Disheartening News on Employee Engagement
Less than 1 in 5 public-service employees in the UK
trust senior managers or are consulted by them on important decisions
Summary comment. Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser, CIPD, stated:
“Against this background it is worrying to see that public-sector employees have increasingly negative attitudes to their senior managers, with less than a fifth saying they trust senior managers or are consulted by them on important decisions.
One of the difficulties facing senior public sector managers in the current environment, in which major spending cuts have been announced but few details have been released, is that they too may also be in the dark and may not yet know how many jobs will have to go.
However it is important that, if this is the case, they communicate the situation to staff and continue to have an open dialogue with employees as more information comes through. People are more likely to accept tough decisions if they are kept informed and given the right information at the right time.”
Cautious perspective. I am not in the UK, so I am not seeing this directly but I believe that trust is a must or employee engagement is a bust. I hope this situation can be improved for employees, managers, leaders, and all the stakeholders who feel the impact of this. We must strive to ensure that work matters.
Help. To my friends and readers in the UK, is this as bad as it sounds?
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David Zinger, M.Ed., works with organizations and individuals foster engagement. He is a writer, educator, speaker, and consultant who founded the 2700 member Employee Engagement Network. David’s website offers you 1100 free posts/articles on the engagement. David is committed to fostering a movement to increase employee engagement 20% by 2020.
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Hey David. I wouldn’t say this is as bad as it sounds, it’s more like a great, and necessary opportunity. But then I’m an optimist.
In my experience (very roughly) high 20s to low 30s percent wise people in local authorities express strong agreement around clear expectation, encouragement, support and trust etc when thinking about the relationship with their manager. Similar figures when thinking about working within their team. Low single figures (5 – 6%) of strong agreement when thinking about how the whole organisation works (or should that be does not work?) together. Comms and Change related stuff gets similarly low scores.
I don’t currently have much data on the senior leader piece for this sector, but certainly in not for profit and private sector there is a high level of mistrust.
I’m in agreement with you about keeping people informed and involved (whenever I see the word involved I spot “in love” jumping out from within. I see evidence of organisations trying on the comms front, though overwhelmingly in a much too controlled, or broadcast fashion. Much less so on involvement. Encouragingly where we’re starting to get involved (in love?) with clients – slowly change is appearing.
Thanks for a great post David, I hope the figures above are of some use to you and your readers.
Thanks Doug:
I love your statement: ” (whenever I see the word involved I spot “in love” jumping out from within.”
David