Lattice’s 2024 State of People Strategy report revealed a new — but unsurprising — HR trend: People teams are now considering employee performance as a top HR focus, rivaling the reigning priority of employee engagement for the top spot.
And what is the biggest driver of employee performance? Managers.
Manager behavior determines whether employees are aligned, motivated, and properly enabled, or if they’re confused, apathetic, and less than equipped to succeed. HR can do a lot (and does!), but a strong partnership with managers is key.
As an HR leader, enabling managers to drive performance is easier said than done. Managers are busy; HR is sometimes seen as “the enemy”; and on top of that, you have limited budget and resources.
The big question is, how can People teams effectively equip their managers for this critical mission?
Enter sustainable manager enablement.
What Does It Mean to Enable Managers Sustainably?
Think of it like a manager’s marathon. First, (ideally) they train to run long distances; then, along the way, they have aid stations that hand out what they need when they need it: water, sports drink, fruits, peanut butter, pretzels, vaseline, and of course bagels at the finish line.
Now, imagine a marathon with no aid stations. Even the most seasoned marathoners would have a hard time finishing the race, not to mention the newbies — you’d have masses of cramping, dehydrated, frustrated runners strewn along the route.
That’s the importance of sustainable, ongoing support. Even though your L&D programs have technically taught them how to manage and lead, they still need “aid stations” along their journey to drive employee performance.
From my experience as a manager myself, an advisor to hundreds of people teams, and a facilitator at Elevate Leadership, I’ve noticed three things that high-performing People Teams do that provide those touchpoints along the manager path, and that build strong partnerships with managers in the process.
The Three Core Pillars of Sustainable Manager Enablement
When it comes to creating sustainable manager training, high-performing People Teams think about three things:
- What are you enabling?
- How are you delivering it?
- Are you meeting managers where they are?
Pillar #1: What Are You Enabling?
The goal of this pillar is finding out what skills or areas your managers will find the most valuable for their current state. Note that it’s important not to assume the “what” based on the latest trends. Sure, trends can guide your planning, but the real data lies in your people, and the best way to unearth those data is by asking and listening.
Run a Survey
- Plug questions in engagement surveys like, “I feel safe taking a risk on my team" or "My manager has talked to me about my career in the last six months”. Tailor those questions to aspects of the employee experience that you’re able to and willing to change.
- Run pre- and post-enablement-program surveys for participants and their direct reports. This gives you a sense of what the most critical areas are and where there might be gaps. The surveys also help prove the ROI of the program, which is critical for keeping your budget.
Do a Listening Tour
We have a client that has a unique employee population, so we conducted a listening tour over 2 days. We gathered and asked both executives and managers about what was important for them to learn, and how they want to learn.
With the data, we devised a 2-day training that hit on the most frequently mentioned topics, like how to have difficult conversations, how to balance being a player and a coach, and how to guide a team through constant change (they are growing quite fast).
For topics that aren’t necessarily top of mind right now, but are still foundational to great management, we’ve put them into an online learning channel, where managers can learn on their own time.
Kill Your Darlings (Or Let Them Sleep Till They’re Needed)
We all have projects we are excited to implement, and that we know would be a game changer for the organization. But Lattice’s report shows that HR leaders and the C-suite are disconnected. While 53% of HR leaders believe they are impacting revenue, only 27% of C-suites agree.
It’s up to you to connect the dots for leadership. But you don’t have to have all the answers. The surveys and listening tours are here to help you find the right place to start — and to arm you with the data to prove it.
Pillar #2: How Are You Delivering It?
Each person learns and works differently. Some prefer to learn at their own pace, while others like to learn with others and build relationships. Some prefer to be trained internally, some welcome external expertise, or some like both! You’ll never know until you ask (using those same surveys or listening tours).
Here are a few “how’s” for you to consider:
- Skill building vs Community building. Think about what your managers will be best set up to learn on their own vs in a group setting. Sometimes, the community is already well entrenched and all managers need is access to the hard skills — just give them the keys to a platform like Elevate Academy, and they have what they need when they need it. Other times, even the most rudimentary skills are best learned with others to engender vulnerability and openness, like with a recent team offsite where we spent a significant time on icebreakers and a DiSC discussion, as one of the primary goals was team cohesion.
- Internal vs External. What should the program foundation be built on? I know one People Team that initially built their manager accelerator program in-house, but is now considering working with an external facilitator. Their goal is to lend additional credibility and to lighten the internal team’s load.
- From Peers vs From Leadership vs From Experts. Who are the managers most likely to learn from? At the company that hosted the listening tour, their managers primarily asked for social learning, but there were some topics that they were hoping to hear about from the example-setters at the company. So while we leaned hard into experience sharing, breakouts, and case studies in our workshop sessions, we also invited a number of the organization’s leaders to join for interviews and panel sessions to round out the learning experience.
- In-person vs Virtual. What’s the right environment in which to learn? We’ve had clients lean exclusively in one camp over the other, and some that provide a mix of both. The latter might start with an in-person offsite, then move to virtual workshops and / or access to Elevate Academy to supplement the learning.
Pillar #3: Are You Meeting Managers Where They Are?
Create a Manager Journey Map
Many People teams do an employee journey map, which is awesome. But a subset of those People teams do a Manager Journey Map–those are the teams I want to just hug and give flowers to.
If you’re able to dedicate time and effort to mapping out your manager’s journey, then you’ll have a much better shot at just-in-time delivery for their enablement.
I ran an off-site recently where we talked about performance reviews and how to deliver them. Because their review cycle was right around the corner, participants lit up, leaned in, and brought real examples into the discussion. They were thinking through what they were going to say, and how, to specific people on their teams — that’s when you know the training will really make an impact.
Be Purposeful With Different Populations
But the journey map isn’t just about the annual cycle. It’s also about progression: new managers, sophomore managers, new managers of managers, directors, and so on.
Your organization might have regional or contextual differences to consider, too. How different are expectations for managers in NorAm vs AsiaPac vs EMEA?
A handful of clients I’ve worked with have two or three massively different employee populations like scientists and technologists, or lawyers and engineers.
In some cases, you want all of these folks to be exhibiting the same behaviors for consistency (like giving feedback, running performance reviews, resolving conflicts, etc.), or one of your training goals might be cross-pollination (sharing the best practices from each of their respective silos), in which case mixing training cohorts makes the most sense.
In other cases, the context of the work for these groups is different enough that it makes sense to separate them. But even that separation can be subtle. We have one client that has mixed training cohorts for their two main manager populations, but then makes sure that we group like with like for the breakouts.
Wrapping It Up
Sustainable manager enablement is the backbone of a high-performing, engaged workforce. By focusing on what managers truly need, delivering it in ways that resonate, and meeting managers where they are in their journey, HR leaders can create a powerful ongoing support system that deeply impacts business outcomes.
The C-suite will thank you, and managers will too.
