HomeEmployee ExperienceEngagementEmployee EngagementWhy a 4-day week won’t solve the disengagement crisis

Why a 4-day week won't solve the disengagement crisis

  • 5 Min Read

Workplace wellbeing has been a critical focus for HR in recent years. Demands from staff for more flexibility and a better work/life balance have seen many organisations introduce new initiatives, from remote and hybrid working to wellbeing and ‘duvet’ days. The most recent development from the UK Government is the announcement of plans to give […]

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Workplace wellbeing has been a critical focus for HR in recent years. Demands from staff for more flexibility and a better work/life balance have seen many organisations introduce new initiatives, from remote and hybrid working to wellbeing and ‘duvet’ days. The most recent development from the UK Government is the announcement of plans to give employees the right to request a 4-day week.

Employees’ desire to be at work less speaks to a deeper discontent affecting businesses globally – the workforce is chronically disengaged, unfulfilled and unmotivated. Current wellbeing initiatives seem only to be providing solutions to the symptom, not the problem. For HR leaders to truly move the needle on employee wellbeing, they must tackle the root cause of our disengagement crisis. For that, they must look to their managers.

Employees globally are disengaged – and so are our managers

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report paints a worrying picture – only 23% of employees worldwide are engaged (10% in the UK). And the extent to which staff are engaged is a significant factor in their overall life experiences. Disengaged employees have a higher rate of daily stress, worry, anger and loneliness, whereas engaged employees experience much lower levels of negative daily emotions and are thriving in life overall.

This points to the need for HR leaders to address the cause of poor engagement to improve employee wellbeing. Yet those who are best placed to help, our managers, find themselves in a similar boat. While more managers than employees are engaged globally (3 in 10), they also experience more negative daily emotions than non-managers. Manager engagement and wellbeing is clearly suffering too, which is concerning, as 70% of the variance in team engagement can be attributed to the manager. Not only that, but when managers are engaged, employees are more likely to be engaged.

Why managers are struggling to boost employee – and their own – engagement

If we look at the current state of management development, it’s easy to see why employees and managers alike are struggling.

Rarely are managers formally taught how to behave differently when they are promoted to a management position, although their responsibilities may be larger and the decisions that they must make, more impactful. In fact, according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), 82% of all managers who enter a management position have received NO formal management and leadership training.

These “accidental managers” are often promoted because of their exceptional technical skills, not for their people management skills. Suddenly tasked with leading a team, these managers haven’t been given the opportunity to hone the necessary skills to handle the “people” side of leadership. It is perhaps no wonder, then, that only 27% of UK workers find their manager to be highly effective.

This lack of management training has a twofold negative effect on organisations. For managers, they are repeatedly called upon to take action, solve immediate problems, or answer questions on the fly. They find themselves spending more time doing things and less time planning for the future or seeking better ways to manage their teams. Managers effectively slip into helicoptering and doing their staff’s jobs for them, taking on more work and inevitably pushing themselves towards burnout.

Secondly, this typical management habit of directing, solving, fixing, and firefighting can have a disastrous impact on employee engagement, productivity, performance, and wellbeing. By constantly providing solutions, managers cannot provide the space for employees to grow and develop their independent problem-solving skills. Without the opportunity to find solutions themselves, staff just aren’t as invested in the outcome. This lack of purpose, autonomy and control over their work ultimately causes engagement and wellbeing to nosedive.

Coaching in the moment as a sustainable solution

Instead of this typical approach of consistently responding to situations with immediate solutions, managers should cultivate the skill of purposeful enquiry. This involves integrating more impactful questions into daily conversations with team members, which more effectively taps into their talents and boosts their productivity.

Known as Operational Coaching®, this innovative management approach seamlessly integrates coaching into the daily flow of work, diverging from traditional executive coaching approaches like GROW, which teach managers to hold sit-down, 1-1 coaching sessions. This mechanical Manager-as-Coach approach rarely has a substantive impact on the engagement and development of employees, as the formulaic coaching managers learn isn’t easily adaptable in the flow of fast-paced workplace environments.

Operational Coaching® is a mindset and a style of managing others using an enquiry-led approach. To really transform engagement, we need to have all managers using coaching-related behaviours every day, in the moment. This means training managers to become alert to ‘coachable moments’, i.e. those opportunities where asking a powerful question has the potential to drive better outcomes from team members’ queries than simply solving their problem outright.

This type of behaviour can also benefit workplace culture by underpinning an environment that’s more collaborative, creative and inclusive. Managers will find themselves doing less fixing and firefighting for employees and can focus on the higher-value aspects of their role. Simultaneously, these coachable moments provide team members with learning opportunities to do the thinking themselves. This shows team members that managers care about their development and want them to succeed, which instils a deeper sense of purpose and fulfilment towards their work, ultimately leading to improved engagement and wellbeing across the board.


Laura Ashley-Timms is the COO of performance consultancy Notion, creator of the multi-award-winning and internationally certified  STAR® Manager programme used by managers in over 40 countries. She is also the co-author of the new management bestseller The Answer is a Question.

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