We’ve all been there if we work in HR. Someone is good at their job, so their line manager wants to promote them to be a line manager…
How many times do companies try to do this without investing in the new manager’s training?
Just because someone is good at their job does not mean that they will be good at managing people. Sometimes the two can be night and day!
Of course, we all know that employers should invest in their new managers – to train, educate, support them…
But for some reason, this isn’t always the case.
With my clients, I encourage them to spend the time…
To help new line managers to develop their style in a safe space, and to help them to learn and grow.
And I don’t just mean training them in the various processes (Return to Works, 121’s, PDRs etc). but in helping them to develop their style
As it’s not just about the policy and process side of things, there’s all of the soft skills (delegation, meetings, feedback, coaching etc). And even with policy and process, there needs to be reasonableness and pragmatism.
As a new line manager, whether you inherit 1 or 20 people, it can be quite daunting…
For new line managers it is not about training by painting by numbers…
You want to empower and motivate them, after all your line managers have a key role to play in your business.
So many times I’ve seen HR folk train and then police and monitor, so it becomes a fear culture. When in fact, HR’s role in this arena is to support and guide.
If you talk about management verses leadership too soon, you also run the risk of scaring the line managers silly.
Sure, there is a differentiation between managing and leading people, but why introduce that at such an early point in the line manager’s journey?
So. I thought it might be helpful to focus on how to support these individual’s, well, be line managers…
You have to educate them with policy, process and best practice, and help them to understand the psychological contract. But what other areas are important in upskilling a new line managers?
- Mental health and stress are a big one nowadays. Everyone is so much more aware of it that you’d be remiss in not equipping your line managers in having conversations about it.
- Managing in adversity – again in the times that we are living in, line managers have a key role to play in supporting their team managers in navigating the internal and external environments.
- Whether it be about agile, hybrid, remote and flexible working, or about right-sizing businesses for the future and challenging times, all line managers need to both understand and help their teams to understand the changes and challenges we are faced with in the workspace.
- There’s no getting away from this one – as an employer if you aren’t coaching your line managers in how to have challenging conversations, quite simply, you are setting them up to fail. Why would you?
- We’ve already touched on policy and process, but I couldn’t let this pass without mentioning reasonableness, fairness and transparency. It’s important to coach line managers through this so they understand the foundations on which they base their decisions on.
- Help them to think about the ways they can reward and recognise individuals in their team, and the team itself. Praise and thanks come into this, as well as acknowledging effort and contribution. I also think that coaching, feedback and listening are bed-mates to Reward & Recognition. Why not encourage these new line managers to think about when they were starting out and / or were new into a team… What would they have appreciated. This playback is key.
- It can be difficult to allow your team to celebrate successes, especially when everyone has a task list and there is always the next thing to get to. But it’s important to make time – as important as it is to learn lessons and share knowledge. Why wouldn’t you? And more importantly, why wouldn’t you encourage your line managers to fully drive this?
- And as we look to the final factors, it would be remiss of me not to mention a line manager’s role in motivating, delegating, managing performance, holding one to ones and developing their team. As HR Professionals, why would we not want to support our managers in doing so?
And I can’t write about this without encouraging HR Professionals to remember that each line manager is an individual, and to remind all line managers that each member of their team are also an individual.
It’s about giving new managers a toolkit, a structure, a framework. It’s about supporting them in each finding their space to grow and find their rhythm.
And also, it’s about remembering that THEY have their day job to do as well!
If you encourage new managers to develop their empathy and to show their own vulnerability, and to help them to really listen, you will help them to tap into and get the best out of all of the individuals in their teams.
Personality / Team Profiling can help, as can Refresher Training, but really it’s about taking the time to give your line managers the space – and time – to both remember what it’s like to be managed, and to consider the impact of their behaviours on their team.
A recent article in Personnel Today, about the Top HR Priorities for 2023 cited the line manager role as a key factor. One quarter of survey respondents shared that their current development approach does not prepare leaders for the future of work.
Think about that – it’s staggering.
More than ever, HR Professionals have a key role to play. Quite simply, more than ever, this current world of work is about human-to-human interactions and relationship, and not about leader to employee relationships. As HR professionals and leaders in our business it’s time that we stood up and both educated and supported our line managers in what it means to support, nurture and develop our teams.
