The state of work.

Culture is a funny thing. Every organisation always has one, whether it's actively focused on and invested in, or not. Often, executives hope to engender a positive culture with a clarity of mission and purpose, an ‘employee value proposition’ and stated and applied values. These tools are important, and I develop them with clients. However, they are only part of the solution to driving an optimal performance culture, and more specifically engagement.?

Whilst the Gallop Workplace Report 2023 suggests that employee engagement is rising, to 23% worldwide, it’s 13% in Europe (which the UK still appears in) and more concerning, 72% of staff are ‘quietly quitting’ and 39% cite ‘stress’ as a daily negative emotion. That’s one in three people, coming to work, knowing they will feel stressed.?

Anecdotally, Gallop suggests that while there is still a debate about the impact of remorse or hybrid working on culture, and engagement, it is how people work, not where, that is impacting these numbers.?

At the heart of the dissatisfaction at work are the responses to the Gallup Q12?criteria, 12 survey questions that measure employee engagement. Here are those questions.?

• I know what is expected of me at work.
• I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
• At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
• My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
• There is someone at work who encourages my development.
• At work, my opinions seem to count.
• The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
• My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
• I have a best friend at work.
• In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
• This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

And the difference between the highest performing companies and the lowest? Not the leadership. Not the mission or purpose.?

It’s the managers.

Poor management is epidemic in low-performing cultures. As a consequence, people don’t know what is expected of them at work, and don’t feel seen, heard or that they are being developed.?

Bad managers are rarely bad people; they are given the role as a recognition of their long service,?their skills and competencies or their past performance using them, the responsibility of a manager without sufficient development. Where managers have been developed, with coaching competencies, for example, their teams’ engagement has ranged from 8% to 18% higher.??

We face an economic wind that means GDP growth is slowing down. Arguably this would not be a negative if, societally, we accepted that we have to learn how to land the plane of rapid growth at all costs, including planetary. However, slowing growth doesn’t mean we can afford to be unproductive and stifle opportunity and innovation, desperately needed in the face of new poverties in resources, conflict and a climate emergency.?

Do you know how engaged your team is??

Do you know how to change the answer?

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The Gallop Global Workplace Report, 2023 is available here

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx

There’s a podcast that summarises the key findings of the report with Anna Sawyer, a Principal at Gallup and Bruce Daisley, author of Fortitude, here.

?https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/how-to-build-a-truly-engaged-team/