The 3E Model of People Manager Experience

Imagine a disengaged and an unhappy people manager.

There's so much and always spoken and written about what people managers should do, how they can be great, effective, and lead teams effectively. There's always a dialogue going on about what managers should do and they are made aware of what happens when they make the wrong people decisions. Besides these environmental pressure, there's pressure to deliver work which could be technical, consultative, sales and others.

The expectations from the role of a people manager have sky rocketed in the past two years of remote working and not managing hybrid teams brings a whole set of new challenges and demands from people managers.

It's a no brainer that the role of a people manager is of very high importance and is very difficult too.

Are organizations doing enough to engage with people managers and thinking of providing them the best "employee experience"? Or they are only focused on telling them what to do for their people (teams).

Perhaps not.

In this article I'd like to introduce you to The 3E Model of People Manager Experience. This model is not unique; many organizations are doing a lot towards creating a great people manager experience however, there are many who are a long way from thinking about their people managers.

The 3E Model simply brings together many aspects of existing HR programs and strategies together.

The first E stands for Effective

How are organizations measuring their people manager's people skills? Most organizations look at their engagement survey scores and determine if a manager is a great one or not so great one.

According to this model, engagement survey score is just one of many inputs that should be considered when measuring manager effectiveness. Look at manager's own performance rating, team's performance rating, diversity in the team, growth within the team, performance goals being added in the performance management tool by the team (yes/no), team learning hours, manager compliance towards HR programs etc. All these and more inputs when considered binary 1 or 0 can be added to an algorithm.

An algorithm can help organizations identify managers who are doing well and managers who need help.

Effective coaching and mentoring programs will help managers get better and in-turn they will appreciate the organization for investing in their development.

The second E stands for Enabled

All organizations strive to identify what skills, competencies their leaders should possess. Many develop their own models and mandate conceptual trainings around them. These are important. Managers, leaders must know about leadership skills and competences they must have or acquire over a period of time.

One critical aspect of manager development which most organization don't consider is manager and leadership development to handle day to day people affairs. The real deal !

For example - giving effective feedback, making the right people decisions everyday, understanding people policies and be able to effectively communicate them to the team, creating a great employee experience at every touchpoint, knowing HR programs and their role in each one of them etc.

Organizations need to enable managers in everyday people affairs by offering easy and convenient learning avenues. Manager and HR conversations (queries raised by managers) need to be captured into data that gives intelligent insights to the HR for designing proactive enablement programs.

You can make a bot from that data and save hundreds of HR person hours & cost (you can thank me later).

Enabled managers have enabled teams. Teams that are dedicated and motivated to work.

The third E stands for Engaged

Engaged managers will have engaged teams.

Managers when made to feel like employees too tend to lead teams more effectively.

Is your organization periodically recognizing managers for being compassionate and effective managers?

Rewarding & recognizing managers for their people management skills is one great way to engage with them. Offering external certifications and development of leadership growth path will lead to better experience and in-turn more productive teams.

I look forward to your perspectives and feedback. Please feel free to implement the 3E Model in your organization and if you need help please send me a message and I am happy to give pro-bono consultative advice.

Sincerely,

Laksh Sharma