management assessment

'This manager's lovely', says a supermarket worker. 'I hope he stays'. The little vignette makes a large point: the individual manager, in any business, holds the key to employee satisfaction and performance.

Anyone who doubts that compelling truth should turn to a massive Gallup survey of 24 major companies over 25 years. It shows a clear relationship between success and contentment: but no correlation at all between a company's overall satisfaction rating and the achievements of individual units.

At one restaurant chain, for example, a mere 40% of people in the average work group professed happiness. But some groups recorded far higher warmth and results - indicating strongly that local managements produced the decisive impacts.

They control (or should do) the critical levers: target-setting, providing the tools for the job, recruitment of able co-workers, and what The Economist calls 'the attention of a caring supervisor'. You won't get that without caring managers higher up.

It must make sense to judge managers heavily on workforce reactions. In the restaurant chain, group happiness ranged from zero to nearly 100%. In another company, the worst group scored 15%, the average 60% and the best, again, in the high 90s. The implications, especially in service businesses like retail, run deeper still.

First, training of line managers has cardinal importance. In some cases, almost unbelievably, branch managers can go for years after promotion before being taught how to handle and look after people. Second, careful thought must be given to the duration of appointments.

If managers are moved on too rapidly, staff and policies alike become unsettled. A balance must be struck between the need to advance promising careers and preserving the stability and support which other staff want, deserve - and reward with superior results.

Recognising this sovereign linkage, Ricardo Semler of Semco, his eccentric Brazilian engineering company, has staff assess their own managers though multiple choice questionnaires, twice yearly. Those who fall below 70% ratings risk losing their jobs. Omnibus employee attitude surveys are far less innovative and valuable than Semler's approach. He makes the manager concentrate on the real job, which is to get the best from others by doing the best for them.