Quality of management is a principal driving factor behind high levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement [in the voluntary sector] despite prolonged job insecurity.” Claire McCartney, research adviser at the CIPD
According to the CIPD’s Employee Engagement Index more than half (55%) of employees in the voluntary sector feel engaged at work, despite a backdrop of increasing redundancies (25% reporting planned redundancies ahead, a jump of 15 percentage points since last quarter).
The quarterly Employee Outlook, which surveyed employees across all sectors about their attitudes to working life, found that engagement in the voluntary sector is driven not only by an affinity to the organisation’s core purpose, but more importantly by open and honest management teams and cultures of mutual trust and respect.
The survey found that voluntary sector workers:
- Enjoy the highest rating of job satisfaction
- Are aware of what is happening in their organisations
- Are most likely to agree that their directors and senior managers treat them with respect
- Are the most attuned to their organisations’ core values and purpose
- Have the most confidence in their ability to feed their views upwards
- Are most likely to achieve the right work-life balance
Claire McCartney, research adviser at the CIPD, comments: “It would be easy to attribute strong engagement scores in the voluntary sector to employees’ affinity to their organisation’s charitable purpose, but our survey suggests that quality of management is a principal driving factor behind high levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement despite prolonged job insecurity.
“The data from the voluntary sector gives us some hints on how to engage staff through leadership – at all levels of the organisation – and provides some good practice that both the private and public sectors can learn from. More employees in the voluntary sector agree that they know clearly what the purpose of the organisation is, but also that they can feed their views upwards. Positive communication practices could explain why more employees in the voluntary sector understand the organisation’s core purpose, are motivated by it and are less likely to be looking for a different job.
You can read more about the findings of the CIPD’s research on the CIPD’s website