Are you making this key investment in your managers?

If you could make one decision that would guarantee an improvement in employee engagement and retention, would you make it?

I think most of you would.

And what if that decision would also drive higher business performance? 

You know you would do it.

Unfortunately, most organizations are not yet doing this one thing.

They’re not investing in their managers’ ability to lead people.

They might send them to a new manager class if the organization is big enough to have one, or maybe they’ll send them to an external course or provide some online learning resources. This isn’t enough because no one grows up ready to manage and lead people, particularly in today’s environment, which is more complex, requires more nuanced approaches, and is more about influence than control. 

According to Gallup, with their broad access to engagement data, “Managers -- more than any other factor -- influence team engagement and performance. That's not an exaggeration: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.”

70%! Doesn’t this point to the need to invest in this role more than you are today?

I know organizations may be tight on resources for developing people, but this investment doesn't just impact the individual manager; it benefits the team members they lead.

What does investing in the role look like?

Enabling managers who can engage and retain people, motivate them to do their best work, and achieve business performance targets is not a one-time activity. It requires ongoing investments of time, attention, and money to fund the tools required.

It starts with the selection process.

Many organizations fall into the trap of promoting the highest-performing individual contributor into a team’s manager. I’m not saying to pick a low performer, but you need to ensure you’re evaluating that they have the right skills and demeanor to manage a team vs. doing the work. Though there is no one size fits all profile for a successful manager of people, one of the key ingredients needs to be the focus on how they can make the individuals and team successful. The manager is successful when their team hits their goals, not vice versa. You can read my newsletter article focused on that topic with this link.

Once you’ve selected a qualified candidate to lead the team, it’s time to invest and keep investing in them. You want to ensure they can perform the key processes and activities important in your organization – facilitating effective meetings, communicating clear performance expectations, delivering quality performance feedback, delivering a compelling vision for the team’s purpose, and many other actions. You can send people to training programs for some of these things, but often, in-the-moment coaching, tools, guides, and an opportunity to role-play are what is most needed.

Unfortunately, in many organizations, these critical options are not always available; line managers may not have access to coaching from an HR Business Partner or a coach and only have access to self-service tools. Some of the emerging AI-enabled tools are trying to fill some of this gap by being able to provide in-the-moment articles to read, coaching prompts, or an opportunity to practice the conversation. Managers need access to real-time support along with a recognition that leveraging this help is acceptable and rewarded.

Looking at my time managing teams, I didn’t have access to coaches or conversation simulations. I was drawing on the role models I had observed, the training I had participated in, and a figure-it-out-as-you-go mindset. I would have benefitted from having access to coaching.

One of the needs I regularly heard from the managers in the groups I supported as an HR leader was that they wanted support in coaching their team members, particularly around growing their careers. They wanted to know how to best motivate people unlike them – an analytic vs. a driver or a creative vs. a developer. They wanted to be better as managers of people, but they didn’t have access to tools or resources that would help them.

In addition to developing them, it’s key that the performance measures align with the importance you place on team management. Often performance metrics focus solely on the business financials – revenue, growth, and profitability. Sometimes, metrics focus on the people side of the business – retention or engagement but rarely are there metrics about how that manager developed their team, how many people they helped grow to the next level, or helped sponsor to move to a new team where they could keep growing.

Your organization’s ability to engage and retain people is your competitive advantage. That competitive advantage is anchored in people working in environments where they can do their best work and have a leader who sets direction and creates effective and productive teams. To do this, you need the right people in the people manager seats with the right skills and measures of success.

Your managers are the key to creating and maintaining workplaces where people want to be and where they can grow and thrive. Isn't it worth investing in the most important tool you have?