Have your staff come back from their holiday with a smile on their face, or do they look like they would rather be anywhere else but at work?
Immediately after a holiday is a great time to check out the level of employee engagement. This is especially important as some recent research by Investors in People (IIP) suggests that 47% of UK workers plan to change jobs in 2018.
So why are so many people looking to change jobs? IIP’s research showed 49% of those looking to change job said it was due to bad management. This reason was ahead of improved salary (which might be assumed to be a key reason for changing jobs as UK unemployment is low and UK pay has stagnated in recent years).
Separate research by the company totaljobs confirmed the potential problem of poor management and leadership on engagement. They found that 67% of employees felt undervalued by their manager and 58% said they had received no additional training in the past year from them. Investment in training and development (whether on the job or using open courses) is known to have a positive impact on feelings of being valued at work.
So why should you care whether your managers make people feel valued and engaged? Well, as every boss knows, unnecessary staff churn is expensive both in terms of management time and the organisation's budget. Indeed, some recent data suggests that employee disengagement actually costs the UK economy £340 billion annually.
So investing in the training and development of your management team so they know how to be effective leaders can be a cost-effective way of improving employee engagement.
