Who is Responsible for Engagement: Supervisors or Executives?

Most of us think about engagement from our perspective—perhaps it is the strength of the concept that everyone can to relate to it personally. But it is worth asking "who is responsible?"

Conventional Wisdom: Widespread Belief in a Statistical Artifact
Authors like Marcus Buckingham put the burden engagement on first-line supervisors. There is some validity to this—supervisors build hour-to-hour work experiences. I suspect that the affect of supervision is especially high in low-autonomy work environments;  job characteristics moderate this relationship.

There is also a research artifact that encourages this “supervisors as keepers of engagement” thinking.

Statistically, it is fairly easy to link supervision and engagement. If all the units in a company have the same measure of results you can correlate engagement with business results. VIOLA proof that leadership/supervision affects engagement. Since corporate strategy and context is the same for all business units it cannot be the driver of differences in engagement. Supervision must be causing differences in engagement. Engagement surveys are typically corporate wide, so there are many datasets that use this method to “prove” that supervision/management affect engagement.

Doing research between businesses is difficult because organizations tend to define engagement, and even success, differently. As a practical matter organizational strategy and leadership affect engagement as much as supervision. Corporate strategy, HR/Compensation systems, employee brand and of course core technology and processes all strongly affect engagement.

Disempowered Leadership
But here is the funny part; when I speak with management at any level, I hear complaints that others leaders have more power over engagement. Supervisors think executives have more levers to systemically shape organizational climate. Executives worry about encouraging supervisors to build engagement. Of course it takes a focused and aligned leadership team to build an engaged workforce.  Recently, I have contributed a few short articles from the executive perspective, you can read them here, and I will be publishing a few more in the coming months.

Let’s Be Honest
My opening question is a trick/rhetorical, question. Rank-and-file employees build their own and others' engagement. Some are more likely to engage due to personality, upbringing, personal circumstances (e.g., family situation) and other simply choose to engage for personal/spiritual beliefs. Employees’ engagement is also contagious; work-teams affect each other. The mix of employees can make it difficult or easy for a leader at any level.

Do you have a bias in your point of view? We all do because of our position and history/experience. I consult with executives and tend to view things from their perspective. Balance is in order to make sure that we look at multiple levels of the organization and responsibility for engagement.

How to improve engagement and disengagement: Why feedback is the first step

The link to leadership.

Talk to anyone about being disengaged in the workplace and they will probably say something about “trust” and something about “management.” Surveys show the same results, supervisor’s leadership style has so much to do with employee engagement and the differences between work groups can be astounding. 

But what to do about it?

Feedback is the link to developing leadership for employee engagement. Most of us do not know, in a nuanced way, how we affect others. Leaders are no different. Feedback can help. The best feedback is measurement as well as understanding and learning from the results of the measurement.

Measuring employee engagement, for example with surveys or focus groups, is a great foundation for improving engagement. It can motivate and direct change.

It is important to make sure that organizational leadership understands engagement, the factors affecting engagement and the engagement of the functions they manage. When you measure engagement the results will tell you something about “trust” and the quality of “management."  If leaders understand the engagement picture they are likely to try to change it for their own good!

Simply giving supervisors a report on engagement in their area is not enough. Feedback can be hard to take and even harder to act upon. Organizations that really want to improve engagement will ensure that managers have support, in workshops or with coaches, to understand and plan how they will act upon the feedback.

Many organizations (namely Dell and Ford) tie manager compensation to survey results. This puts a lot of focus on engagement, but it is not necessary for leadership development. My experience is that most managers want to be better leaders.

Organizations that complete engagement surveys must answer the questions “what groups will be reported upon” and “how many reports do we develop?” A lot of resources (time and money) are required to process feedback. If you have 300 department managers, does each get a report? Further, will all 300 managers get, understand and act upon the feedback? These questions must be practically considered.

Let’s be realistic

Anyone that manages knows that regardless of your leadership skills, other factors affect employees. Pay/benefits, strategy, competition, and organizational culture all affect individual employees and morale/engagement. 

While leadership probably has the biggest impact on day-to-day engagement, there are many factors in building engagement. Successful organizations will consider both; why they need engagement and what to do about it.

I look forward to your thoughts,

Charley Morrow

www.sageassessments.com