Happier employees find work more meaningful – a manager’s guide to helping employees uncover it

CEOs are still struggling to move the needle on employee wellbeing. Deloitte reports that while 90% of C-suite executives believe they promote workplace wellbeing, only 60% of employees agree. More worryingly, overall employee wellbeing declined in 2023, with 41% of global workers still experiencing daily stress, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report.

To resolve this, organisations have been trying hard to make staff happier and more motivated by introducing various initiatives ranging from ‘duvet days’ and mindfulness classes to company-wide wellbeing apps. However, recent research from the University of Oxford has found that these initiatives have failed to have their desired effect.

Poor employee wellbeing continues to wreak havoc on productivity, with only 23% of workers actively engaged globally. There is hope, however. Gallup’s report also indicated that employees who find their work meaningful have higher levels of daily enjoyment and lower levels of daily negative emotions. The writing on the wall is clear – organizations must make work more meaningful to repair the terrible relationship that their employees currently have with work.

What staff want from work… and their managers! 

We all yearn for meaningful work with an organization we admire. All of us would like to be a part of something we can believe in and contribute to. Our work should matter. We should be valued.

Unsurprisingly, in this post-Covid era, employees have higher expectations about how they’re treated in the workplace, what they want from their work and how they can maintain their wellbeing. These days, when you come to work for an organization, it is expected that your contribution is going to get recognized. So when that recognition isn’t present and you aren’t valued, staff aren’t prepared to put up with it.

The secret is cultivating workplaces where people want to be and instilling a sense of trust and autonomy within teams. When staff feel trusted to get the job done, and encouraged to take control over their work, their sense of fulfilment skyrockets and engagement increases.

Easily said, but in reality, there is a clear divide in perceptions between CEOs and their staff regarding these needs being met. Again, Deloitte’s Workplace Wellbeing 2024 report reveals that while 73% of C-suites believe workers have autonomy in their roles, only 56% of staff agree. A similar story can be said for meaningful work, as 79% of C-suites believe workers have opportunities to engage in work they love, whereas only 54% of staff agree.

So, how can CEOs bridge this gap and create the sort of meaningful culture staff desire?

Our managers hold the key to achieving this. Managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement, and research has shown that they have the same impact on people’s mental health as their partners, doctors or therapists. Staff happiness, perhaps unsurprisingly, is contingent on good management practices. And yet, in the UK alone, only 27% of workers rate their manager as effective, according to the Chartered Management Institute. What are managers doing wrong?

Let’s consider a common scenario at work. A team member comes to their manager with a problem they’re facing. Born out of a desire to help, the manager’s immediate reaction is to fix or solve the problem by providing solutions and ‘telling’ them what to do based on the manager’s own knowledge and experience.

The reality is, though, that the moment the manager provides a ‘fix’, they inadvertently take the meaning out of work for the employee. This traditional ‘Command-and-Control’ approach to management provides no opportunity for staff to find solutions to problems themselves or to develop their own initiative and problem-solving skills. Staff lose ownership over their work, and without this autonomy, trust and opportunity for learning, happiness, engagement, and productivity inevitably wane.

So, what can managers do to make work more meaningful for their employees, in turn boosting their happiness?

STAR® – A manager’s guide to making work more meaningful 

Managers can begin to address this issue by recognising how they usually respond to different situations. To help them do that, we can look to the STAR® model:

• STOP—step back and change state.
• THINK—is this a coachable moment?
• ASK—powerful questions and actively listen.
• RESULT—agree on the next steps and an outcome from the conversation.

When a team member comes to you with a problem, STOP. Not every problem needs an overstressed manager doing all the thinking. Avoid providing all the answers or mentally trawling your own mind for solutions. It is mentally taxing for you and also takes away a valuable moment to help the other person find the answer within themselves.

Learning to bite your lip this way wins you a moment to THINK instead about whether the situation could be a coachable moment, i.e. a time when a deft prompt from you could help this person to explore the situation and the range of possible solutions themself.

If the person might benefit from wrestling with the problem (i.e. it is a coachable moment), adopt an enquiry-led approach. This involves learning to ASK authentic and powerful questions intended to stimulate the other person’s thinking, which will help them to consider and reflect on the possible actions they can take to begin to resolve the issue. A useful tip here is to focus on what? rather than why? questions, as the latter can imply criticism or blame, e.g., asking “What do you think is the reason this is happening so often?”, rather than “Why is this happening so often?”.

To secure a RESULT, you need to ask a few more questions to agree on the appropriate follow-up, which will not only raise the likelihood that actions will be followed through but also will provide you with an opportunity to give some appreciative feedback.

Conclusion 

CEOs alone can stimulate a conversation about what we want our expensive management layers to do for the organisation.  Suppose the answer is that we want them to create an environment and a culture in which our employees’ contributions are encouraged and valued, that they are seen and acknowledged and receive both appreciative and developmental feedback, helping them to grow and advance. The next question needs to be, “How should we equip our managers differently to create such a workplace culture?”

Following the steps above invites managers to break old habits and adopt new behaviours, including developing situational awareness, which helps embed a coaching mindset. By learning to use the STAR® model, managers quickly learn to develop an Operational Coaching® style of management, bringing coaching into the flow of everyday work.

This new, more engaging approach to managing others has been proven in extensive research conducted by the London School of Economics not only to build trust but also to develop the autonomy of team members so that they feel happier and can thrive at work. Managers also destress, relieving themselves of the pressure to have all the answers, and learn instead to draw from the talents of their team, who, in turn, will have more confidence that their managers believe in their ability to succeed. This will inevitably boost wellbeing across the board, paving the way to a culture of value, support and fulfilment.

Written by Laura Ashley-Timms and Dominic Ashley-Timms.

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