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Manager impact on engagement
calculator

See how many people's engagement is riding on managers who have not been given enough support.

Your numbers

Engagement at risk
 
Share
How much do managers really affect engagement?

A lot. Gallup's research attributes about 70% of the variance in team engagement to the manager. That means the difference between an engaged team and a disengaged one usually comes down to the person leading it, more than pay or policy.

How we calculated this

We take the share of your managers you judge to be under-supported or untrained, apply it to your total number of managers and round to whole people. Each of those managers is then multiplied by your average team size to give the number of employees whose engagement sits under a manager who is not set up to hold it. The number is a headcount of exposure rather than a prediction that those people are disengaged; it is anchored on Gallup's finding that managers account for about 70% of the variance in team engagement. The working, the assumptions and the sources sit below.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of span of control in the HR Glossary.

Your working
Assumptions
  • The share of under-supported managers is your estimate. The 30% default is a placeholder; if you know who has had management training or coaching in the last two years, use the inverse of that.
  • Every team is assumed to be average size. Under-supported managers with large teams expose more people than the figure shows, and the reverse, so run it again with your biggest teams if you know where they sit.
  • "At risk" means exposed, not disengaged. Gallup attributes about 70% of the variance in team engagement to the manager, so these are the people whose engagement depends most on something you have not yet invested in.
  • The number is people, not dollars. To price it, run the cost of disengagement calculator with the at-risk headcount and a lower engagement rate for that group.
Sources

What to do about it

Most organisations promote people for being good at the job and then leave them alone to be bad at managing. The number above is how many employees are living with that decision. These steps are for whoever looks after managers, whether that is HR or the leader the managers report to.

1

Turn the percentage into a list

Go through the managers one by one: who has been in the role under 18 months, who was promoted for technical skill, who has had no coaching or training since, who has a team bigger than they can hold. That list, with team sizes next to it, is the real version of the number above and it fits on one page.

2
Where a tool helps

Read engagement at the level of the manager

A department score is an average of its managers. Cut whatever survey you have by direct manager and lay it next to the list from step 1. Where a name on the list has the lowest team score, you have found the exposure with a face on it, and that is where the first support goes.

3

Give them the basics before the leadership program

New and untrained managers need four things first: clear expectations of what managing means here, time in the week to do it, someone to ask, and feedback on how their team is actually going. A leadership development program on top of none of that is money spent in the wrong order.

4

Fix the spans that make good managers fail

A manager with fourteen direct reports cannot have the conversations engagement runs on, however well trained. Where the at-risk number concentrates in a few large teams, the fix is structure, and it belongs with whoever owns the org chart rather than with the manager.

5

Track team engagement per manager each quarter and re-run this

Move the "under-supported" share to the measured share as coaching and training reach people, and watch the at-risk headcount fall. When a manager's team score rises after support, that is the case for funding the next cohort.

Step 2 needs a read
by team, by manager.

Compono Engage is an employee engagement platform that reads culture and climate alongside work personality at the level of the team, which is the level of the manager. HR systems tell you who reports to whom and who completed the training. Engage shows which teams are cooling and how the manager's own working style meets the team's, which is usually where the friction is.

That is step 2 done without waiting for the annual survey, and step 3's feedback loop built in for the managers on your list. The number above is how many people are exposed. Engage tells you which of their managers need backing first.

See how it works
Compono Engage
8%+
reduction in turnover

Common questions

What counts as an under-supported manager?

Someone promoted for technical skill without coaching, or carrying a team with no training in feedback, development and difficult conversations. Many new managers get the title and the headcount but very little support in the parts that actually drive engagement.

What can I do about the employees this flags as at risk?

Start by backing the managers, since that is the lever with the most reach. Capability building, coaching and clearer expectations all help, and the gains compound across everyone reporting to that manager rather than fixing one person at a time.

Is team size or number of managers the bigger factor here?

Both matter, because the at-risk figure multiplies them together. A few under-supported managers with large teams can expose as many people as many managers with small teams. The percentage of managers who are under-supported is usually the lever you can move fastest.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the relevant authority in your country or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.

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