Improving Manager Effectiveness to Transform Employee Engagement

The Challenge

For most organisations, employee engagement surveys identify opportunities for improvement and inform the allocation of effort and budgets to address key action areas.

This was the case for a government-owned corporation that had recently completed the first externally managed employee engagement survey in its twenty-year history.

The results were lower than anticipated and prompted significant reflection among executive leaders regarding the employee experience.

While the survey identified several potential focus areas, analysis of the results highlighted that the strongest drivers of engagement were closely linked to people management effectiveness.

This insight was evidenced by a dedicated manager scorecard embedded within the survey, which provided a detailed organisation-wide view of manager performance and employee perceptions of their leaders.

After discussions on the situation - and after reconciling disappointment with the initial results with a commitment to improve them - leaders recognised they needed to strengthen the capability of their managers and create greater consistency in how people were led, developed and supported in their organisation.

That’s where Rutherford HR came in.

Our Approach

Working closely with the executive team, we undertook a detailed review of the engagement survey results to identify the management behaviours most strongly influencing employee engagement.

The analysis highlighted four priority areas for manager development:

• Consistent and more impactful performance feedback

• Employee recognition

• Career development guidance and planning

• Creating an improved balance between the focus on their operational delivery and people leadership responsibilities

These development needs provided a structure for a manager effectiveness program designed to improve leadership capability at all levels of the organisation.

Rutherford HR was asked to develop the content and support a rollout of the program that focused on the application of new skills and embedding change – then to measure the impact of that work in a later engagement survey.

The Solution

Our approach was centred on a series of half-day development modules, designed around each of the four priority capability areas.

A key design principle was that change would be most effective if it was implemented progressively throughout the management hierarchy rather than simultaneously across the entire organisation. The program was delivered over an eight-month period, with each level of management completing a module approximately two months before the next organisational layer commenced the same content.

This approach allowed leaders to demonstrate visible behavioural change before expectations for similar changes were created amongst their teams. The approach also created practical examples that helped reduce resistance to change amongst more junior management layers as they themselves had witnessed change in the practices of their direct managers.

To maximise impact, module content was continually refined throughout the program. Feedback from earlier sessions informed subsequent delivery, ensuring the program became increasingly more relevant and practical as it rolled through the organisation.

To ensure continued focus and to support application, we also designed and distributed targeted communications that reinforced key concepts, encouraged practical application, and challenged participants to make changes in their day to day work.

As the program progressed for the more senior layers, we focused on how they could support the application of new skills in their business units. This reinforced both the content and the expectations that the development activities would be applied in the workplace.

Senior leaders were also encouraged to regularly meet with their direct reports to discuss progress, review actions taken, and reinforce expectations regarding leadership behaviour.

Impact on the Business

The program delivered significant improvements in manager capability. The combination of structured learning, workplace application, leadership involvement and reinforcement activity ensured that development activity translated into meaningful and sustained behavioural change.

Employee engagement increased by more than twenty percentage points following the initial rollout.

More significantly, perceptions of manager effectiveness improved dramatically. Every measure within the manager scorecard recorded double-digit increases, reflecting meaningful shifts in how employees experienced their interactions with their manager.

More senior leaders reported greater consistency in how their direct reports approached performance conversations, employee development, recognition and day-to-day people leadership.

The success of the initiative also created momentum for broader organisational change. Improved management capability strengthened employee confidence in leadership and provided a foundation for ongoing engagement improvement initiatives.

Over the following three years, the organisation continued to build on these gains and ultimately achieved upper-quartile employee engagement results.

Why It Worked

Several factors contributed to the success of the initiative.

First, the organisation used proven survey design and analytical techniques to identify the specific management behaviours most strongly influencing engagement, ensuring development investments were focused where they would have the greatest impact.

Second, the cascading rollout enabled change to occur progressively, allowing leaders to model desired behaviours, thereby creating positive examples that showed change could occur which encouraged adoption throughout the organisation. As an unexpected benefit, this approach actually helped build confidence in the most senior leaders to engage with the content and try new ways of working. The fact that they were ‘ahead’ of the organisation meant they could trial and adapt new approaches without the organisation critically assessing their attempts with an expectation of immediate change.

Third, the program emphasised practical application rather than theoretical learning. Participants were encouraged and supported to implement new approaches immediately and reflect on the results of their actions between modules.

Fourth, senior leaders played an active role in reinforcing expectations and maintaining accountability for change, helping to embed new behaviours beyond the ‘classroom’.

Finally, continuous reinforcement and ongoing focus helped convert initial improvements into sustained organisational change.

Key Reflection

Employee engagement surveys often identify management effectiveness as a critical driver of employee engagement; however, they fail to identify the most impactful manager behaviours driving employee sentiment.

Sustainable improvements in employee engagement require deeper insights and a structured, long-term approach that translates insight into action, builds practical leadership capability and creates accountability for behavioural change. Without these activities, investments in building manager capability through training alone are unlikely to generate returns expected.

Is your engagement survey telling you that managers need to change?

Knowing what needs to improve is only the starting point. The real challenge is translating those insights into changed behaviours that employees can see and experience.

If your engagement survey results have highlighted manager effectiveness as an opportunity, we'd welcome a conversation. Get in touch to explore how we can help turn survey insight into practical leadership change — and ultimately, stronger and more sustainable employee engagement.