Engagement Survey

Managers are a long way from motivating their teams

STUDY A survey conducted by Raphaël H. Cohen, of the University of Geneva, highlights how difficult it is for managers to stimulate their teams. Yet employees’ engagement has a direct effect on a company’s productivity and profits.

ÉLISABETH KIM

There are certain perceptions that the health crisis has not managed to shake. And this is not necessarily good news. To understand this, one only needs to know what view a manager has of team management and the standpoint of his or her employees. This is one of the findings of a survey designed by Raphaël H. Cohen, director of the leadership and entrepreneurial specialisation of the EMBA at the University of Geneva (Unige), in collaboration with PME Magazine and Le Temps.

More than 1,500 people, managers and employees, men and women based for the vast majority in French-speaking Switzerland, answered around fifteen questions between the end of April and the beginning of May. “How can you be sure you are giving the best of yourself?” or “What point would you recommend to a manager in order to work better in his or her team?” or again “What level of engagement do you think you generate among your subordinates?”…

Views that are confirmed by Covid

From the employees’ side, they are only 9.8% to be of the opinion that their superior gives them the desire to give the best of themselves. To compare, 30.3% of managers who thought they were creating a good (12.6%), even excellent (17.8%) level of engagement among their teams. “As the evolution of mentalities during the first months of the health crisis showed, they are 15.6% to have been employed. ‘The leaders also feed the illusion all too often that everything is going well, an opinion that they do not necessarily share with their employees.’ This was enough to reinforce these prior perceptions in both the good and the bad sense,” notes Raphaël H. Cohen.

“The leaders also feed the illusion all too often that everything is going well, an opinion that they do not necessarily share with their employees”

RAPHAËL H. COHEN, UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA

A brief selection of comments left by respondents: “My superior is not good in his role. Covid has not changed much fundamentally”; “Lack of leadership and vision for the future”; “Crisis situations exacerbate both successes and problems. The absence of confidence and too much centralisation in management have created a breakdown in dialogue between top management and employees in teleworking”; “My superior has years behind the times in human resources management. Moreover, he includes us so little that the clients’ priorities may be different from those currently. For a marketing manager, that is a little frightening.”

Beyond differences of perception, one finding, striking to the professor, emerges from the responses: “As we can see, nearly 80% of employees do not think they are making maximum use of their work. Knowing that performance is directly correlated with the level of employee engagement — according to a PwC study, employee engagement increases productivity by 35% and profits by 35% — companies have considerable untapped productivity. An asset all the more crucial in the period we are living through.”

“No universal method”

So, what are the recipes for learning how best to motivate your teams? For each manager to develop the cocktail compatible with his or her personality and team, recommends the one who teaches team leadership and economic intelligence. “There is no universal method. For example, I know managers in very militarised hierarchical structures where there is a high level of engagement on the part of employees,” stresses Raphaël H. Cohen. Three prerequisites are, however, essential to create engagement: treating one’s employees with fairness, showing kindness (not to be confused with gentleness), and positive activity or posture.

“The authority of a leader is no longer accepted as it may once have been. Today, younger generations are demanding a leader who is more involved and invests more in their work. I am persuaded that the level of engagement will become the next most used HR concept in the years ahead,” concludes Raphaël H. Cohen.