Trust in leaders at two-year low

Trust and confidence in senior leaders has fallen to a two-year low, with almost one third of employees believing that performance management systems are unfair, according to a survey for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

The CIPD/Halogen Software Employee Outlook survey of over 2,500 employees reveals that as well as feeling performance management systems are unfair, almost a third of employees also feel progression within their organisation is unachievable, with one in five stating that their managers do not effectively communicate objectives and expectations.

The CIPD is calling on managers to step up and talk to their employees about development or risk losing valuable talent. This is particularly the case in the voluntary sector, which has seen a rise in employees looking for a new job (27% up from 24%), compared with a slight drop in job-seeking in the public (20% from 23%) and private sectors (22% from 24%).

Claire McCartney, Research Adviser at the CIPD, says: “It’s not surprising that job-seeking intentions are still high, as employees lack faith in their leaders and managers. This survey shows a marked increase in negative perceptions of senior managers, with overall trust and confidence in senior managers hitting a two-year low. Trust and confidence levels are particularly low in the public sector, and have potentially been influenced by the current unrest and strike action taking place in this sector.

“The survey also reveals real performance management and progression issues. Again this is likely to be linked to the current unrest in that sector related to pay, pensions and performance. There are also real concerns regarding progression across sectors but particularly in the voluntary sector, with more employees currently feeling that career progression is unachievable as opposed to achievable.”

Donna Ronayne, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Halogen Software, said: “With employee perceptions of the job market improving organisations need to be proactive about their retention strategies if they want to prevent their best talent from jumping ship. This means ensuring your performance management processes are clear and consistent and used to align employees to the vision of the organisation. It’s also important that your processes be used to strengthen the manager-employee relationship where regular coaching and feedback are the norm. Use these processes to identify the learning and development needs of your employees so that they grow with the organisation and see that career progression is a possibility. And managers need to be given the tools and training to identify and highlight those employees that add the most value to the business for differential reward, and progression.”

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• Employment rights