Research conducted by the Kenexa® Research Institute o(KRI) evaluated workers’ views of their senior omanagement team.

The results from the latest cross-culture study indicate that among the six countries surveyed, 54% of workers have favorable views of their senior management. Workers in India are more likely to rate their senior management favorably, while those in Brazil report the lowest levels of favorability.

The results indicate that a worker’s opinion of overall senior management effectiveness is driven by the extent to which senior managers gain employees’ confidence through their decisions, actions and communications, keep employees well informed regarding company direction, and conduct business in an ethical fashion.

There are important differences among cultures. Brazilian workers are more likely to see senior managers as effective if they display a strong emphasis on customer service and give employees a clear picture of the direction the company is headed. German workers feel their senior managers are effective when their organization acts on new and innovative ideas and continually improves the quality of the products and services. Chinese workers rate their senior management favorably if the company provides higher quality products and services than the competition, and they communicate to employees that there is a promising future for them at their company.

For all workers studied, having a strong, effective senior management team favorably impacts how workers rate their pride in their organization, willingness to recommend it as a place to work and their overall job satisfaction. Additionally, if employees view their senior management team favorably, they are more likely to have confidence in the future of the organization and are less likely to state an intention to leave.

“The larger the organization, the more challenging it is for senior leaders to connect to the rank-and-file. This report reinforces the importance of senior management’s communication with employees. Those teams who demonstrate a strong emphasis on customers, an unwavering commitment to ethical behavior, and who keep employees informed about the direction the company is headed are the teams who build more highly engaged workforces and outperform their competitors,” said Jack W. Wiley, Ph.D., executive director, Kenexa Research Institute.

Database Overview
The WorkTrends™ database is a comprehensive normative database of employee opinions on topics including leadership, employee engagement and customer orientation. In 2008, workers from 14 countries were surveyed: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Study Details
The WorkTrends survey questions were designed specifically to evaluate how workers view their senior management. The items asked were:

• Senior management is committed to providing high quality products and services to external customers.
• My company’s leaders are quick to respond to marketplace opportunities and competitive threats.
• Senior management gives employees a clear picture of the direction the company is headed.
• Senior management at my company has the ability to deal with the challenges we face.

Opinion items were rated using a 5-point Likert-like scale. The percent favorable is the percentage of people who chose either of the two most positive answers (typically “strongly agree” or “agree”).

Survey Results
The senior management index is calculated by averaging the percentage of favorable responses across these three items. This results in a single score that reflects employee’s views of their senior management.

Key Drivers Across Countries KRI asked a representative sample of over 1,000 workers from Brazil, China, Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States to rate the overall effectiveness of their senior management team. We then identified the key “drivers” of senior management effectiveness. They are shown in Figure 1.