In order to achieve a common goal in business it is vital that everyone has a clear understanding as to what their role is. Yet a surprising number of workers are confused about exactly what they and their colleagues are meant to be doing at work, and many of them are floating voters.

Analysis of employees’ responses to our new question this year found that people who are happy in their job are much less confused about their roles and responsibilities. A massive 68% of disengaged workers say there is confusion about who does what in their organisation, followed by 43% of floating voters, while among engaged workers the figure is just 27%.

The better a company performs in our competition, the lower the level of uncertainty. Four out of 10 people in organisations that did not make it to the list report a lack of clarity about who does what, which drops to 23% for companies listed 11-100 and to just 10% for top 10 organisations.

“I do not think there is any excuse for a high proportion of people in a company to say they are not clear about their roles,” says Dr Pete Bradon, head of research at Best Companies Ltd. “That is a very dangerous position to be in.”

Turning up the Heat pays off

Strong training and a sense that work is to be enjoyed add up to Heat powering past its rivals into top spot this year

Background

• Hats off to great leadership

• Getting the message across loud and clear

• Fly high with the X Factor

• Why it pays to know what you’re doing

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Our research shows it is also bad for your health. For those employees reporting confusion, 39% of them had stress-related symptoms in the past 12 months, compared to only 17% of employees reporting no confusion. Uncertainty also leads to duplication of effort and can ruffle feathers. At its worse, it could lead to vital tasks not being carried out which, in turn, could result in accidents, lawsuits and loss of clients.

It’s a worry then, that in unranked companies many senior managers seem to be unaware of the extent of the problem. While 46% of managers/ supervisors and 43% of team members say there is confusion about who does what in their organisation, only a third of managers seem to recognise there is a problem.

“I think this is evidence that, for these companies, the senior management is too detached,” says Bradon. For listed companies, just 5% of senior managers are not recognising problems and in the top 10 listed companies the senior management team is completely in touch with issues.

Staff at Manchester-based law firm Pannone, which is ranked fifth in the list, are the least confused about who does what in their firm. “There’s no secret about how we help keep our people informed about each other’s roles in the organisation,” says Rachel Dobson, Pannone’s human resources director. “In fact it’s very simple, we work at it but we make it fun.”

Two initiatives have been introduced to let staff know what other people do. One is speed networking where couples have eight minutes to talk to each other about the work they do. Pannone also hosts junior lawyers’ lunches throughout the year. At each one a different department will present a short talk on what it does.

Financial services firm Edward Jones, ranked second in the list, gets the second highest score for clarity on roles and responsibilities with an 84% score. The approach it takes is one of responsibility-based management. Employees are involved in drawing up responsibility statements which set out their targets and how they will be measured. How they do it is up to them.

This approach gives staff ownership, shows them respect and keeps them engaged, says Tim Kirley, the firm’s country leader for the UK. “You totally own what is going on if you are involved in that decision-making process,” he says.

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