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All about Gallup's highly anticipated new book.

In case you missed it, Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Walker featured It’s the Manager in his recent March 24th article.  As a Gallup preferred partner, we couldn't be more excited about this new release (out May 7, 2019). Read on for key findings and takeaways (and how to grow your company profits by over 25%!).

What did I miss?

• Five years ago, the Gallup organization began one of its most ambitious deep dive research projects ever undertaken.  

• It yielded an analysis of the future of work based on a decade of input from nearly 2 million employees and more than 300,000 business units.  

What did Gallup learn?  

• Simple: A company's productivity depends on the quality of its managers.

• If you are after a superior team, hiring the right manager is nearly three-fourths of the battle.

• Gallup calls this finding "the single most profound, distinct and clarifying finding" in its 80-year history.

What else is important to employees in today's workforce?

• Employee engagement. While roughly a third of the employees in the US consider themselves "highly engaged," it's a stark difference inside a successful business, where this figure is typically at 68% or higher.

• Purpose-driven work. People have adjusted the ranking of importance on having a good, stable, fulfilling job that brings meaning to their lives.  This used to be #4 or #5 after having a family, having children, and owning a home—but since 2002, it's consistently been ranking toward the top of the list for most important factors in a job.

What can you do to inspire a culture of great managers?

• Gallup advises companies to seek out managers who infect their teams with a sense of purpose and function (more like "coaches" than conventional bosses).

• Understand what engagement is and the importance of this for your teams. Today's workers aren't really engaged unless their jobs generate feelings of purpose and personal growth.

• Establish your "culture."  Embrace a set of values and implement a culture of positive engagement.  Unless the middle managers are transferring this culture and its importance to the individual team levels—where people interact and work day-to-day—the culture conversation will be less impactful.

What sort of return can you expect from doing the above?  

• According to Gallup, the top 10% of companies, ranked by engagement, posted profit gains of 26% through the last recession compared with a 14% skid at comparable outfits.

Want to sign up for additional exclusives about It’s the Manager?  Check out this link.

This post was written by Megan Habel, the Brand Strategist at BookPal. She is currently reading Educated by Tara Westover.