Improve employee-manager relationships

Improve employee-manager relationships with Salo’s “People-First Manager Index (PFMI).”

You may have heard people say, “employees don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.” That’s because an employee’s relationship with their direct manager is the top predictor of overall engagement, productivity, retention, and customer experience.

With 50 percent of U.S. workers conceding they will look for a new job during the next 12 months¹, it’s never been more critical to focus on manager effectiveness.

Managers are organizational linchpins

Managers have more impact on an employee’s experience than any other person in their company. Whether it’s onboarding, work assignments, professional development, work-life balance, life events, or rewards and recognition, their influence is profound. Consider these stats:

84 percent of workers say poorly trained managers create unnecessary stress.²
57 percent say they have quit a job because of a bad boss.²
However, it takes pay increase of around 20 percent to lure employees away from managers they like and respect.³

Unfortunately, many managers are often ill-equipped to manage and lead their direct reports. In fact, 50 percent of employees feel their own performance would improve if their boss received the right kind of manager training.⁴

The PFMI: The first step to great management is getting great feedback

Before you go out and design a manager training program, take a minute to understand what’s actually going in your organization. You need real data from the people who know your managers best: Their direct reports.

There are many ways to gather insights from your employees. The trick is asking the right questions and sharing how the feedback will be used. Salo has developed a methodology to gather this vital information, called the “People-first Manager Index (PFMI).” It’s an anonymous, data–based process with value-added questions and steps for acting on the insights. Positive answers to the PFMI are highly correlated to employee engagement, productivity, and retention.

Here are a few sample questions in the PFMI:

Does your manager empower and enable you to do your best work?
Does your manager coach and develop you?
Does your manager care about you as a person and your overall wellness?
Is your manager someone you would work for again if you had the choice?
Is your manager authentic, transparent, and trustworthy?

Download the PFMI forms (PDF) today!

It’s a tool that benefits managers and their reports

This exercise is a tool for managers, but it’s also a tool for employees. It reverses accountability and empowers employees to improve manager effectiveness and drive change. PFMI data shouldn’t be used to penalize managers. It’s about providing feedback on where managers can grow and develop in areas such as communication, engagement, and empathy.