Are your managers happy? Are they satisfied with their jobs? How can the HR team (or the greater organization) impact their satisfaction levels and make the job less frustrating?
Here are some ways they can do just that:
- Create meeting guidelines to reduce wasted meeting time. For example, every meeting should have an agenda, and this agenda should be distributed in advance, allowing individuals who are invited to self-select out of the topics that are not relevant to them. The person in charge of the meeting should be responsible for keeping it on track, and meetings should not go over. Waste less time, and create less frustration.
- Communicate early and often. Managers are the front lines for employees, and when there is uncertainty in the workplace, they’re who the other employees turn to with questions. There are few things more frustrating than not being “in the know” when it comes to answering employee questions. Be sure that the HR team and the C-suite are communicating with managers with regard to big-picture decisions and the vision for the organization. This communication needs to be ongoing.
- Provide ample training. There are obvious types of training that almost all managers require (and some that are legally mandated), such as antiharassment and antidiscrimination training. But there’s also training that can help managers be more effective, such as empathy training or other soft skills training. Leadership doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and people often get promoted for excelling in their job—but the skills that helped them at lower levels may not be as helpful when managing people. Training can help.
- Provide a clear career path. This may include steps to move to the next level in the organization, or it may include other types of professional development if climbing the ladder is not realistic for the role or for this point in the individual’s career.
- Evaluate managers’ workloads. Be sure your managers have time to lead, not just get work done. If they’re not available to coach and mentor employees, they won’t be as effective as they could be. HR can be proactive in assessing managerial jobs to ensure the workload is appropriate and has the right mix of leadership tasks versus hands-on work. As part of this assessment, check to see how much time is spent with purely administrative tasks—which can be the bane of any manager’s existence and lead to frustration.
- Evaluate where tools and processes can be improved. Most of us have something about our day that is inefficient, and managers are no exception. The HR team has an opportunity to assess where managers are spending a lot of hours on tasks that could be made simpler or automated—and then take steps to make that happen. This may require working with IT and/or multiple departments to implement new software or other processes, but the payoff is usually worthwhile in terms of efficiency and satisfaction gains.
This list is not comprehensive—it’s meant to be a thought-starter on ways that organizations (and HR teams) can help to ensure that managers are doing as well as they can and have the tools they need to be effective. This can lead to better managers and happier employees.