The 3 pillars of employee engagement

Managers continue to stand at the forefront of any company’s leadership, serving as arbiters of employee satisfaction.

The emergence of more flexible jobs will require more skilled managers equipped with new approaches to employee engagement, emphasizes a report by Economist Impact, and sponsored by Kyocera Document Solutions.

The survey of 250 business executives from Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US measured respondents’ trust in several pillars, one of which is employee engagement. Barometric scores are scaled from 1 to 7, 7 being the most convincing, in the report entitled The Magnetic Workplace: the key to unlocking sustainable business growth. Participants represent companies including Stripe, PwC, and Google.

Trained managers, autonomy, and career growth emerge as the three factors most likely to influence employee engagement for the purposes of this report, so let’s dive into the findings of each below.

Responsive, trained manager

Managers continue to stand at the forefront of any company’s leadership, serving as arbiters of employee satisfaction. While training is often talked about in relation to a company’s rank-and-file employees, managers need training too, especially if they’ve just been promoted. Globally, the confidence level for management leadership training is 5.28 and is expected to reach 5.40 within five years.

From these findings, it becomes clear that the emergence of more flexible jobs will require more skilled managers equipped with new approaches to employee engagement. This next generation of managers must be able to manage a distributed workforce and drive effective communication through digital modes.

More autonomy for all

When employees can set rules about how and when they work, they produce better results and report higher job satisfaction. Empowering them to set professional goals and scope of work can instill a stronger sense of ownership and increase retention. Currently, the confidence level of employees in shaping their roles is 5.34 and is expected to grow to 5.44 within five years.

Sectoral analysis suggests that flexible work is here to stay, especially among industries where remote work arrangements are having the greatest impact such as media and IT (5.76), finance and insurance (5.57), and retail (5.56). Such workplaces can benefit from flexible work options to give employees more autonomy, but also to access a wider variety of talent. Flexible working continues to allow employees to work in a way that maximizes their performance, when used effectively.

Accessible opportunities for professional development

The emergence of more sophisticated technologies is driving the need for more digital literacy among workers, as well as the development of key soft skills. Currently the level of employee confidence in developing existing skills and acquiring new skills is 5.33. The anticipated score in five years time is 5.41.

A workplace with a strong career focus is not only focused on attracting and retaining talent, but also upskilling and developing existing employees. Employees are actively looking for companies that encourage skills upgrading and career growth, and companies that can meet this demand will see their retention increase.

In addition to the factors above, here are 10 places to pull market or sector-specific data from the report:

1. Employees are more concerned about the diversity and well-being of today’s workforce, and 68% of respondents believe their organization has introduced a diversity-increasing recruitment process.
2. 74.8%* of companies surveyed globally believe in the future of digital collaboration, saying they believe they will provide the technology infrastructure their organizations need to facilitate greater productivity in the next five years. [*where it is stated a certain % of respondents are confident, it means they indicated a confidence level of 5 or greater]
3. The retail, media and IT, and finance industries are likely to perform best at the workplace going forward, while the construction and real estate industries will struggle.
4. The shift to a results-driven management style was shown to promote transparency and trust between managers and employers.
5. Strong communication skills among managers and effective feedback mechanisms were noted in the US (5.96) and Australia (5.67), although improvements are expected in Germany and Japan.
6. Job-crafting, defined as letting employees have a hand in shaping their roles, was also found to increase employee job satisfaction and engagement.
7. However, despite their more manageable scale, smaller firms were found to be less likely to offer flexible work arrangements or access to job creation.
8. Organizations in most regions are highly open to providing flexibility for employees, with companies in the US (5.77) and UK (5.73) scoring highest, followed by Australia (5.64) and Germany (5.62).
9. Japan is less confident about facilitating flexible work, or strengthening technology infrastructure, although 52%* of Japanese respondents expressed optimism about flexible working arrangements in the future.
10. Organizations from the US (5.64) and Australia (5.48) show significantly greater confidence that their technology adoption strategy is keeping pace with innovation.

Commenting on the report, Nak Kondo at Economist Impact said: “While companies globally are optimistic, they must ensure that they continue to prioritize human-centric strategies to drive sustainable growth.”

Lead image / Magnetic Workplace Report