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Engagement
Does employee engagement even matter?
How changing one thing in your business could lead to a 23% increase in profitability b y D O M I N I C A N D L A U R A A S H L E Y-T I M M S
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he work landscape is in turmoil. Recent Gallup data suggests that in 2024, employee engagement plummeted to an 11-year low, with just 23% of employees engaged globally. Employee satisfaction also returned to a record low, and people are now seeking new jobs at the highest level since 2015.
This is bad news for productivity and profitability, as employee engagement is crucial for business success. Research from Gallup again shows that companies in the top quartile of employee engagement achieve 23% higher profitability than those in the bottom quartile. This is because they’re better at retaining
top talent, serving customers, achieving higher-quality output and accomplishing numerous other outcomes that lead to profit. Simply put, investing in tackling employee disengagement is imperative if you want your business to survive and thrive in 2025. So, what’s the one thing you can change in your business to help with this? The
→ Laura AshleyTimms is the executive coach, co-founder of Notion, and co-creator of the STAR Manager program, empowering leaders through coaching-driven performance transformation
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answer lies in front-line management capabilities.
}Why current management styles don’t work Managers are key to a business, but many people in management roles have been promoted due to their high performance elsewhere. Worse still, a study from the Chartered Management Institute shows that 82% of these accidental managers received no formal training for their role. In the absence of a mental model for how they’re supposed to perform their new role, they default to doing what they know best—fixing problems. What this means in practice is that they inadvertently favour more of a commandand-control approach towards their team, directing and telling them what to do. However, making themselves accountable for the decision-making and problem-solving can be disastrous for employee
engagement. When a manager constantly directs, employees are robbed of the opportunity to think for themselves, engage appropriately with tasks and develop independence within a role, ultimately leading to demotivation and disengagement. This management style is bad for both employees and managers. Being relied upon by the team for everything can also quickly lead to managers becoming overwhelmed and burned out. Continually stepping in to solve other people’s problems means that managers have less time to focus on the higher-value aspects of their role, which affects their growth and advancement prospects and has a knock-on effect on organisational performance.
}The answer is a question So, what can managers do to better engage employees? The answer is to learn to adopt an Operational Coaching® style of management, an enquiry-led solution with a measurable impact on productivity. By incorpo-