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thrive at work/Manager support

Research finding · 07

Manager support: €15,000 a year per person.

Manager support divides employees as sharply as workload does. Like workload, it is in the employer's hands.

By Jerry Fiser, Founder & CEO · Reviewed by Marcin Bulik, Research Director · Updated November 8, 2026

Last reviewed November 2026
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€15,000
per person per year
Least vs most supported
~50
days a year
Separated by manager support
= workload
in effect size
Both set by the employer

How much does manager support matter for performance?

thrive research (2026) shows the gap in working time between the least and the most supported employees is worth about €15,000 a year per person. Manager support divides employees as sharply as workload, separating them by about 50 days a year of not working effectively.

Key takeaways
  • About €15,000 a year per person between least and most supported.
  • Manager support separates employees by about 50 days a year.
  • It divides employees as sharply as workload.
  • It is in the employer's hands.

The finding in plain numbers.

Employees who felt least supported by their manager lost far more working days to exhaustion or stress than those who felt most supported. Valued in working time, the gap is about €15,000 a year per person.

Why managers matter so much.

Managers decide much of what people experience day to day: priorities, recognition, workload and whether problems get fixed. The HSE Management Standards include support among the six causes of work-related stress, and Gallup State of the Global Workplace tracks manager engagement as a driver of team engagement. See leadership and trust.

What leaders can do.

Steps in order of impact.

  1. 1
    Share capacity with managers. Give managers team-level capacity results, not just engagement.
  2. 2
    Free their time. Free managers' time to support their teams.
  3. 3
    Train the team conversation. Train managers to run a short team conversation after each survey.
  4. 4
    Check managers' capacity. Check managers' own capacity too.

What the numbers do and do not show.

These are associations between groups of employees, not proof of cause. Days of not working effectively are reported by employees themselves. The next studies test whether raising capacity changes outcomes and how scores line up with an employer's own absence and turnover records. Full methods are in the thrive at work white paper.

How to cite this finding.

thrive at work Research Division (2026). The Scientific Foundations of the thrive at work Framework: Methodology & Validation White Paper, first edition. Available at thriveatwork.ai/research/scientific-foundations.

Measure it

thrive at work measures engagement (purpose, leadership, connection, growth) and capacity (energy, recovery, focus, resilience) in one anonymous assessment: see how the assessment works.

Measure capacity, not just mood

Most engagement problems show up first as falling energy, recovery and focus. thrive at work is a workforce performance platform: an employee engagement platform that also measures capacity to perform, so you can see strain by team before it turns into absence or resignations. Read more about employee capacity.

Sources.

  1. HSE Management Standards. www.hse.gov.uk
  2. Gallup State of the Global Workplace. www.gallup.com
  3. thrive index validation study. thrive at work, 2025–26. Methodology.

Common questions

How much is manager support worth?
About €15,000 a year per person in working time between least and most supported employees (thrive research, 2026).
Is manager support as important as workload?
In the thrive data it divides employees as sharply as workload does.

See these numbers for your own teams.

A 30-minute call shows what a first engagement and capacity assessment would reveal.

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