Why managers lack the skills for the Future of Work

Article written by Farley Thomas, Co-Founder & CEO of Manageable  

I believe there’s a paradox at play in modern work, that enlightened organisations genuinely believe that their people are their biggest asset and yet they are behaving in ways that waste talent potential. 

I don’t think we’d be seeing the lack of employee engagement we are today if this wasn’t true. 

After all, only 13% of employees in Europe, and 10% in the UK, are actively engaged.  

Global ‘intent to leave’, the percentage of employees watching for or actively seeking a new role, sits at 51% — and even lower in Europe (34%) — which is another risk factor we cannot ignore. 

Organisations face devaluing their best assets or losing them altogether. Intentional changes are needed to set the scene for a brighter future of work, and it’s your managers who can make this possible. 

Managers drive engagement, but we’re leaving it up to chance 

Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement between teams and organisations. They are the key to unlocking higher productivity and well-being, and lower absenteeism and attrition. Make no mistake: if you fail to invest in your managers, you fail to invest in your business. 

And yet, only 20% of organisations train their managers. And I’d argue that even fewer are training them appropriately. Too often, manager training looks like the introduction of new processes and frameworks, ‘improvements’ du jour that take up too much of a manager’s time and distract them from what really matters: connecting with their teams. 

This leaves management performance up to chance. Only 1 in 10 employees “possess high talent to manage” and can naturally engage with team members to retain top talent and sustain high performance. A further 2 in 10 can emerge as managerial talent if the company invests in their leadership skills. 

All managers are human and will have managers of their own. They may have learned random or bad practices by observation. They’ll have had their own experiences in and out of work and these will have led to biases. They’ll also have the very human tendency to project their experiences onto the rest of the team and talk more than they listen. 

And with all this, how can we be surprised to learn that employees are disengaged?  

Employee engagement is born from a positive employee experience; from feeling seen and heard, welcomed and valued, supported and challenged. Managers haven’t been equipped to deliver these needs today — not without the skills required to manage their human biases and the microaggressions, exclusions, and unintended favouritism that often follow. 

Coaching skills prepare managers for the Future of Work 

Managers face particular challenges in a hybrid working environment. Remote work makes it harder to create and nurture meaningful relationships with the team. And with limited time together in the office, managers get less exposure to the positive influence of other, trained managers. Hybrid work has opened the door to a more flexible and authentic way of working for employees, and that’s a great thing. But now managers need to be even more perceptive and cognizant of the team’s working habits and preferences, and that’s not always easy — especially not without training. 

Coaching skills can unlock better relationships and improve communication between the manager and employee. Coaching skills are not a panacea, but they can result in new ways of thinking, behaving, and managing bias. Coaching the team furthers well-being, engagement, diversity, performance, and conflict resolution, all through better dialogue and listening. Acting as the team coach helps managers build and keep the trust of the team, too. 

Here’s what one technology company manager said about the benefits of developing coaching skills: 

“I thoroughly enjoyed the training, and I can clearly see the positive impact it’s had on my coaching and leadership style. It’s fundamentally changed the way I approach interacting with my teammates to get the best out of them. Something that will stay with me forever, an incredibly valuable experience!” 

The future of your business sits with today’s managers 

No leader would leave the future success of their business up to chance, and yet that’s what’s happening when managers aren’t given the right skills. The Future of Work is likely to bring an even greater reliance on technology and distance working. Managers will be put under greater pressure to drive performance and retain top talent, against a backdrop of still too-low engagement and way-too-high intent to leave. 

What we need now is a period of (relatively) intense investment in modern managers. If we can equip them with the coaching skills required to engage and inspire their teams, then not only will current employees experience the benefits, but the next wave of managers coming through will also be far better leaders than if left to chance. 

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