Managerial Behaviors Associated with Work Engagement: From Survey Findings to Organizational Experimentation

Start by understanding the barrier—not assigning blame

According to the *Nihon no Jinjibu HR White Paper 2026*, 66.3% of responding companies cited insufficient managerial capability or awareness as a barrier to improving *hatarakigai*, or workplace fulfillment.

This finding should not be reduced to a demand that managers simply try harder. Managerial behavior is shaped by role clarity, authority, available time, staffing, budgets, evaluation systems, and culture. Improvement is therefore a shared responsibility across executives, HR, and frontline management.

Translate support into growth opportunities and dialogue

A separate employee survey by the NLI Research Institute examined work engagement as its measured construct. It found that managers’ provision of “growth opportunities” had the strongest association with work engagement among the support measures examined. It also suggested that approachability may have a stronger association with engagement among younger employees.

Organizations can translate the broad idea of support into a repeatable sequence:

1. Use a one-on-one to understand the employee’s capabilities, interests, and support needs. 2. Agree on a small assignment that stretches the employee beyond their current level. 3. Review the outcome and learning at the next meeting, then provide specific feedback.

The aim is not merely to delegate more work, but to combine challenge with accessible dialogue and reflection.

Build the organizational conditions for consistent practice

If these behaviors depend only on individual goodwill, workload and departmental differences will produce uneven results. Executives and HR should make development an explicit managerial responsibility and provide the authority and time needed to delegate meaningful challenges. Staffing, budgets, evaluation systems, and a culture that permits learning from setbacks must support the same goal.

Rather than launching company-wide at once, begin with an 8-to-12-week pilot in a small number of departments. Standardize the basic one-on-one and stretch-assignment cycle while leaving room for local adjustment.

Test the approach without claiming causation

The two surveys differ in respondents, questions, and constructs. The NLI Research Institute employee study is cross-sectional and self-reported, so it does not establish that managerial behavior causes higher work engagement. Any intervention should therefore be treated as a hypothesis to test within the organization.

Evaluate the pilot with multiple measures segmented by age group and department, such as perceived access to growth opportunities, manager approachability, completion or continuation of stretch assignments, and work engagement. Do not rank managers using a single score or use pilot data as the sole basis for appraisal, promotion, or adverse action.

Limit records to structured choices and do not collect free-text details, including the substance of personal conversations. Aggregate results anonymously, set a minimum reporting-group threshold based on re-identification risk, and suppress results below that threshold. Before the pilot begins, state the purpose of collection, who may view the data, how long it will be retained, and how participants can challenge results or raise objections about the process.

The practical goal is to learn not only whether managerial behavior changes, but also whether the surrounding systems make that change possible. That is the first step toward improving workplace fulfillment without placing the burden on managers alone.

Sources

• *Nihon no Jinjibu HR White Paper 2026*, “The Leading Barrier to Improving Workplace Fulfillment Is Insufficient Managerial Skills; Lack of Executive Commitment Is Also a Major Obstacle”
• NLI Research Institute, “What Kind of Managerial Support Is Common among Highly Engaged Employees? Employees with Managers Who Provide Growth Opportunities Report Greater Meaning in Their Work”