7 Gallup Workplace Insights: What We Learned in 2020

An individual’s manager or supervisor’s impact on outcomes such as employee engagement, retention, and wellbeing has been covered extensively over the years. And for millions of managers worldwide, the coronavirus pandemic has been the ultimate test of manager capability as managers help their workers cope personally and professionally with the demands of the current environment. This article outlines a few ways in which managers impact those they lead. A few of the insights include remote workers can have higher engagement than in-office workers – when they receive frequent feedback from their manager. And, management has a stronger influence on burnout than hours worked. As firms continue to build manager capability, one insight I would add is that managers and leaders should enable psychological safety (PS) within their teams. PS is often defined as showing and employing oneself without fear of negative consequences of self-image or career. PS can disproportionately impact manager capability and fuel organizational capabilities such as innovation. Here is a post I made in July that includes a 40-minute podcast where Amy Edmondson and David Green discuss how to create PS in the workplace.