Lack of employee commitment: a reflection of managerial disengagement?
85% of employees worldwide do not feel committed to their company. Worse still, around 20% say they are totally disengaged [1]! Motivating, engaging and retaining employees are contemporary HR challenges. So how do we solve the problem of disengagement? And what if the solution lay, ultimately, with our managers?
Employee commitment on everyone’s lips!
It seems necessary to clarify the difference between commitment and disengagement.
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- Commitment lies in the strong, enthusiastic involvement of employees in their work and their company.
- Disengagement, on the other hand, is a defense mechanism, an expression of malaise and professional dissatisfaction. Anyone who is NOT engaged at work is not necessarily disengaged; they are simply not attached to their company, they feel indifferent.
[/uncode_list]According to the Gallup Institute, in France, only 9% of employees are committed to their company, 65% don’t feel committed and 26% are totally disengaged! [2] And this disengagement is constantly on the rise.
What impact does employee disengagement have on the company?
Apart from the considerable cost (a disengaged employee costs his employer 12,600 euros a year |3]) and the significant increase in staff turnover, employee disengagement has a negative impact on :[uncode_list]
- Productivity
- Performance
- Creativity and innovation
- The company’s image and reputation (and all the resulting impacts).
[/uncode_list]When you consider that an engaged employee is 21% more productive and 86% more creative, it’s easy to imagine the potential lost through employee disengagement or non-engagement. Also, the more engaged employees are, the more customer satisfaction increases, and consequently the company’s business.
But why?
Several reasons have been put forward to explain this disengagement of employees: a loss of meaning and a questioning of work values, excessive centralization and abuse of procedures to the detriment of human relations, a lack of flexibility at work, a lack of understanding of transformations due to a lack of communication and vision, a lack of listening and recognition, not enough responsibility BUT above all, and principally, deleterious relations with the manager. 70% of variations in employee commitment have their origin in management…. Management is also one of the main reasons why employees leave! But is it really the managers’ fault?
Managers, employees like any others!
Employee engagement or disengagement is often associated with non-managerial staff… We forget that managers are themselves employees of the company. The trends therefore apply equally to these employees, who are nevertheless blamed for everything.
And the figures are edifying! Over 70% of managers are not committed to their company! There is also a feeling ofungratefulness in the manager’s job: almost one employee in 3 considers his or her manager to be bad, but the vast majority admit that they wouldn’t do any better and wouldn’t want to be in his or her place.
So why are managers so dissatisfied?
There is obviously a parallel to be drawn with the elements of employee disengagement mentioned above. However, we can point to 4 additional major causes of managerial disengagement [4]:
Loss of sense of purpose
Indeed, a manager’s primary function is to lead his team in a clear direction. However, because of the increasing complexity of the company, this role only accounts for a fifth of a manager’s daily routine… far behind production and management, which together account for over 70% of a manager’s time [4]. “Juggling production imperatives and the administrative management of your team leaves little room for team leadership!
Not choosing to be a Manager
The assumption of managerial responsibility often corresponds to an enhanced career path. From technical expert, the employee becomes a manager in recognition of his or her merit. But leading people is a job in its own right….But more thana quarter of managers are not trained to become managers….So they find themselves developing their skills empirically!
Successive increases in managerial responsibilities
Over the years, the role of the manager has evolved. From a controlling executive, he has become a leader at the service of performance. He or she then evolved into a coach, looking after the well-being of employees. Today, the manager is the company’sintrapreneur , developing innovation. Without being followed by organizational reorganization, these expansions force managers to “choose” which role they can best fulfill, or what their priorities are… thus creating frustration.
Antagonistic directions in an unstretchable timeframe
Directly linked to the broadening of responsibilities, the manager finds himself having to: encourage innovation without risk, develop autonomy while controlling results, adapt to the reality on the ground in a context of centralized decision-making, increase performance while maintaining the well-being of his staff….And if, for lack of time, a choice has to be made, the manager is often obliged to relinquish part of his or her leadership role.
What are the repercussions for employees?
Commitment is like a house of cards… If the foundations aren’t solid, everything collapses! How can you ask unengaged (or disengaged) managers to motivate, lead, carry a vision, encourage innovation and get 100% involved in projects?
The impact of managers’ disengagement on their staff is even more vicious than that: a disengaged (or non-committed) manager won’t listen to his team, won’t take the initiative to respond to his staff’s frustrations and demands… thus creating the main elements of disengagement among the latter… Just as a manager’s disengagement implies repercussions on that of his staff… His commitment also has a positive snowball effect on his team… But how do you ensure that your manager is as committed as possible? That’s the subject we tackle in Part 2 of this article: Manager commitment, the snowball effect on employees!