Are Your Managers Babysitting Employees? Coach Them to Coach Engaged Employees

Do your managers insinuate they are babysitting adults while at work?  Do they describe their employees in these terms: the complainer, the whiner, the tardy one, the absent one, the tantrum-thrower, the annoying one, the fabricator, the lazy one, and so on and so on?

What is so hard about being a manager? They interview. They hire. They babysit.
Sound far-fetched? A manager said this to me one day: Her day consisted of babysitting adults in the workplace. I think she was officially burned out.

First of all, managers get paid too much to babysit employees. Not only that, how productive and engaged are ‘baby-sat’ employees? After all, you’re in business to provide a service, make a profit and keep your customers satisfied and loyal.

Managers are human, too.
After years of working in corporate environments, I have found that the great organizations truly care about their people. Anyone can tell when someone cares about them as a person or when they care about them only as an employee. 

Like others in the employment ranks, sometimes your managers need a little love. In fact, they may need more than a little love. They may also need some coaching to help them become better coaches for your employees. No doubt, managers would welcome a dose of human understanding and a listening ear. After all, your managers are human too.

If you find your managers are getting burned out, especially during these trying times, I dug out one of my favorites, which is timeless: “The 12 Elements of Great Managing” as published by Rodd Wagner with The Gallup Organization.

In the early ‘90s, after combing through its database of more than a million people, The Gallup Organization sought to find out what the best managers in the world did differently. After all the research and studies, they came up with the following 12 elements as the best predictors of worker engagement:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my job.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

The majority of these elements have to do with respecting relationships.
After reading this list, you might think these elements seem intuitively obvious. Again, after all these years spent working in corporate environments, I find what is often perceived as common sense is not always commonly done. What I also find interesting is that none of these elements reference compensation. And the majority of the elements have to do with respecting the person and developing relationships.

Furthermore, it seems obvious to me that, above all, you want managers who possess a strong desire to develop relationships and to coach and guide others to success.  If your managers are missing the mark, perhaps you should sit down with them and find out what they care about, what their goals and dreams are and how they see themselves as best helping the organization to succeed. By coaching your managers and truly caring about them as individuals, you are also following and implementing elements 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12.  As they say, “The best teachers set an example.” 

Are your managers weary from babysitting adult employees? Are employees disengaged from their work? For a review of 12 elements for great managing, read this.