Wondering how to help managers succeed? You might need to if you want the organization to function with well-regulated harmony. A Udemy Research report found that 51 percent of millennials and GenZ are likely to quit a job because of a bad manager and 43 percent of their older coworkers would do the same. A manager controls the pulse of an organization and acts as a substitute for the top leaders of an organization. If you want to know how HR can support managers and contribute to business success, then read ahead to find out.
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How to Help Managers Succeed?
There are many ways to understand how HR contributes to business success but one of their major contributions is by doing whatever is possible to support and back up their workforce. This requires us to answer how HR can support managers as well, so let’s look at some ways to help managers succeed.
Leadership Training Programs
Managers are leaders, albeit on a smaller scale than their employers. In order to understand how to help managers succeed, HR teams need to start perceiving them as guiding forces in the organization rather than just simple employees. Their role in overseeing and regulating work indicates that a lapse in their role will leave holes in all the work that is done by a team.
Quixy reports that organizations with leaders actively practicing and receiving feedback from managers are 4.6 times more likely to have high-quality leaders. Managers also play a role in shaping future leaders so to help managers succeed, leadership training is important.
- Provide training in developing strategic thinking skills
- Gather a list of skills that define leaders and develop training to build these among managers
- Help managers develop their own sense of a leader’s persona and work towards it
- Help managers improve their reasoning and decision-making skills
- Time management is an important skill for them to successfully oversee projects and assign tasks
- Emphasize the importance of ethical decision-making and integrity in leadership
- Conflict management and negotiation skills are necessary when planning how to help managers succeed
- Help them adapt to high-pressure situations and provide any support necessary to develop resilience. This is how HR can contribute to business success
- Get them in touch with leaders whether directly or through conferences and conventions
- Analytics and data-driven insights are good supports for leaders
Mentorship Programs
Learning from examples is the easiest way to see the learnings in action. Mentors are great reservoirs of information and can provide insights and teachings that textbooks and manuals might not, so ensuring the use of mentorship programs can help managers succeed.
- Align mentorship program goals with overall organizational strategies and employee development needs
- Assign mentors who can help the manager develop the necessary skills
- Check in regularly to see how the managers are doing
- Conduct regular discussions where managers can ask questions and understand their roles
- Help managers develop their own style of working and leading a team
- Provide mentors and mentees with access to relevant resources, such as training materials, workshops, and learning modules
- Cross-functional teams can help develop a broader perspective on work
- Implement a system for monitoring and evaluating the overall effectiveness of the mentorship program
Communication and Empathy Development
A good manager knows how to communicate with his team and if you’re still wondering how HR can support managers, this is a critical aspect of it. A Predictive Index study found that 17.9 percent of employees felt their manager lacked the necessary feedback skills, 10 percent found communication skills lacking, and 30 percent concluded their managers were lacking in their team-building abilities. The data makes it clear that to help managers succeed, there needs to be some way to improve their ability to oversee employees in a constructive manner.
- Implement training programs that focus on active listening, and verbal and non-verbal communication
- Provide training on techniques such as paraphrasing and summarizing to demonstrate understanding
- Encourage them to model the behaviors they expect from employees
- For HR to contribute to business success, establish and monitor communication channels and ensure they are used regularly
- Bring case studies and workshops to managers to convey the point of empathy
- Facilitate cross-departmental collaboration to break down communication silos
- HR can support managers by organizing team-building activities that allow them to develop healthy relationships
- Create spaces for managers to share their struggles and crowdsource solutions
- Invest in tools that can help managers communicate with employees in a timely manner
- Digital communication is a big component of workplace communication
- Conduct diversity and sensitivity training to help managers develop the right approach to their workforce
- Help managers develop an approachable persona and open-minded attitude
360-Degree Programs: How Can HR Support Managers?
While working out how to help managers succeed, take inputs from all the data sources you have available to you. Utilizing 360-degree feedback programs can help you assess the entire workforce from different angles and understand their current functioning more easily. A Zenger Folkman study found that a manager’s personality and self-confidence levels become strong predictors of their willingness to provide corrective feedback. However, many employees thrive when they receive constructive feedback regularly so it is an essential part of their duties.
Additionally, Gallup found managers who received strengths feedback led their unit towards 12.5 percent greater productivity post-intervention than units with managers who did not receive feedback. Evidently, feedback is critical both ways, both in how managers give feedback and how regularly they receive it.
- Conduct regular assessments of managers and their productivity levels
- Use 360-degree feedback programs to get a well-rounded perspective
- Provide managers with feedback reports customized with areas of development
- To help managers succeed, assist with goal setting and alignment to improve on areas identified in the feedback
- Implement regular check-ins between managers and their teams to discuss progress, challenges, and feedback
- Offer training to managers on how to give and receive feedback effectively
- Provide coaching programs that offer one-on-one sessions to managers based on their 360-degree feedback
- Integrate 360-degree feedback into succession planning initiatives for future leaders
- For HR to contribute to business success, invest in user-friendly feedback software that can simplify the process of handing out feedback efficiently
- Recognize and reward good feedback and overall performance regularly to encourage desired characteristics
- Establish transparent communication channels and measures for corrective action
- Ask leaders and employees what they think while planning how to help managers succeed
- Ask managers questions, such as how can HR support managers, and provide resources accordingly
Zenger Folkman concludes that leaders who ask for feedback are perceived more positively than those who are solely good at providing it. For an organization to grow, managers need to take charge and for them to do that, we need to start understanding how HR can contribute to the business’s success and support managers in any way necessary.