Only 28% of employees would recommend their boss to others, but managers say they’re not getting the support they need

Liking your boss matters a lot—and it has big impacts on your work performance.

Around 28% of nearly 3,600 global workers surveyed by the Achievers Workforce Institute, the research arm of employee feedback platform Achievers, would strongly recommend their managers to others. While only 14% of employees say they would not recommend their managers to others, the remaining 58% are just neutral about their boss.

The impact that affinity has on how employees feel about their work overall is big. Just 13% of employees who would not recommend their managers say they are very engaged at work, and 12% say they are most productive at their job. Comparatively, out of employees who would recommend their manager, 50% say they are very engaged and 38% say they are their most productive at work.

But for their part, managers say they’re being failed by their organizations—only 29% of supervisors believe their company supports them to be better people leaders.

HR leaders and supervisors are often not on the same page when it comes to how they think management is measured at a given company, the report argues. While HR leaders surveyed say metrics are used to measure performance, managers think that employee reviews are mostly what matters, and 70% of managers say they are not completely clear on how their success is measured.

“If you’re not clear on what the leader is evaluating, that’s a problem and the things that you’re doing day-to-day are through the lens of your employees’ effectiveness,” says Hannah Yardley, chief human resources officer at Achievers. “If you don’t know how they’re evaluating you, that’s really important to figure out.”

The report recommends that HR teams and leaders implement a “net promoter score,” a rating typically used to gauge customer satisfaction on a scale of one to 10. In this case, it’s used by employees to decide if they would recommend their managers to others.

The company urges managers to improve their ratings by focusing on four key factors: 

1. Contact, or regular one-on-one meetings with employees.
2. Recognition, or acknowledging employees’ successes.
3. Coaching, or guiding an employee without telling them what to do.
4. Professional development, or focusing on long-term views and goals in every meeting.

But both managers and HR teams have a responsibility to improve employee engagement, Yardley says. Managers should not wait to be offered training from HR, and nor should HR expect managers to take accountability of their own volition.

“This needs to be a partnership,” says Yardley. “Managers are the ones that are directly involved in this, and HR has some tools and frameworks to enable it. When that partnership can come out—and we see this as a joint problem to solve—I think that’s where the biggest impact could be.”

Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion

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It appears the return-to-office wars will likely continue through next year. About 90% of 1,000 employees recently surveyed by Resume Builder say their company will have mandated a return to the office by the end of 2024. 

Another 8% say their company plans to do so by the end of 2025, and the remaining 2% say no such plans are in place. Currently, 51% of employees say they’re already in the office.

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines.

- A new proposal from the Biden Administration would automatically make employees earning $55,000 or less eligible for overtime. Wall Street Journal

- Job search company Indeed will now pay transgender employees, or employees with transgender children, $10,000 if they want to relocate to somewhere they feel more safe. Bloomberg

- A lawsuit alleging Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, disproportionately laid off older workers will go forward after a California federal judge refused to dismiss it. Reuters

- Walmart will use A.I. assistants to speed up the productivity of its corporate employees. Insider

Watercooler

Everything you need to know from Fortune.

Pay for pops. British bank Standard Chartered is trying to bring in top workers by offering paid leave for new dads. By allowing new parents of any gender 20 weeks off, Standard Chartered joins a number of other financial institutions making paid parental leave more equitable. —Prarthana Prakash

Serving solidarity. Michelle Obama spoke at the U.S. Open this week about the ongoing struggle against the gender pay gap, describing it as an indicator of “how women are seen and valued in this world.” This year’s tournament is the first in history in which the men’s and women’s champion will both earn the same amount. —Chloe Taylor

Slow RTO delivery. “It probably won’t work out” for Amazon workers who are hesitating to return to the office, CEO Andy Jassy said in an internal Q&A session earlier this month. The CEO told employees that it was “past the time to disagree and commit” to the policy and unfair to employees who are already in-person three days a week. —Haleluya Hadero, AP