or neglected – or even cheated.
- Collaborative environment: The line manager can create a cohesive, collaborative atmosphere in the unit or an antagonistic, hostile one.
- Congruence of individual and organizational goals: The line manager directly represents the values and goals of the organization. He or she has the power to make the employee believe or disbelieve in the organization’s values and its sincerity.
- Career opportunity: Line managers can influence employee career progression and the employee’s perception of ability to advance in the organization.
Many organizations regularly reward and promote managers who stifle employee commitment and engagement. These engagement killers exist only because their organizations allow them to exist.
References:
Cheese, P., Thomas, R. J. and Craig, E. 2008. The Talent Powered Organization.
Gibbons, J. 2006. Employee Engagement.
Wayne Smith - Wayne Smith is a freelance writer who publishes on business topics and a variety of other subjects. In addition, he provides consulting ...
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