While workplaces face an era of extraordinary change, the practice of management remains frozen in time. How your managers lead teams must keep up with how people work, live and want to experience their lives.
Listen to Jim Harter, coauthor of It's the Manager and Gallup Chief Workplace Scientist, discuss what the current workforce wants in a job, the importance of managers to your company, and why It's the Manager is so crucial for your organization's success.
From the Video:
So, there's a new will of the current workplace where workers in this current generation are asking for something different. They're more aware today about what a great job can be. That could be due to the increase in technology and awareness. But they want something more than what a job has been in the past. They want a job to be blended, they know that their work is going to be blended into their life, and they want work that defines their purpose, not just a job, but their purpose. They're looking for a job that has a coach, not just a boss. They don't want to settle for a boss that just is an expert on their weaknesses, they want someone who focuses on their strengths. This new workplace is looking for not just an annual review, but continuous conversations. They don't want to just be satisfied with their work, they want to develop. And so, we have a new workforce coming into play now that is looking for something much different than what previous generations have looked for in work. And they prioritize work at a different level.
Right now, organizations are changing at a very rapid rate. Most organizations want to be agile, but most aren't. And to become agile, organizations need more effective managers on top of everything else, because managers are the conduit to making all the strategy happen. To making culture happen in the organization.
So, this book is really about managing human nature. We've found 52 discoveries. And these 52 discoveries can be applied to whatever a current organization is facing. In some cases, they may be facing issues of diversity and inclusion. In other cases, they may be facing issues of wanting to build an agile culture. They may have issues in terms of attracting and selecting employees. Most organizations, probably all, are going to have at least one or several of these 52 discoveries that they can immediately apply to their organization to build the culture that they want.
The CHROs that we talk to, the executives that we talk to, list the No. 1, one of the No. 1 issues facing them right now is building a culture that matches their purpose and their brand. And you can't build a culture overnight. But you can build an effective culture if you have an increasing number of great managers. And so the current learning throughout this entire book, and our biggest discovery, is that you can't get any of these 52 things right, including your strategy and how it's implemented, your culture, your employment brand, how you align in terms of building an environment where you have coaches and not just bosses, and how you build a workforce for the future. You can really only do that if you have the critical conduit of having a number of great managers.
Gallup Is Here to Help
Gallup has been researching the science of management for decades. And from that research, we compiled 52 of our greatest discoveries and packaged them together in It's the Manager. These breakthroughs link to real business outcomes for your organization.
