Trust and support encourage engagement

A new study has highlighted the influence line managers have in shaping people’s experience at work and the impact they have on employee engagement.

Inpulse, a company specialising in employee engagement, analysed data from 50,000 workers across a range of UK-based organisations in order to explore how different elements of a line manager’s role influence employee engagement; the findings suggest two specific elements have a major impact on how engaged people are at work.

Employees who felt their line manager trusted them to get on with their job, for example, were found to have an Engagement Index Score of 81%; in comparison, employees who did not feel trusted scored just 28%. Similarly, employees who felt supported by their line manager also had a significantly higher level of engagement, with this group scoring 74% on the Engagement Index versus 22% for those who did not feel supported.

This suggests employees who feel they have the trust or support of their line managers are likely to be around three times more engaged than those who do not. Inpulse concludes that a line manager’s true purpose is ‘to inspire and enable others to grow and develop’ with the outcomes being increased productivity, innovation and engagement.