Two thirds of employees want difficult conversations; managers are not ready
An athlete trains before the match; a lawyer rehearses the defence before court. A manager usually walks into a difficult conversation without any rehearsal at all.
Research by the Achievers Workforce Institute among 1,500 employees in the US and Canada in March 2024 gives an unexpected result: two thirds of employees want to have tough conversations at work. They want to talk openly about sensitive business matters, personal issues and current events. Yet according to the same research, a third of employees do not feel safe having that conversation with their manager.1
- of employees: want tough conversations at work
- 2/3
- of employees: do not feel safe having them with their manager
- 1/3
- of managers: have had enough training for hard conversations with their team
- 1/4
The problem is preparation, not willingness
So the problem is not that employees do not want to talk; it is that managers do not know how to handle these conversations. According to the research, only a quarter of managers have received sufficient training for hard conversations with their team.1
Research by the Chartered Management Institute tells the manager’s side too: knowing a difficult conversation is coming makes two thirds of respondents stressed or anxious, and 11% say they have nightmares or sleep badly beforehand.2
Trust is built before the conversation
According to Achievers, one of the key predictors of whether an employee feels safe in a tough conversation is trust in their manager. Yet fewer than a third of employees say they trust their manager.1
The good news: trust grows through small, repeated behaviours. Employees who feel recognised by their manager are twice as likely to have high trust in them and almost twice as likely to feel safe having tough conversations with them. The research names regular contact, recognition and coaching as core behaviours of a trustworthy manager.1
Having lived it once
This is a solvable problem. In Atlas Talks, before you face a real colleague, you try the conversation with a similar character and see which approach works. The aim is not to memorise a perfect script; it is to have lived, once, what you will feel in that moment.
You cannot build trust in rehearsal; it builds up in the moments you share with your team every day. But in rehearsal you can find what to say in those moments.
Sources
- Achievers Workforce Institute, “Two-Thirds of Employees Want to Have Hard Conversations at Work, But Managers Are Unprepared”, 3 April 2024achievers.com/press/study-two-thirds-of-employees-want-to-have-hard-conversations-at-work-but-managers-are-unprepared
- Chartered Management Institute, “The best strategies for difficult workplace conversations”, 29 July 2015managers.org.uk/knowledge-and-insights/article/the-best-strategies-for-difficult-workplace-conversations