More than three-quarters of employees report that it has become more important for them to receive support from their manager, according to Gartner, Inc. Simultaneously, managers are also facing increasing expectations from the organization, including new responsibilities brought on by hybrid work.

A December 2022 Gartner survey of more than 6,000 individual contributors and managers revealed that managers are twice as likely to report an increase in responsibilities versus individual contributors, compared to before the pandemic. For example, 35% of managers say they have more direct reports and 49% report that the complexity of their responsibilities has increased.

“作为回应,大多数组织正试图drive manager effectiveness by investing more in development programs to increase skills proficiency,” saidSwagatam Basu, senior director in theGartner HR practice. “Unfortunately, a March 2023 survey of 98 HR leaders found only 25% feel confident their investments in manager development are working.”

Gartner research reveals that focusing on job manageability – ensuring that managers view their role as focused, executable and sustainable – is five times more effective than skills proficiency in improvingmanager effectiveness. Employees reporting to effective managers are 15.4 times more likely to be high performers and 3.2 times more likely to stay with their employer; they also have 12.5% higher physical and mental well-being.

Organizations can implement four things to improve job manageability:

Reset Role Expectations
“The average manager now has 51% more responsibilities than they can effectively manage,” saidBrent Cassell, vice president in the Gartner HR practice. “Organizations must redesign the manager role to focus on the activities that have the greatest impact on manager effectiveness.”

• Leading organizations are shifting the manager role by:
• Empowering managers to connect employees with others for coaching and development.
• Rescoping the role to focus on high-value tasks that managers are uniquely positioned to execute.

Rebuild the Manager Pipeline
Most organizations evaluate potential managerial candidates based on their performance as individual contributors (IC); 79% of HR leaders say that a candidate’s past performance in an IC role is a very important consideration for promotion to a first-time people manager role.

“Past performance in an IC role is not a foolproof predictor of future performance as a manager,” noted Cassell. “In addition, pushing high performing individual contributors into management by default can lead to employees who aren’t interested in management becoming managers.”

Progressive organizations are letting potential managers self-discover their fit for the role by allowing them to:

• Understand their own strengths and development areas.
• Participate in “manager simulation programs” before taking the job.
• Choose to opt out of the management training program and remain in an individual contributor role without a loss in pay or respect.

Rewire Manager Habits
尽管越来越多的投资经理的发展,Gartner analysis found that focusing on manager skills proficiency only boosts manager effectiveness by 4%. Rather than building skills, organizations need to help their managers build long-term habits, which will ultimately drive more effective managerial behaviors.

Building habits saves managers time and energy, which they can then redirect toward making other critical decisions. Managers are also uniquely positioned to help their direct reports and other managers adopt the same desired habits and behaviors.

Remove Process Hurdles
The presence of process hurdles – things like dated onboarding processes and complex budget approvals processes – increases levels of manager fatigue by up to 42%.

“Managers are 1.4 times more likely to find their jobs manageable when their organizations take steps to minimize process hurdles that take managers’ attention away from their core people management responsibilities,” said Basu.

Gartner clients can read more in the report“Building an Organization of Great Managers.”

About the Gartner ReimagineHR Conference
The Gartner ReimagineHR Conference is the premier event for CHROs and HR leaders to learn from the latest research and Gartner experts covering talent acquisition, diversity, equity and inclusion, learning and development, total rewards, talent analytics, and HR technology. Gartner ReimagineHR will be held September 11-12 inLondon, October 23-25 inFloridaandDecember 4-5in Sydney. Follow news and updates from these events on Twitter using#GartnerHR.