How Good Managers Influence Employee Happiness

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People join organizations and leave their managers. Considering the labor market situation and the challenges that organizations are facing when trying to attract and retain top talent, employers must think more than ever about the topic of leadership quality. 

For instance, Gallup’s research shows that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. A study of 7,272 U.S. adults revealed that one in two had left their job to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career. 

Similar findings are revealed with the poll of 2,000 people in the UK conducted by Human Resources firm Investors in People: 49% of employees say that they are thinking to leave their job because of poor management – making that the most popular reason for a potential move.

A National Study conducted by Ultimate Software revealed there is a need for greater focus for Manager-Employee Relationships. For 93% of employees, trust in their direct boss is essential to staying satisfied at work, and over half of employees surveyed say if they aren’t satisfied at work, they can’t put forth their best effort. A good manager-employee relationship can play a significant role in retention too: more than half the employees say they’d turn down a 10% pay increase to stay with a great boss.

“Support from management” is also one of the aspects that affect work-life happiness. All of this goes to show that managers are definitely the key players when we are talking about employee happiness or unhappiness at work.

What makes a Great Manager?

There have been a bunch of different studies and researches that are trying to determine the qualities of best, effective, successful, or great leaders. One size definitely doesn’t fit all! The qualities of a great leader heavily depend on the organization culture as well as the behaviors of their teams. 

In 2008 Google launched Project Oxygen to find out what makes a manager great at Google and determined eight different behaviors that were common among their highest performing managers. 10 years later they looked at their employee survey and found that the qualities of a great manager at Google had grown and evolved. The top ten Oxygen behaviors of their best managers include:

1. Is a good coach

2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage

3. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

4. Is productive and results-oriented

5. Is a good communicator — listens and shares information

6. Supports career development and discusses performance

7. Has a clear vision/strategy for the team

8. Has key technical skills to help advise the team

9. Collaborates across Google

10. Is a strong decision-maker

There are a lot of touchpoints in Google findings with the research done by Sunnie Giles a few years ago when studying 195 leaders in 15 countries over 30 global organizations. Participants were asked to choose the 15 most important leadership competencies from a list of 74. 

Manager Influence on Employee Happiness

When a manager is happy then most likely workers are happy too. According to Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, Happy workers have higher levels of productivity, produce higher sales, perform better in leadership positions, and receive higher performance ratings and higher pay. They also enjoy more job security and are less likely to take sick days, to quit, or to become burned out. Happy CEOs are more likely to lead teams of employees who are both happy and healthy, and who find their work climate conducive to high performance. 

Organizations need both happy workers as well as happy managers. As we saw from the Google study and Sunnie Giles’s research, there are certain behaviors and competencies that people expect from great managers. Because these factors affect happiness,  you must carefully think about whom you are recruiting. 

Whether hiring from the outside or promoting from within, organizations that scientifically select managers for the unique talents it takes to effectively manage people greatly increase the odds of engaging their employees. Companies should treat these roles as unique with distinct functional demands that require a specific talent set. They should select managers with the right talents for supporting, positioning, empowering, and engaging their staff.

5 Ways to Improve your Managers

1. Educate and develop your people! 

A lot of organizations have created programs to train and develop their talents. At Starbucks for instance, there are several different training programs available to prepare people to take the next steps in their career. One of their programs is called the Retail Management Training program that contains information on effective management practices, including topics on motivation, delegation, problem-solving, improving performance, managing the Starbucks Experience and maximizing profits.

In addition to developing potential manager and leaders, organizations need to develop existing managers. There are a lot of organizations that are developing their managers to be better through complex training programs. Some organizations such as ISS that have gone so far to start their one Universities and Academies to train and develop its leaders up to the highest levels in the organization. 

 

2. Promote and encourage communication! 

Communication is often the basis of any healthy relationship, including the one between an employee and his or her manager. Gallup has found that consistent communication – whether it occurs in-person, over the phone, or electronically – is connected to higher engagement. 

For example, employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged as employees whose managers do not hold regular meetings. 

Gallup also found that engagement is highest among employees who have some form (face to face, phone or digital) of daily communication with their managers. Managers who use a combination of face-to-face, phone, and electronic communication are the most successful in engaging employees. And when employees attempt to contact their manager, engaged employees report their manager returns their calls or messages within 24 hours. These ongoing transactions explain why engaged workers are more likely to say their manager knows what projects or tasks they are working on.

3. Favor collaboration with other leaders! 

Even the very best ones can and shall learn from others. Therefore organizations should encourage their leaders to participate in different meetups, conferences, seminars or similar to meet other industry leaders and to collaborate with them. 

Groups like the Estonian Startup Leaders Club, for instance, are formed with the goal to build strong relationships, provide opportunities for members, encourage communication and collaboration, as well as to develop startup entrepreneurs. Members of the club are from various famous (like Taxify, Transferwise, SportID, etc) and not so well-known Estonian startups who share information and experience on a daily bases.

4. Enroll your leaders in mentoring programs! 

You can either start with your in-house mentoring program or use some public programs for that. A great example is PayPal’s Unity Mentorship program which is implemented with an aim to build a thriving work culture for female professionals. This employee-led initiative matches 100 pairs of mentors-mentees from same or different departments at any given time. 

The pairs, even of mixed gender, are initially matched through a short survey, to make sure an intimate bond can be formed between individuals through the initiative. Both mentor and mentee interact with and learn from each other to build a transparent communication that’s more valuable than exercising professional etiquettes.

5. Start a book club, or create your own (e-)library!

People learn by reading books. So why not initiate a corporate book-club or have your own library from where all your people can lend books, read and learn. A lot of leaders love to read, including Eric S. Yuan from Zoom Video Communication, one of the highest-rated CEO’s in Glassdoor, who learns by reading books.

The importance of good management to the success of an organization cannot be stressed enough! Good managers heavily influence the employees they work with and will affect the overall workplace happiness of your company. Finding manager candidates with a foundation of great leadership qualities and behavioral skills is a great way to start, but remember that management training and improvement is an ongoing process. How do you educate yourself and leaders in your organization?

Technology in the Pandemic: Recreate the Office or Repurpose It?

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The pandemic has forced companies to adapt quickly to new realities, including shifting to virtual work arrangements and rethinking short- and long-term business priorities. It has also amplified the role of managers to help employees shape their work lives in effective and healthy ways.

In the office, we socialize on the fly, flit from meeting to meeting seamlessly, and establish routines and patterns that not only work for us but jell with those of others. One of the important decisions that managers confront now, as working remotely becomes standard practice, is how to use technology to recreate these dynamics. Should they attempt to replicate life as it was in brick-and-mortar offices, or does the drastic switch to virtual work necessitate that they try something different?

As the initial shock of the pandemic begins to wane, now is the time to consider how to balance strategically what work used to be and what it is now. We provide a series of ideas for managers on how to approach these considerations as remote work becomes the norm for the foreseeable future — and perhaps even permanently.

Recreate or Repurpose Office Life?

One of the authors of this article, Eliana, studied the post-bankruptcy reactions of former Lehman Brothers bankers. She found that disruptive events that profoundly alter work circumstances often prompt people to feel a sense of loss and void, akin to what people feel when they mourn the loss of a loved one.

At a minimum, the shift to virtual work has left workers bereft of a common place, of unplanned interactions with their coworkers, and of the vicarious learning opportunities that colocation promotes. As one senior manager at a large educational institution explained to us recently, “I miss bumping into people I do not directly work with, catching up with them in the hallway. … For me, now it’s just not the same. I feel I’m missing context. It’s almost as if I do not know my colleagues as much anymore.” Another employee we interviewed, who started her new job just days before switching to remote work, told us, “I’m trying to learn what I’m supposed to do as best I can. I miss shadowing my colleagues who have more experience.”

Workers all around the world are grieving a host of aspects related to how, where, and when they used to work.

The study of former Lehman Brothers employees found that in the face of void and loss, workers — even those on the same team — may mourn unexpected loss differently. The Lehman employees approached their post-bankruptcy work lives in two distinct ways. Some, Recreators, craved the safety of their former work lives. These bankers tried to revive what they had at Lehman by pursuing similar work opportunities — often with some of their former colleagues — and holding on to the close-knit relationships they had developed while at the company. Others, Repurposers, craved the control that they had over their former work lives. These bankers held on to the spirit of what they had at Lehman but did not try to replicate it. Rather, they repurposed the skills and knowledge they had acquired and pursued different careers, often as entrepreneurs.

These two approaches provide important clues to how managers might try to better understand and manage their now remote employees.

Consider Alicia and Dan. Before going virtual, their days looked approximately the same. Today, both are performing at the same level, but their work situations are very different. Alicia is a Recreator. She currently holds the same schedule as before COVID-19. The only difference for her? Instead of meeting face to face, she meets her colleagues and clients via Zoom, from her home. She even has virtual drinks with her coworkers at the end of the workday. Now consider Dan, a Repurposer. He checks in with his colleagues and clients via email and text periodically throughout the day but completes most of his actual client work at night.

Recreating and repurposing fulfill different needs for employees, especially in times of grief. For Alicia, recreating provides a sense of safety in a time of uncertainty. By keeping the same schedule and regularly meeting with colleagues virtually, she preserves the rhythms of the daily life she had before COVID-19. For Dan, repurposing is about reimagining the execution of tasks to separate the “what” from the “how.” Adjusting and time-blocking his new schedule ultimately provides him with a sense of control over his work life.

Companies and managers are seeing these mechanisms play out for their employees in different ways. For example, if face-to-face team meetings are about checking in with one another, Repurposers might maintain some meetings but transform how they happen: They might, for instance, institute asynchronous discussion boards for their teams, as opposed to arranging synchronous virtual calls.

So, how should managers make the choice of recreating or repurposing?

Understand Employees’ Needs and Constraints

Remember that people are coping with sudden, unexpected loss in individual ways. What employees need most from their managers and colleagues, and what they are finding most challenging, will vary from person to person. Have honest conversations with your own employees about what they most miss from being in the office and what their current constraints are. Do they miss the safety and regularity of routine? If so, work with them to recreate certain aspects of their work lives. For example, they might have started each morning with a cup of coffee and small talk in the break room. Offer to host a virtual morning break room with your team to simulate that routine. Do they miss the ability to control their work environment and to concentrate without other family members around? If so, work with them to repurpose. For instance, allow them flexibility in when they work (for example, before or after their children go to bed) and how (for example, reduce asynchronous meetings during the daytime).

Balance Recreating With Repurposing Through Technology

Working virtually allows employees to choose whether to repurpose or recreate their office lives. Rather than leaving this choice solely in their hands, such that each person on a team may approach his or her work differently, consider setting a company or team strategy that offers guidance. To do so, you might brainstorm with your employees about the aspects of office life they individually miss, and then help them either recreate or repurpose such aspects. A framework for such a conversation might be as simple as these two questions: Is there anything from your work life pre-COVID-19 that you no longer have but would help you meet your professional and/or personal goals? How might we incorporate that based on your current life?

It is also important to recognize the limits of recreating and repurposing. Giving employees complete autonomy over recreating or repurposing may ultimately erode their ability to form and maintain regular cadence with coworkers. The second author of this article, Beth, researched virtual workers and found that having consistent cadence with coworkers — being able to predict the time and mode of interacting — determines the quality of remote workers’ relationships. To foster such cadences, consider instituting virtual collective routines, such using collaboration tools and discussion forums to clarify when employees are available and when they are not.

Finally, recreating is unlikely to bring back the face-to-face office experience, and it may be difficult (or even impossible) when individuals are trying to balance additional duties — such as home schooling their children. Setting realistic expectations for a recreating strategy is thus critical. Because repurposing shifts the focus of work from process to outcomes, recreating can be particularly challenging to enact when work is highly collaborative and interdependent — especially when there are Recreators and Repurposers working together toward the same goal. Communicating expectations, deadlines, and processes clearly is thus especially critical.

Honor That We Are All ‘Novice Experts’ Right Now

It takes thousands of hours of practice — and constant feedback on performance — to become an expert at anything, including being a virtual worker. As you and your employees navigate this monumental switch, think of yourselves as “novice experts” — people who are expected to have mastered being expert virtual workers without the requisite experience of being an expert. This means that although you may have a general strategy to repurpose or recreate, preferences might shift from repurposing to recreating and vice versa as employees better understand the pros and cons of each approach. As a manager, being patient and supportive when preferences shift and mistakes happen will foster a psychologically safe environment in which your employees will likely better cope with their uncertainty and grief.

At its core, dealing with sudden and unexpected loss is about holding on and letting go. Having honest conversations with your employees — and setting a clear strategy for recreating, repurposing, or a combination of the two — will help you manage through this uncertain time and prepare more effectively for this new age of virtual work.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Eliana Crosina is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Beth Schinoff is an assistant professor of management and organization at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

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Wheel of Confidence

Why Forcing Employees Out Of Their Comfort Zones Achieves Greatness

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Diverse teams are smarter teams. They have higher rates of innovation, error detection and creative problem solving.

In environments that possess diverse stakeholders, being able to have different perspectives in the room may even enable more alignment with varied customer needs.

Being able to think from different perspectives actually lights up areas of the brain, such as the emotional centres needed for perspective taking that would previously not be activated in similar or non-diverse groups.

In a nutshell, you use more of your brain when you encourage different perspectives by including different views in the room. However, work done at the NeuroLeadership Institute has proven that this only works when diverse teams are inclusive, and this still remains a key challenge in business today.

When we consider the amount of diversity present in the modern workplace and the addition of more diverse thinking as a result of globalisation and the use of virtual work teams, it’s clear that the ability to unlock the power of diversity is just waiting to be unleashed.

Here’s how you can unlock this powerful performance driver.

The Social Brain

Despite the rich sources of diversity present in most workplaces, companies are still often unable to leverage the different perspectives available to them in driving business goals. Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience have enabled us to understand why.The major breakthrough has centred around the basic needs of the social brain.  We have an instinctual need to continually define whether we are within an in-group or an out-group.

This is an evolutionary remnant of the brain that enabled us to strive to remain within a herd or group where we had access to social support structures, food and potential mates.

If we were part of the out-group it could literally have meant life or death. We are therefore hypersensitive to feelings of exclusion as it affected our survival.

The brain is further hardwired for threat and unconsciously scans our environments for threats five times a second. This means, coupled with our life or death need for group affiliation, we are hypersensitive to finding sameness and a need for in-group inclusion.

When we heard a rustle in a bush it was safer to assume that it may be a lion than a gust of wind. It is this threat detection network that has kept us alive until today.The challenge is that society has developed faster than our brains. In times of uncertainty we often jump to what is more threatening. Some of the ways that this plays out is when we leave someone out of an email and they begin to wonder why they were left out.

The problem is that it’s easy to unconsciously exclude someone if we are not actively including. The trouble occurs when we incorrectly use physical proxies to define in-group and out-group, as this is the most readily available evidence used unconsciously by the brain.

Barriers to Inclusion

A study done between a diverse group and non-diverse group demonstrates how this plays out in the work place. Both groups completed a challenging task and were asked how they felt they did as a team after the exercise.

The effectiveness of the team and how they perceived effectiveness were both measured in the study. It’s no surprise that the diverse team did better in the completion of the problem-solving task, but what is surprising is that they felt they did not do well.

In contrast, the non-diverse team did worse, but felt that they had done well. Working in a diverse team feels uncomfortable and that’s why we perform better.

Discomfort arouses our brain, which leads to better performance. It feels easier to work in a team where we feel at ease in sameness, but in that environment we are more prone to groupthink and are less effective.

Creating Inclusion

We can’t assume that when we place diverse teams together we will automatically reap the rewards of higher team performance. As discussed, we’re hardwired for sameness and if we’re not actively including, we may be unconsciously excluding.

If we want diversity to become a silver bullet, we need to actively make efforts to find common ground amongst disparate team members. This in turn will build team cohesion and create a sense of unity, including reminders of a shared purpose and shared goals. Many global businesses put an emphasis on a shared corporate culture that supersedes individual difference.

It’s the same mechanism that is used in science fiction films that bond individuals together against a common alien invasion. It can also be used to describe why we felt such a great sense of accomplishment during the 2010 World Cup as we banded together as a nation. 

We must also make sure we uplift all team members by sharing credit widely when available and recognising performance. The last thing we can do to further inclusion is to create clarity for teams.

By removing ambiguity, we allow individuals to not jump to conclusions about their membership within groups and calm their minds so they can use their mental capacity to focus on the task at hand.