The twelve questions you can’t afford to ignore! By Phil Sales Did you hear the story about the company which replaced all of its managers with coaches? No, this isn’t the opening line of a bad business joke. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Classical management theory tells us that managers have four principal roles: planning, organising, directing / leading, and controlling. Just how important each role is for any manager depends largely on the organisation, the activity, and the work environment. In the wake of the Great Resignation, the rise of remote work, and the advent of quiet quitting, the people at virtual assistant platform Time Etc. took a good hard look at their own management practices. They noted that employee engagement had been falling as a general workplace trend, and that disengagement had been rising, over the previous few years, and they wanted to do something about it. They began by asking new hires what they expected from their managers. In no particular order, the new employees said that they wanted more autonomy, feedback, goal-setting, and personal and professional development opportunities. To the people at Time Etc. this sounded less like traditional management practice, and more like coaching and mentoring. So, they replaced their managers with coaches, whose specific role is to assist the employees to be more productive in their work. If you think that this might simply be management-under-a-different-name, then Time Etc. would disagree. Their coaches work in a supportive role, encouraging staff to make their own decisions. The programme, in turn, is supported by training, workshops, and learning resources, which the staff can help themselves to, as needed. The result of this change, according to Time Etc., is a more motivated and committed workforce. Employee turnover has dropped, sick days are down, and performance on key goals has improved by as much as 20%. This result is interesting, to say the least, but there is something even more interesting sitting in the background. I am talking about the measurement tool used to rate employee engagement and satisfaction. Time Etc. has been using Gallup’s famous Q12 survey tool. So, what is Q12 and why is it relevant to employee engagement? Well, Q12 refers to the twelve questions which research consulting company, Gallup, uses to measure employee engagement. Gallup maintains that the questions are an accurate predictor of how engaged employees are at work, validated by years of research and refinement. To bridge the gap between pure research and practicality, each question constitutes an actionable step which the business can take to improve employee engagement. For instance, question 7 asks, “At work, do your opinions seem to count?”. The obvious step for management to take would be to acknowledge employee contributions when they are made, and to implement them where practicable. Incredible as it may seem, the answers that staff give to these twelve questions may indicate the level of employee engagement in your workplace. So, try your hand at the following questions (you can score yourself on a range from 1 to 10): 1. Do you know what is expected of you at work? 2. Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right? 3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? 4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work? 5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person? 6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development? 7. At work, do your opinions seem to count? 8. Does the mission / purpose of your company make you feel your job is important? 9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work? 10. Do you have a best friend at work? 11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress? 12. In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow? At first glance, these questions might look rather haphazard and arbitrary, but a closer look reveals some of the method behind the madness. In rank order, from question 1 to question 12, each set of items explores a different aspect of the workplace. August 2023 { 28 }
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