Inside Stories
Work culture gaps remain unbridgeable at many companies. New data sheds light on why, and how to shrink the divide.
A lot of frontline managers still don’t have a clue about what their employees encounter, believe, struggle through and strive for every day—but should, says work culture expert Ethan McCarty. “It can drive the behavior needed to generate the business results we’re all on the hook to deliver.”
NEW YORK—Don’t like your job? Your ‘boss’? Maybe in today’s still-tight labor market you’re doing the minimum—or maybe pursuing a more gratifying side hustle, thinking nobody will notice (nor care much), even it if might pose a conflict of interest or limit your collaboration. [Pew says 35% of Gen Zers are now running side gigs.] Worst case scenario? You’ve begun dissing your company or your talented workmates publicly (wrongly)—to justify your sudden desire to start plotting an expensive escape.
The old rules for companies? Let these folks go.
New rules? Whoa. Not so fast.
Today, a company’s frontline managers hold the key to improving employee performance. Trouble is, the latest Integral Index reveals, many of them are still using ineffective, top-down management tools and practices—or don’t have the communication skills needed to guide and affirm the unique value of the people they manage and to fully activate them to collaborate for positive change and success.
“When you activate managers, you activate the enterprise,” says Ethan McCarty, the founder and CEO of Integral. “Learning more about what drives employees can drive the behavior needed to generate the business results we’re all on the hook to deliver.”
Compassionate Culture
The Integral Index, conducted with the Harris Poll, surveys more than 2,000 employees annually about how they feel they’re being treated at work. “Improving how employees experience work isn’t a perk, nor a line item in a budget,” says McCarty, a pioneer in the relatively new field of employee experience, which integrates internal/external communications, HR and change management to improve work culture and increase employees’ emotional commitment to the organization, productivity and the quality of work. “Focusing more on employee experience is a strategic lever that every business should prioritize if it wants to compete and grow—and that means investing in manager training, holding executives accountable for culture and creating feedback systems that actually get used, not just lip-serviced.”
In this year’s Index, for example, nearly half of survey respondents cited irresponsive or uninformed managers as a major source of dissatisfaction—an insight that sheds new light on a variety of other HR sector indicators.
“In one study after another, whether it’s exit interviews or looking at the returns on Glassdoor,” McCarty said in an interview, “you’ll see comments that yeah, this place was a great place to work, had some awesome benefits, my compensation was fine, and I was given some amazing opportunities but my manager was just really out to lunch and I quit.”
What to do? According to Integral’s Index, an employee whose manager consistently supports her/his development is 42 points more likely to predict positive behaviors at work. “For starters,” McCarty told us, “if a you’re a leader and want to find the most effective place to spend your energy to improve an organization’s communications and culture, I don’t think you have to look very far, really. Maybe rather than sending managers a set of talking points, start sending them some listening points—along with some budgeted time to learn how to be better coaches.”
We caught up with McCarty recently to explore today’s work culture battles, “mixternal” communications—the merger of internal and external comms teams—and the benefits and challenges of having, for the first time in history, five generations working side-by-side, each with unique technological and formative experiences.
What follows are some highlights of that conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity. We’ll be airing a complete version as part of our forthcoming New Rules Media podcast series on resilience.
MARCIA: In many ways, you say one of the biggest things challenging companies are first-line managers, some of whom aren’t being very transparent about company goals and projects, nor as attentive as needed to individual employees’ career goals and need for support. Your research says many of them need communications training to do better, but that they, too, aren’t always getting what they need, and it can have a discouraging, negative impact on the employees they manage—and on company outcomes.
ETHAN: Managers, especially first-line managers, are the linchpins of culture. They are expected to interpret strategy into action, reinforce norms, provide feedback, but—only when they’re supported—can they also become trusted guides. When they’re overwhelmed, inconsistent or misaligned with leadership, they become a significant source of confusion and disconnection.
Our data shows that in fact, employees’ experience of their direct managers can have a disproportionate influence on their mindset and performance. Everything else can be okay, but if employees think their managers don’t understand them, aren’t communicating with them enough about what matters to them, aren’t listening and aren’t giving them the tools and experiences needed to succeed, they’ll quit. On the other hand, workers who believe their manager enables their growth, provides resources and lives the organization’s values? The data proves that employees will then experience a significant increase in how well they feel about the company.
…Employee experience, mindset and engagement are the three behaviors which underpin the set of behaviors employees exhibit and they can either support or sabotage business outcomes.
MARCIA: What about Gen Z?
ETHAN: These feelings, beliefs and behaviors, good and bad, start early. Among Gen Z workers (ages 18-24)—who, by the way, are quickly becoming the largest cohort in the workforce—only 56% feel their company genuinely cares about them, and just 66% of them feel they have the support needed to do their jobs well. Perhaps most concerning? Half (51%) say senior leaders’ behavior doesn’t align with the company’s stated values.
That kind of misalignment doesn’t just erode trust, it bleeds our into performance, motivation and retention. In fact, Gen Z is the most likely generation to believe their company’s best days are behind it.
MARCIA: You recently wrote a piece for Forbes, as a member of the Forbes Business Council, entitled, Your Best PR and Marketing Agency is Already on Your Payroll. Why do you think so?
ETHAN: We must think differently about how we’re engaging people, not as audiences, but as individuals. The public we need to reach now is right under our noses. It’s the people we work with every day. They’re as important as a company’s customers, if not more so. And it’s now all about how companies and organizations are getting their attention, too. Attention is now the prize. It’s what determines success in today’s media ecosystem.
MARCIA: How does that play out? You’ve said that the most effective leaders recognize that brands are built from the inside out. Employee behavior plays a big role in that. How do companies win the employee attention and respect you reference? Values play a big role. What else?
ETHAN: Our latest survey says that 75% of employees report only positive emotions about work when their employer speaks with the same voice internally as it does externally. And even more employees, 91% of them —say they experience positive emotions at work when their organization’s stated values align with their own. So yeah, values play a big role. Employees who see their own values reflected in their employer’s values are more than twice as likely to go the extra mile for a client or colleague, advocate for their employer on social media and stick with the company when it has a crisis.
… Executive communication and behavior are also critical. They set the tone for trust and belief. Purpose and impact of the work is important to communicate to all employees, in regular, frequent communication and shared results and data points. It’s important to convey how the work being done matters—makes a difference—but that’s not always happening, or at least not as fully nor as frequently as needed.
When senior leaders embody the organization’s stated values, and regularly communicate about purpose and strategy, employee belief in the future rises. When they don’t, employees will fill in the blanks—and the blanks are rarely generous.
MARCIA: In the forward of your company’s latest survey with the Harris Poll, you say that “data representing our human behaviors is particularly susceptible to misuse by leaders, often to justify their own perspectives.” What does that statement reflect in your research?
ETHAN: Leaders who listen (to their employees) with a modicum of bravery and humility will always outperform those who either fail to listen to their teams or listen only to validate their own points of view. My team and I have been in this work for long enough to pretty quickly ascertain whether leadership seeks to understand and confront what's really going on in their company, or if they're running an employee survey as a kind of inauthentic theatrical performance of listening.
Honestly? I get it. It sucks when you get the results of employee feedback and see some tough truths. I've personally been on the receiving end of these! And yet the very best thing to do is to admit where you are wrong or where you could do better and then, well, do that thing that needs to be done.
Interestingly, we found that when employees say their employer is willing to admit mistakes there is a whopping 39% improvement in positive, business-driving behaviors, like going the extra mile for clients and defending the company in a crisis.
MARCIA: You say this survey also indicates, “in sharp relief, a gulf between many leaders’ perceptions of their own experience of work and what their employees encounter, believe, struggle through and strive for every day.”
ETHAN: If your employees think their boss has a better experience at work than they do, they’re probably right. In many dimensions of our survey research, participants higher in management seniority indicate higher levels of positive emotions, a greater understanding of the company’s strategy, and higher levels of satisfaction with where they physically work, whether remotely, hybrid or on-site.
For example, 94% of senior managers report positive feelings when they’re clocked in. While that is important, it’s even more telling that 78% of these leaders believe their organizations reward high performance. That said, only a measly 45% of non-managers and 62% of first-line managers hold this belief about their employer.
It is hard to imagine really putting your heart and soul into a company if you do not believe you’ll be mentored, recognized and rewarded for the effort. This effect is extensible to the perception of the whole organization—only 23% of non-managers believe their employer’s best days are ahead by comparison to more than twice that for senior leaders.
MARCIA: Compassionate work culture is key. Cross-generational communication skills—to more meaningfully and authentically serve those managed—can build on employees’ emotional commitment to the organization and its goals. Improving everyday interactions is huge.
ETHAN: In organizations where managers are trained communicators, trusted coaches and effective translators of strategy, their employees are more likely to stay, grow and advocate. Johnson & Johnson, for example, was able to elevate employee belief in its vision from 70% to 87% in under a year; a multi-billion dollar semiconductor company we worked with drove a 126% growth in employee content engagement by improving management communication, alone.
If you want business transformation, brand advocacy, innovation and customer loyalty, you must begin by equipping, engaging and empowering your people—especially your frontline managers and leaders.
The results are clear. When you activate managers, you activate the enterprise. Employee experience is the starting point of everything else.
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