How much time managers have to develop their people may be one of the strongest indicators of employee retention and engagement — and a cost-effective way to boost employee learning, according to survey results released by Wiley Workplace Intelligence on Sept. 25.
Wiley surveyed nearly 1,500 people about career pathing and found that, when managers have time to develop their direct reports, 84% of employees surveyed said they’re very likely to stay with their companies. But when a manager doesn’t have time, that number falls to 41%.
Engagement showed similar results, with 76% of employees surveyed saying they are excited about the culture when they have an available manager, versus 23% that said the same about an unavailable manager.
“Our latest research also answers a question a lot of L&D budgets are built around without much evidence: what would actually move engagement?” Wiley posed in its report.
Employees’ most common answer was skills development and training, coming in ahead of mentorship, advancement transparency and more frequent manager conversations.
“That ranking is worth sitting with, because it isn’t asking for more perks or a bigger budget across the board. It’s a prioritized list, and skills development sits clearly at the top,” Wiley said. “Training and skill-building isn’t competing with career pathing. From where employees sit, it is career pathing.”
In response, Wiley suggested employers protect manager time and treat the availability of their managers as a retention metric, “not a culture nicety.” Employees also said that more frequent manager conversations would help their engagement.
“Manager time and skills investment aren’t the only levers available, but they’re two of the clearest, most measurable ones in terms of data, and both are within reach without a major new investment,” Wiley said.
Various studies have highlighted the importance of managers in the L&D space — and often, managers are not given the resources to assist with development despite being key to enforcing it, per research from the American Management Association released earlier this year.
Additionally, the “capacity protection” of workers, particularly managers, is key to protecting against feelings of burnout, and can build trust and connection at work, an O.C. Tanner report recently said.
