With millennials emerging as the dominant factor in workforce management, most organizations we interact with are grappling with how to do a better job of engaging today’s workers.

With this question in mind, we commissioned a study with the purpose of understanding how best practices in management and leadership also impact employee engagement. We have not published the results of this study, but I’d like to give you a preview of one finding.

This study, conducted by a professional research organization, was based on more than 800 randomly selected employees in manufacturing, services and higher-education markets. They were selected to sample senior leadership, middle management, front-line leaders and self-leaders. They were further selected to represent high-school, two-year, four-year or more levels of education, and to represent the main functional areas of most organizations, such as production, finance, marketing, sales, IT, etc.

Participants were asked how well their organization is using more than 60 organizational excellence best practices. As well, they were asked questions about their level of satisfaction and engagement with the organization.

The left column of the table below shows the top seven organizational excellence best practices that correlated with senior leadership’s level of engagement. The right column shows the top seven for the self-leader group (those who are not responsible for managing others).

The results are notably different in one obvious way. The front-line worker on the right puts much more emphasis on the “personal” aspect of the culture. They want to know they are cared for, and they want to care about the organization. They want openness and honesty and clear sets of values that are practiced. They want to be around others who are also engaged. They want to trust the people they are around and be able to learn and grow.