Support measures whether the employees feel like their colleagues and managers are available and are providing them with the needed help and sparring.
The question behind the driver is: "To what degree do you feel that you get the necessary help and support from your colleagues and manager?"
How to succeed with support
To ensure that your employees score high on this driver, you can make sure that:
Someone helps them deal with challenging work or blockers when needed
You have time or processes for everyone to get input on their work quickly and efficiently
They genuinely feel that you listen to and know their struggles and challenges and are conscious of them
Feel that their team is willing to help them when things are tough
Typical root causes for unsatisfactory scores
Below are the root causes that explain the lower score in the vast majority of cases.
Lacking presence of the leader
The employees' leader is not present enough on a daily basis.
Lack of structure for 1:1's
The employees' leader hosts too few 1:1 conversations with them.
Missing professional mentoring
Employees lack a professional mentoring or decision making support
Insufficient collegial support
Employees are not good enough at supporting each other in difficult situations like when the amount of work becomes too much
Missing feedback
Employees lack feedback from their leader or from each other
Ideas for improving
Note: The root cause is what guides a good action that will improve the status quo from a bad action that's targeting something that might already be working. It's only possible to provide good ideas in the context of a root cause.
If lacking presence of the leader is the root cause
Ask yourself: Am I showing enough interest in the employees’ tasks and challenges?
Even if you do believe so yourself, ask the employees directly if they need anything from you to handle their obstacles and to succeed.
If you are aware that this is something where you have a potential for development, you can start practicing it - e.g. by setting goals or reminders to ask at least one of your employees a day. It might be weird in the beginning - but practice makes it easier to become a habit. Also, be transparent with the employees and let them know that this is something you are practicing as part of your own development as a manager. This will both make you feel human just like them, enhance psychological safety, as well as let them know that this is not a way of trying to micromanage them all of a sudden.
Ask yourself: Am I too busy with meetings to be present with my employees?
As a leader, make sure you are available for your employees - and that they also experience that. You could try to block time in your calendar when you cannot be booked for other meetings, where you will work close to your employees. Let them know that they can always come to you, especially during this time.
Ask yourself: Am I not physically close enough to them?
If you are not working in close proximity to the employees, make sure to swing by them and say hi once in a while. If you have a lot of remote work, make sure to prioritize morning check-ins or other team meetings, so they feel like you are approachable and prioritize them. As a manager, your most important role is to ensure that your employees success.
If lack of structure for 1:1’s is the root cause
Ask yourself: Do we have a structure for when and how often we do 1:1’s?
If not, the employees may be missing a more structured initiative from you. Some leaders have a tendency (with all the best intentions) to let employees know they can just book in their leader if they want to talk - and it may be to fine for some employees. However, others may struggle to actually take the initiative although they (maybe unconsciously) need to talk to you. Beware, there are several types of 1:1’s (see our 1:1 guide in our Leadership Playbook), but you can experiment with your team with what works best for you and the individual employees.
Ask yourself: When we have our 1:1’s, do we have a structure for the talk?
Make sure to have an agenda and maybe even prepare some questions in the meeting invitation. You can use our 1:1 framework as inspiration for this in our Leadership Playbook, depending on the type of 1:1. This is important because it is easy to fall into the “how are you doing?” - “Good, thanks”, which can feel superficial and even a waste of time. When you prepare some questions, it will help you help the employee talk about the things they need support on. This is of course very individual, just like the need for support is. But asking the right questions will help you navigate each conversation.
If missing professional sparring is the root cause
Ask yourself: How well do we do at knowledge sharing?
Perhaps some of the employees possess skills and knowledge that some of the others could learn a lot from. Set up a workshop or a structure to make sure this knowledge sharing is facilitated.
Ask yourself: Do we need someone externally to give feedback or educate the employees within a certain expertise?
You can ask the employees for specific wishes for learning within an area or from a certain person with the expertise. Make sure to be transparent about not being able to grant all wishes as well.
If it is not possible due to budgets/resources, brainstorm with the employees or other leaders in your organization in which way your employees can provide the needed professional sparring.
If insufficient collegial support is the root cause
Ask yourself: Are we good enough at asking each other for help?
It could be that some employees feel alone in their tasks and that they’re solely responsible for succeeding, which may be stressful for them. They may not be good at asking for help, or they don’t feel like they can do so. This may be the case, if you see lower levels of Mindful or Social. Make sure to communicate that it is important to ask for help - and even better, do it yourself.
Ask yourself: Is there a need for more (cross-)collaboration?
Some employees may be missing more collaboration with others. Be curious - together with them - how that could look like. This may be the case, if you see lower levels of Support.
Ask yourself: In our team, is it safe to show vulnerability?
There can of course be several reasons for an individual to feel insecure about showing vulnerability, but generally speaking, psychological safety is a prerequisite to feel okay doing this. As it can be a somewhat big area to both understand and manage, you can find our chapter on Psychological Safety with more information on the subject and inspiration on how to work with this.
If missing feedback is the root cause
Ask yourself: Do I provide them with sufficient feedback?
Make sure to provide sufficient feedback for the employees on their work so that they know it has value. As the need for feedback is very subjective, we would recommend doing this 1:1 in either the task check-ins or the development and feedback talk. You can find inspiration on how to facilitate these 1:1 conversations and what questions to ask your employees in our 1:1 guide for development and feedback conversations in our Leadership Playbook.
Ask yourself: How do I provide feedback to the employees?
More important than how often you do it is how you do it. Make sure to have a go-to method for providing feedback to each other where you remember to practice constructive criticism and praise. If your employees receive feedback in a negative way or don’t receive praise, they will most definitely not feel recognized.
Ask yourself: Does our culture encourage and value feedback?
Long-term it could also be of great value to make sure that your culture prioritizes feedback and recognition so the employees know - and feel - when they are successful. Aim to create a culture, where it is a natural part of your everyday life to book each other in for feedback sessions. Communicate to the team that feedback is a gift and ask them how they want to work with feedback moving forward so they are encouraged to give it to each other instead of leaving it only to you.