For as long as most of us can recall, “engagement” has been a hot topic in the workplace. In the broadest sense, the term refers to the extent to which employees are enthusiastic and dedicated to their jobs.
Regardless of how the definition is fine-tuned, engagement continues to be a challenge. The Gallup organization estimates that anemic employee engagement costs the global economy a whopping $7.8 trillion in lost productivity. That’s a staggering 11% of global GDP.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, middle managers are an easy target. But a sound case can be made for giving middle managers more support and less blame.
That’s the position offered in POWER TO THE MIDDLE: Why Managers Hold the Key to the Future of Work. The book is authored by McKinsey partners Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock, and Emily Field.
The authors argue that in this new world of work—where change and volatility will likely prevail in the foreseeable future—middle managers must play a critical role in helping workers and workplaces thrive.
To derive the greatest benefit from middle managers, the authors advise positioning and preparing them to:
- Be the face of an organization’s war for talent with vital people skills to both attract and retain top performers.
- Build their organization’s knowledge and realign it with shifts from digital disruption.
- Pivot from enforcing antiquated, inefficient organizational rules to challenging them.
- Advance in title and compensation but not be promoted outside of any manager role, where they’ll make the most impact.
So, why do middle managers often seem to be under-appreciated?
“As the connecting element between leadership and the frontline workforce, middle managers have always held a critical role within organizations,” says Emily Field. “However, beginning about 30 years ago, leaders began to treat middle managers as an expense, a low-value player, and a cost-cutting opportunity to flatten the organization. This attitude toward managers has become pervasive with the rise of email, which allowed CEOs to disseminate information widely with a click of a button.”
Field says these trends have created a perception of middle managers that doesn’t match the reality of their role or their value. As the nature of work continues to change,” she says, “organizations need to pivot back to focusing on the middle to thrive. Middle managers are well positioned within organizations to drive the success of the team. They have a deep involvement in day-to-day activities as well as an understanding of the overarching goals and strategy of the business.
Field and her McKinsey colleagues say middle managers are uniquely positioned to impact an organization’s daily performance and overall success.
“Middle managers are the link between the front line and senior leaders who are shaping and guiding strategy,” she says. “They have the necessary perspective and relationships to evaluate employee performance, provide continuous feedback, and effectively motivate, which in turn impacts an organization’s ability to retain top talent.”
Field says that because so much is changing at such a rapid pace given the forces at play, this is a pivotal time to focus on middle managers and the value they offer. “We’re seeing a massive uptick in organizational interest in AI and automation, technologies that are upending existing roles and responsibilities,” she says. “Middle managers are critical to establishing the human connections that so many workers crave in an increasingly digital workplace. They also are best positioned to reimagine and re-bundle jobs as swaths of workers are transitioned to new roles.”
Research consistently shows that people leave managers, not companies. What can managers do to boost both employee engagement and employee satisfaction?
“The work experience has fundamentally changed,” Field says. “The past few decades were defined by steady transformation—until the pandemic supercharged the momentum. More than 70% of employees report that they have rethought their relationship with work. What’s more, employees want to do work that’s connected to their individual purpose—and they are willing to leave handsomely paying jobs to make that happen.”
So what’s the solution?
“Managers must inspire their people and connect their employees’ aspirations to the work to be done,” Field says. “Employees want to understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and how it aligns with what gives them meaning. To be able to answer these questions, managers must first understand the strategy and how their team contributes. They must know what motivates their employees, their career aspirations, and what they are solving for so that they can connect their people to the work.”
Field says this means managers must engage with their employees regularly. Annual or twice-annual performance conversations are simply not going to cut it. “Managers must have ongoing conversations with their employees,” she says. Such conversation enables managers “to understand what’s really happening, strengthen connections, and create an environment where team members feel supported.”
It’s clear that trust is a critically important ingredient in every workplace relationship. For senior leaders, what are the keys to building trust with and empowering their managers?
“As work continues to undergo significant changes, current organizational structures simply are not built to adapt to them,” Field says. “To meet the demands of this new world of work, senior leaders need to reshape the role of the middle manager to allow them to focus on what they do best.”
She says that building trust and empowering managers will require that senior leaders allow managers to shed their responsibilities as paper pushers, bureaucrats, and rule enforcers. Instead, the middle manager role should be reinvented to drive impact as coaches, connectors, navigators, and talent managers. “It’s worth noting,” Field says, “that our research shows that making this change has a tremendous impact on the business: We’ve found that it can drive a three-fold return to shareholders.”
What can leaders do to reward managers for their work without promoting them out of their positions?
“Organizations seem to be stuck on the idea that promotion is the only way to reward high performers,” Field says. “The problem is that, for middle managers, promotion often takes them out of the position where they thrive. Many of the best middle managers are most fulfilled and valuable at the center of the action. Removing them from the work they love can cause cascading ripple effects throughout the organization. Then, if the promotion isn’t the right fit, no one wins. The organization loses someone who was well-suited for their previous role and is now left to fill the gap. And if a new manager steps in who isn’t up to the job, the company also risks losing the people who were managed by their predecessor.”
Promotion, of course, is a lever companies can pull to reward middle managers. But it’s not the only one. “Organizations should reward their managers in the ways they want to be rewarded,” Field says. “Our survey of middle managers found that they’re interested in having more agency in their roles just as much as financial rewards for accomplishments. They most often say they want their work to be rewarded with additional autonomy and responsibility, followed by bonuses and raises, with some variation based on geographic location.”
Attracting and retaining top talent continues to be a challenge for many organizations, and Field says managers can play an outsized role.
“First, it’s crucial to acknowledge just how much the balance of power has shifted in the workplace and the labor market at large,” she says. “Even in a difficult job market, workers continue to hold the reins and are more than willing to wait for a role that offers them a competitive salary, alignment with their individual purpose, and flexible working options. In the past, the salary may have been enough to get great talent through the door. That’s not the case today. But it does reinforce just how important the middle manager can be in the recruitment and retention process.”
Field says middle managers are “the primary conduit” to deliver the perspective on value and purpose that prospective employees seek. “They are the ones who often dictate how, where, and when work is being done—keeping in close contact with workers to enable as much flexibility as possible,” she says. “Middle managers can offer a sense of belonging to create a supportive culture in a way that senior leaders cannot, not only attracting great talent but also helping keep them around. It’s important to remember—candidates are assessing the organization and the hiring manager just as much as the hiring manager is assessing them, so the hiring manager must cultivate a relationship with the candidate, help the candidate connect their purpose to the work, and understand what drives him or her.”
What are the most critical roles for leaders in today’s workplace, and how do they help managers succeed?
“In our research, we explored the roles in which managers say they add the most value to the organization,” Field says. “More than half say they deliver the most value through strategy-focused work, such as developing work plans and overseeing initiatives, followed by nearly a quarter who say talent and people management, including the coaching and development of employees.”
However, Field says, in that same research middle managers also report that they spend—on average—less than a quarter of their time on strategy-focused tasks. “Nearly half of respondents who devote less than a quarter of their time to talent and people management say they don’t have more time to dedicate to it, and another 35% say they lack the resources required.”
Field says organizations can help their middle managers succeed in these critical, value-adding roles by ensuring that when they do spend time on strategy-focused work, these tasks have a strong connection to their talent work as well. “For instance, instead of getting bogged down in planning, middle managers may instead spend their time mobilizing their team to achieve specific outcomes. This can help reduce the bulk of administrative tasks that managers have been required to take on, while ensuring that most of their time is dedicated to doing what they do best: fostering talent.”
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