The pains of being a middle manager
This month, Lee Xieli talks about the special territory occupied by middle managers – between a rock and a hard place.
Monday blues are apparently normal. Everyone gets it and you’re entitled to feel horrible about it once in a while. Especially after you hear Goldman Sachs’ employees are making huge profits this fiscal year and adding extensions to their townhouses as a reward for the horror the rest of us endured in 2009. Thankfully, some aggrieved internet users are attempting to keep Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his senior leadership team awake at night with as many as 75 to 100 pieces of hate mail everyday.
Money might be an excellent motivator for employees but it takes more than cash to keep employees happy and productive at work. Most HR professionals would tell you bad managers are usually the biggest and most common cause of high attrition rates. According to an article by Harvard Business School, employees want to be treated with respect and equity at work. Or they are three times more likely to be unhappy at work.
Imagine having a boss coming in everyday at work and employees would tremble at the sight of him or working for a managing director who starts every conversation by yelling at employees. Would that help to get work done? The answer is obviously no. But middle managers are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they raise the issue with their superior, they run the risk of getting fired. If they remain silent, everyone on their team might leave.
Who would be left to do all the work? The middle manager. No doubt then, middle managers have to stand between their boss and their team. They are the filter that takes in the loud shouting and nasty words and rehashes them into sweet melodies for the rest of the employees. No wonder, middle-management talent is in hot demand ever since the term “war for talent” was coined. They are useful disseminators for senior leaders’ coded messages and excellent shields for their team members when shit hits the fan.
To keep employees happy, the researchers for Harvard Business School suggest that managers should stop wasting time trying to figure out how to motivate employees while counteracting poor senior leadership direction. Instead, just understand and satisfy the three fundamental goals everyone looks for in their jobs. Besides respect and equity, employees want to have a sense of pride in their work and have good camaraderie with their workmates.
But the most important thing middle managers have to do is give employees a sense of security. Especially since the after-effects of the recession have left us all jittery in our nice cushy office chairs. Don’t let them fear that they will lose their job the minute their performance isn’t up to par, unless you want to see your workplace morale sink like a stone.
As for employees who have to report to someone, be nice. Remember, all managers are in the middle when you think about it. Everyone always has someone pushing hard above them. The CEO needs to report to the board and the shareholders, and he needs to be nice to the people below him. And so the food chain goes on.
While HR gurus are yet to find the perfect employee-engagement strategy, I can let you in on a secret: HR professionals are doing very well in the work-life balance department.
Only recently, a senior HR practitioner working in the oil and gas sector nudged me at a HR conference that was running overtime. When I looked at the direction he was pointing towards, I saw a stream of professionals furtively trying to sneak out of the conference hall. He then said: “Look at those people leaving – you know they are good HR professionals because they are practising work-life balance.”
It was 6.05pm.
xielil@humanresourcesonline.net
