Did you just run an engagement survey at your company? Are you wondering how to increase your scores?
Well, stop wondering.
If you really want to increase engagement in your company, one of the most powerful things you could do is to develop your managers.
Why focus on developing managers?
For today's employees, learning and development, alignment, and leadership matter—especially if you want to retain them.
Culture Amp's latest benchmark survey found that three factors matter most when keeping people long-term: leadership (33%), alignment (33%), and learning and development (31%) across 1200+ companies.
In short, employees need managers who:
- communicate a vision that is motivating
- keep them informed about what's happening
- demonstrate that people are important
They need to know how to be successful in their role and be appropriately involved in decisions affecting their work. They also want opportunities to develop skills relevant to their interests and career opportunities.
All of these elements require well-trained managers who can inspire, inform, and grow their team members long-term.
What does it look like to develop managers well?
Lever, a recruiting software company in San Francisco, was growing fast and hired dozens of new managers. Mike Bailen, the VP of People, made a strategic decision to focus on developing managers.
He explained: "Because many of these leaders were stepping into management for the very first time, it was critical to establish philosophical alignment around what the role means." He emphasized the need to help managers think of themselves as "people developers, not as somebody's boss."
Bailen noted that "employees want to gain skills, learn new things, and be developed. If they can't find it within your organization, they're going to go somewhere else."
Epic Teams worked with Lever on a customized leadership development program. The first part focused on skills related to developing individuals, while the second part applied those skills to developing entire teams.
Lever runs its first engagement survey
As the second part of the program began in July 2017, Lever ran its first employee engagement survey using Culture Amp. The company scored fairly high compared to similar technology companies in the Bay Area.
However, committed to values like "Raise the Bar" and "Don't Trust Comfortable," Lever's leaders wanted to see what managers could do to increase engagement scores over six months—while also expanding the workforce by nearly 50%.
How Lever's managers increased engagement
Give managers ownership of their own pathways
Rather than taking a top-down approach, the program developed managers' capabilities to identify focus areas and solutions themselves. Here's the process:
- Assess the data: Management teams reviewed data and hypothesized which factors could make the biggest difference.
- Create a psychologically safe team environment: Teams were coached on designing meetings where members felt safe sharing authentically about improvement areas.
- Select growth areas and design experiments: Managers and teams reviewed engagement dimensions, selected one to two focus areas, and collaboratively designed month-long "sprints" experimenting with new behaviors, processes, or projects.
- Review progress and iterate: Managers reinforced the importance of proposed actions, checked in regularly on progress, and collaboratively refined solutions. They designed efficient check-ins—about 15 minutes monthly—to assess engagement data.
The Results
When Lever ran its second engagement survey in January 2018, managers increased engagement on key indicators by an average of 20%, and increased overall company engagement by 2%.
Beyond these immediate results, managers and teams developed the ability to lead collaboratively. Bailen reflected: "It's been really cool to see managers and teams diagnose areas of opportunity and take action together...What made this more powerful is that managers and teams worked together—instead of managers bearing the burden of finding all the solutions themselves."