Recent Gallup data suggests employee engagement plummeted to an 11-year low in 2024 with the UK posting a pitiful 10%. Employee satisfaction also returned to a record low last year, and employees are now seeking new jobs at the highest level since 2015. So, why are we all so miserable at work?

Coined by Gallup as The Great Detachment, employees are increasingly detached from their jobs, and though actual turnover numbers may be down in a slower jobs market, disengaged employees are bad for business.

Research shows that companies with the most engaged employees achieve 23% higher profitability than those with low levels. These companies are better at retaining top talent, serving customers, achieving higher-quality output and accomplishing numerous other outcomes that generate profit.

As an ecosystem, it would look something like this:

Engaged employees -> Higher levels of productivity -> Better-performing businesses -> Economic growth

Viewed this way, low employee engagement is estimated to cost the global economy a staggering 8.9 trillion U.S. dollars, or 9% of global GDP. According to Gallup, this is enough to make the difference between success and failure for humanity.

So how can we begin to turn the tide on this ominous portent for the future of work?

The answer lies within the keystone of every business: its managers.

Why isn’t management receiving the urgent attention it should?

Time and time again, research shows that managers really matter. In fact, it’s estimated that managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement levels. Let’s face it, we don’t need numbers to tell us this. When we have a poor manager, we feel less appreciated, more likely to feel negative emotions about work and less motivated to perform. It’s not rocket science.

For too long, though, organisations worldwide have regarded their managers as merely super workers, the grown-ups in the room, the problem solvers rather than the orchestrators of individual and team engagement, the drivers of collaboration, creativity, and productivity.

This gross underappreciation means that 82% of managers are likely to be ‘accidental’, promoted not because of their people-management skills but because of high performance in a technical role. These accidental managers haven’t received any formal preparation or training for their role before they’re let loose on their new team, which invariably suffers as a result.

It’s not the managers’ fault per se, but the dismal global reality of management. When managers are left to flounder in their new role, they tend to do one of two things:

1. They emulate and perpetuate the outdated management styles that have come before them (both good and bad); and/or
2. They fall into the trap of ‘commanding-and-controlling’ because it’s the only way they think they can make an impact.

Without a shared mental model for how they’re supposed to perform, they default to doing what they know best: fixing problems. In practice, they inadvertently make themselves accountable for all decision-making, simply directing their teams and telling them what to do.

The real impact? Marginalised employees with diminished engagement.

Moving from managing to enabling

When a manager resorts to constantly giving instructions, employees are robbed of the chance to think independently, fully engage with their tasks, and build confidence in their roles. Over time, this can result in a lack of motivation and disengagement.

This approach isn’t beneficial for either employees or managers. When a team depends on its manager for every decision, it can quickly lead to overwhelm and burnout. Constantly stepping in to resolve day-to-day issues also leaves managers less time for the strategic, higher-value aspects of their work, which limits growth and career progression while negatively impacting organisational performance.

And whilst organisations may have been able to paper over the cracks of poor management in the past, the advance of Gen Z into the workforce (making up 25% of all workers in 2025) throws the woeful inadequacies of poorly skilled managers into stark relief. Gen Z, unlike any other generation before it, wants to be coached, not directed, and will seek out managers who can cultivate their growth. When they don’t find that, they’ll move without a second thought of loyalty. And yet, organisations are still standing by wringing their hands in despair as they review their appalling employee retention figures.

What’s urgently needed is an entirely new way of thinking about management. It’s no longer about ‘managing’ people and their work but developing the long-overdue communication and engagement skills to better enable employees’ abilities and draw on their talents.

Operational Coaching^® - a new hope?

In 2019, the CBI calculated that just a 7% improvement in the quality of management in the UK (to bring it into line with other G7 partners) would unlock £110 billion for the UK economy. This led the Government to call for research proposals that might accomplish that.

A new approach selected for research funding, Operational Coaching^®, focused on changing managers' behaviour and developing new skills, including purposeful enquiry. By honing their situational awareness, managers learned when and how to ask powerful questions to stimulate another person’s thinking where that might drive a better outcome than directing them in that moment. Helping people to identify an action they could follow through enabled them to retain accountability for resolving the issue with their manager’s support and feedback.

The research, conducted by LSE, involved managers in 62 organisations drawn from 14 sectors who all followed a self-paced development programme that encouraged small and incremental behavioural changes. It was the most extensive randomised control trial of its type.

And the results were profound.

LSE proved that managers who learned to adopt an Operational Coaching^® style of management spent, on average, 70% more time coaching their team members in the flow of work. In addition, each manager generated a 74 x ROI. More importantly, perhaps, LSE detected that organisations whose managers used this new approach experienced a six-fold improvement in employee retention than control group organisations. They also noted that managers employing the approach significantly improved employee engagement, productivity, inclusivity and team collaboration.

Conclusion

As we advance into the next quarter century, it’s now critical that organisations adapt to the tectonic shifts in the world of work and the expectations of a new generation. It is time to ditch the outmoded century-old model of management and myriad L&D departments each reinventing their own versions of that wheel if we’re to excel in an increasingly competitive world economy. Instead, a new mental model for effective management is urgently needed, and managers must become the enablers of future talent if businesses are to survive.

Dominic Ashley-Timms is the CEO of global performance consultancy Notion, creator of the multi-award-winning STAR^® Manager online development programme being adopted by managers in 40 countries.

Dominic is also the co-author of the new management bestseller The Answer is a Question - The Missing Superpower that Changes Everything and Will Transform Your Impact as a Manager and Leader.