Your employees may have their oars in the water, but do they know in what direction the boat is headed? And if so, do they understand how their oars can best move the team toward its goal?
Successful managers know that Alignment is critical. And our annual employee engagement research backs them up. Based upon surveying over 500,000 employees each year as part of the Best Places to Work Contest, we know that three "Alignment with Goals" questions matter most for managerial effectiveness. In terms of goal alignment, the most effective managers have employees that rate the following three questions higher than their lower performing peers:
- "I know how I fit into the company's future plans."
- "I understand the company's plans for future success."
- "I understand how my job helps the organization achieve success."
As you can imagine, getting consistently high scores on these questions is not always easy. But it is worth it. Employees, who rate these questions higher, perform better in terms of four key managerial effectiveness metrics:
- Employee Relations Risk.Bad managers exacerbate employee relations problems. Effective managers decrease issues, claims and lawsuits. This is not a trivial matter. The number of claims by employees against employers increased by 2000% from 1969 to 1994 and by 70% between 1992 and 2003. Additionally, the average employee lawsuit costs $250,000 and, when taken to litigation, the majority of cases are ruled in the plaintiff's favor.
- Profitability. Bad managers negatively impact financial health. Companies with higher performing managers realize a 48% increase in profitability.
- Employee Engagement and Retention.Bad managers negatively impact employee engagement and retention. Companies with higher performing managers realize a 30% increase in employee engagement scores and a 19% decrease in turnover.
- Customer Engagement. Bad customer-facing managers negatively impact customer engagement. Companies with higher performing managers realize a 17% increase in customer engagement scores.
So let's look at concrete actions your managers can take to improve alignment with goals by ensuring that their direct reports know how they fit into the company's future plans, understand the company's plans for future success, and how their job helps the organization achieve success.
Read about The 7 Immediate Management Actions to Take to Create Better Alignment
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
