Managers have a key role in the workplace, being responsible for several and demanding tasks such as hiring and managing workers, developing employees, monitoring work performance and productivity, etc. Thus, they need to have specific skills/abilities if they want to be successful.

For instance, developing their communication skills is essential, as they need to interact with a diverse workforce and effectively deliver their message. Critical thinking is another vital skill they must work on as it is linked to problem-solving. And above all, managers need to be leaders, so leadership skills are crucial. They enable managers to handle/motivate teams and give constructive feedback.

Managers have a close relationship with the teams as they work directly with them. They have the power to influence how they feel about the workplace. Therefore, they should be part of the solution on how to increase satisfaction, productivity and reduce turnover rates among the workforce. Training and coaching are two things that can help.

 Managers have also another vital responsibility: implement, drive and support transformations. In today’s reality, changes are constant in all fields, and the professional one is no exception. For example, the introduction of A.I. and digitalisation in the workplace are two of the greatest transformations we are experiencing right now. So, managers are also responsible for advocating for these transformations and coaching/training employees on them. However, new studies have found that managers are not fully prepared to lead change due to not being trained for it themselves.

Moovone and OpinionWay conducted an interesting study in 2019 on the role of managers in corporate/organisational transformation. It showed that although managers want to be trained/coached to develop the necessary skills to lead transformations only 20% of leaders provided it to them.

While coaching makes employees feel appreciated and more satisfied, the company also gets benefits as it increases the workforce’ skills, retention and engagement levels.

All things considered, coaching/developing managers is a strategy to achieve success in organisations. This is probably why the recruitment of managers does not seem to slow down. For example, if we look at the French landscape for 2020, according to APEC, a 5% growth in executive hiring is expected compared to last year. However, the association predicts that after 2020, executive recruitment will slow down.

Therefore, finding the right candidate will be more challenging and this will probably lead to a preference for older profiles. Furthermore, although the level of unemployment among executives is low, the predictions indicate that one in two executives will finish their career unemployed.

References:

1. The Role and Responsibilities of a Manager, November 2019, The Balance Careers
2. The Psychology of Leading Change (Versus Merely Managing It), June 2019, Inc.
3. 85% des managers ne sont pas formés pour accompagner les nouvelles transformations qui bouleversent les entreprises, November 2019, moovone
4. Encore en forte hausse cette année, les recrutements de cadres devraient se stabiliser, February 2020, Les Echos