Are We Asking Too Much Of Line Managers?

“I don’t want to be a line manager” - this sentiment is becoming increasingly common, and it's not hard to see why. The role's demands have drastically intensified, requiring managers to navigate their teams through challenges such as unwelcome return-to-office mandates, the survival guilt of redundancy programs, and meagre salary increases amid the cost-of-living crisis. Amidst these pressures, managers are also tasked with managing their own wellbeing, influencing senior stakeholders, and advancing the amounting daily tasks, all while troubleshooting unforeseen challenges. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But if you’re a manager, you have to make more lemonade than seems reasonable given the number of lemons you’ve been given, especially as you have to ensure those lemons are happy, and an increasingly high percentage of those lemons are reluctant to be made into lemonade at all.

As we set our sights on HR priorities in 2024, developing line manager capability emerges as a top-three focus across all industries. However, steering managers' attention towards company development initiatives clashes with the stark reality—they are already stretched thin, teetering on the edge, if not already burning out at an alarming rate.?

So, does management capability take a backseat?

The Strain on Line Managers

Front-line leaders are pivotal in shaping team dynamics, cultivating talent, and driving results. However, the paradox emerges when we acknowledge the overwhelming burden many line managers are currently shouldering. The relentless pace, increased responsibilities, and the weight of high expectations are pushing them to the brink.

The causes of Line Manager burnout is multifaceted, yet three leading areas are consistent:

Increasing Workload: Gartner has reported that manager responsibilities have doubled compared to those without people management responsibilities (know as individual contributors). Furthermore, 54% of managers surveyed reported suffering from work-induced stress and fatigue. Clearly, this isn’t a small problem.?

Increased Meetings: The move to managing hybrid teams has resulted in an increase in meetings to keep everyone connected. Current stats show that managers have an average of 16 meetings a week, leaving around 1-2 hours a day to fight an overflowing inbox and support team members. Any aspirations of addressing tasks stemming from the day's meetings during regular working hours are often set aside.

Restricted Resources: increasingly managers are finding themselves with insufficient support to meet business demands, whether that’s in terms of headcount, budgets, tools, or time - it’s clear line managers are finding themselves stretched to their limits.

A Threat to Organisational Health

When line managers grapple with burnout, its effects reverberate throughout the entire organisation. If left unaddressed, this can significantly harm the manager individually, leading to managerial ineffectiveness. This, in turn, manifests as a decline in team morale, decreased employee engagement, increased churn and an overall deterioration in the health of the work environment.

More Training: Simply Being Tone Deaf?

Recognising the mounting challenges faced by line managers, People teams find themselves confronted with a tough decision—one that many organisations have opted to turn a blind eye to. According to Gartner research, a mere 14% of companies are actively working to alleviate the burdens on their leaders. Consequently, instead of striving to simplify the role, schedules are inundated with developmental training courses to address the chandeliered effect of managerial ineffectiveness. Instead of solely focusing on enhancing skills proficiency, companies would be prudent to balance their efforts by equally focusing on reassessing the role manageability. One has to consider if the line management role is now deemed untenable.?

Reviewing role manageability includes: Resetting Role Expectations: Clearly define expected managerial behavioural competencies and tasks while also implementing a cyclical approach for continuous review.

Managerial Pipeline Building: Integrating realistic job previews into managerial succession development plans will facilitate better self-fit determination. A recent Harvard Business Review Article put it perfectly, “One problem with managing people is that such a focus creates unending stress for the manager”. It couldn’t be more clear that the role isn’t a cake-walk.?

To further highlight this, research indicates that 1 in 5 line managers would now decline the role after their firsthand exposure to its responsibilities. This is alarming, given their pivotal roles in attracting, developing, and retaining key talent. Succession developmental exposure is the key to ensure those in the pipeline have a realistic view of what’s involved and will be motivated by the challenge.?

Tooling Up: Bid farewell to makeshift solutions that inundate line manager inboxes to collect People data. These cause delays in data-led decision-making and disengage the population. Instead, prioritize investments in streamlining talent management processes to ease the burden on managers and ensure the seamless delivery of high-quality staff development and performance management.

Micro-Learning: Align managerial competencies with micro-learning resources (each less than 10 minutes), enabling time-strapped managers to benefit from bite-sized learning sessions that create a cumulative effect over time. Incorporating micro-learning into scheduled cyclical team meetings ensures dedicated time is preserved whilst allowing for team discussion on the topic. No meeting can’t spare 10mins.?

The Choice is Yours: Strike the Balance

The path to enhancing line manager capabilities lies in striking a balance that recognises and addresses their challenges. A resilient, empowered line management cohort is an invaluable asset to any organisation, but layering on more expectations will simply result in resignations, managerial ineffectiveness, and long-term sickness through burnout.

If you're keen on lightening the load for line managers, fortifying succession pipelines, and simplifying the connection between behavioural competencies and micro-learning to create lasting behavioural change, don't hesitate to reach out directly or visit our website at www.dothings.io to explore our fully customizable software solutions.

This?article?was originally posted on the DoThings blog.