A survey that The Ken Blanchard Companies conducted together with Training magazine last summer asked 800 readers their thoughts on who they felt was responsible for 12 different job, organization, and relationship factors that lead to a passionate work environment.
Respondents could assign responsibility for each factor to either the senior leaders in the organization, their immediate manager, or themselves. Surprisingly, in six out of the 12 categories, respondents identified themselves as the person most responsible for impacting that factor in their work environment.
Here’s the breakdown by factor.
Chart 1: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following JOB factors?
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Chart 2: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following ORGANIZATIONAL factors?
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Chart 3: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following RELATIONSHIP factors?
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Implications for Organizations
The good news is that employees see the creation of a passionate work environment as a partnership between themselves, their immediate managers, and their senior leaders. While some factors (Growth and Distributive Justice for senior leaders and Feedback, Performance Expectations, and Procedural Justice for immediate managers) are clearly seen as leadership’s primary responsibility, all of the other factors are seen as a joint responsibility. Senior leaders can take advantage of this partnership attitude by encouraging conversations at all levels in their organizations.
Getting started
What can you do to encourage the people in your organization to begin discussing these factors and working together at ways to improve conditions in each area? Give people a chance to share what they know about improving their work environment and the environment of others. Tap into that knowledge and experience. You’ll be surprised at the small things you can do that will make a big difference.
To learn more about the survey and to access the complete results, be sure to check out Employee Work Passion Volume 4: What’s important in creating a motivating work environment and whose job is it?
Interesting article. I would agree that employees, in general, both feel responsible and want responsibility. I am slightly curious about the demographic of those polled. I’m wondering if the type of work or level of position has anything to do with the findings. Nice work!
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It seems to me, the survey did not show how effective the ‘result indicators’ are, related to the ‘dimension’ measured…which to me would be interesting and give another layer of insight…
An example: the key result indicator relating to ‘Connectedness’ based on the question: “Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following RELATIONSHIP factors?”, was stongly ‘Myself’ .
.. does this ‘focus of responsiblity’ illicite an ‘effective’ connection …? don’t know…
how about a ‘follow-up’ survey and analysis relating ‘responsibility indicators’ to some dimensions of ‘effectiveness’…
It is good to see that employees recognise they have a responsibility as well for their well being. It’s too easy to put all the onus on leaders or managers and sit back waiting to be ‘engaged’.
I take the points presented and think that the two sides of responsibility draw well the expectations from employees.
But I also think that in general terms there’s too much attention to “conversation” and “corridor management” in organizations in this times that risks to shift the focus from current activities.
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