How to Manage a Diverse Team for Employee Engagement

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A new employee engagement study by Gallup underscores the importance of good management. According to Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report [PDF], employee engagement is a direct result of the quality of an employee’s manager.

In his opening letter to the report, Gallup CEO Jim Clifton writes, “Here’s something they’ll probably never teach you in business school: The single biggest decision you make in your job — bigger than all of the rest — is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits — nothing.”

The report showed that only 30 percent of the approximately one million Americans with full time jobs are engaged, and women tend to have slightly (but significantly) higher engagement than men. Supervisors hold the key to unlocking higher engagement – ultimately boosting productivity and customer relationships – by managing employees based on their individual strengths and background.

What’s more, the report suggests, the proper selection and training of managers, with particular attention paid to managing diversity, can mean the difference between a high-performing, dynamic team – and group of employees that actively sets out to dismantle progress. Here are a few of Gallup’s tips for managing for employee engagement.

Managers Make the Difference for Employee Engagement

According to Gallup, managers and executives are one of the most engaged groups in the workplace (although, still, only 36 percent of them are engaged). Engagement for this group has risen ten percentage points since before the Great Recession, while engagement for other professional workers has only risen two percentage points. The report also says that engagement can cascade from a manager to her team.

“Gallup’s research has found that managers are primarily responsible for their employees’ engagement levels. Organizations should coach managers to take an active role in building engagement plans with their employees, hold managers accountable, track their progress, and ensure they continuously focus on emotionally engaging their employees.”

As a manager, you can make a big difference in your employees’ engagement at work, as well as how they produce results for your company. Gallup’s report says that engagement begins locally. “Managers and employees must feel empowered by leadership to make a significant difference in their immediate environment,” it explains. “Transformation occurs at the local level, but it only happens when the tone is set from the top down.”

Set the tone for engagement with your immediate direct reports – and if they’re managing their own teams, set clear, specific goals for what their teams’ engagement should look like. Measurement and accountability produce results. Engagement doesn’t just happen – it’s cultivated by leaders who set expectations at every level.

The report advises, “Ensure that managers discuss employee engagement elements at weekly meetings, impact planning sessions, and in one-on-one sessions with employees to weave engagement into daily interactions and activities.”

Focus on Diversity and Individuality

One of the most forceful suggestions in Gallup’s report is also one of the most obvious: different people need to be managed in different ways. Understanding this and acting upon it can help managers build engaged, productive teams.
For example, the report says, “Gallup found that women had slightly higher overall engagement than men, despite facing several well-documented gender equality issues in the workplace, including hiring bias, lower pay, and the so-called glass ceiling.”

Women and men diverged in the areas where they were most engaged – managers can use this knowledge to better reach individual employees.

“Women’s scores were higher on relationship-based items such as the ‘supervisor or someone cares’ and ‘best friend’ items. On the other hand, men’s scores were higher on items regarding what the company offers to them and to their careers such as the ’employees committed to quality,’ ‘mission and purpose,’ and ‘opportunities to learn and grow.’ Managers should keep these differences in mind and when looking for ways to boost engagement among men and women.”

Similarly, members of different generations respond differently to engagement tactics. For example, Baby Boomers were the least engaged of all generations in the workplace, the report showed. At the same time, they make up the bulk of today’s workforce. To better engaged Baby Boomers, managers should focus on building relationships. “More so than other generations, Baby Boomers respond to managers who make an extra effort to show that they care. Managers should keep this in mind during day-to-day interactions and find ways to communicate interest in these employees by inquiring about their work and other important aspects of their lives,” Gallup says.

Gen Xers showed measures of engagement when it came to individuality, and Millennials responded most positively to learning opportunities. Knowing what makes different groups tick can help managers build engagement with different folks on their teams.

Digging deeper, Gallup suggests that managers can quell active disengagement by working with employees to build their diverse strengths. “With an eye for what individuals around them do well, they perfectly position people in areas or tasks that will use their greatest strengths, resulting in an increased ability for individuals to say that they have an opportunity to do what they do best.”

Based on a poll of over 1,000 Americans, the researchers found:

“…for the 37% who agreed that their supervisor focused on their strengths, active disengagement fell dramatically to 1%. What’s more, nearly two-thirds (61%) of these employees were engaged, twice the average (30%) of U.S. workers who are engaged nationwide. This suggests that if every organization in America trained their managers to focus on employees’ strengths, the U.S. could easily double the number of engaged employees in the workplace with this one simple shift in approach.”

By supervising employees as individuals, managers can inspire engagement and build productivity within their teams. That means understanding that diverse groups bring different strengths to the job. In order to tap into these strengths, corporate leaders must build a company culture around inclusion, in which everyone understands the value of difference.