There has been a lot of discussion recently about Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report, and for good reason. While global employee engagement has fallen for the second consecutive year, one finding in particular stands out. Manager engagement has declined significantly, and Gallup suggests this has been one of the biggest contributors to the overall drop in engagement.
The immediate reaction has been to talk about burnout. Managers are under pressure. Expectations have increased. Many are struggling to balance competing priorities while supporting their teams through constant change.
All of that is undoubtedly true.
But I don’t think it’s the most interesting question.
Instead of asking why managers are struggling, perhaps we should be asking whether we’ve quietly designed management jobs that have become almost impossible to do well.
Over the past decade, the role of the manager has changed beyond recognition. In many organisations, managers are no longer simply responsible for setting objectives, managing performance and delivering results. They’re expected to create engaging team cultures, support wellbeing, coach career development, communicate organisational change, gather employee feedback, embed new technology, encourage innovation and help their teams navigate increasingly complex ways of working.
None of those expectations are unreasonable. In fact, most of them are exactly what good organisations should expect from their managers.
The problem is that responsibilities have steadily accumulated, while very little has been taken away.
At the same time, many managers are leading larger teams, navigating more complex governance, adapting to hybrid working, responding to constant organisational change and spending increasing amounts of time on administration, reporting and compliance. They are accountable for creating great employee experiences, yet often have limited influence over the systems, policies and decisions that shape those experiences in the first place.
When you step back and look at the role as a whole, it’s perhaps less surprising that engagement is falling.
Is capability really the issue?
When organisations identify problems with engagement, one of the first responses is often to invest in management development. New leadership programmes are introduced, coaching is expanded and managers receive additional training to help them communicate more effectively, lead change or support wellbeing.
These are all worthwhile investments in fact at People Lab, we spend a lot of time helping organisations build manager capability because we know that good managers have an enormous influence on employee experience.
However, these interventions are often based on an assumption that deserves a little more scrutiny. They assume the problem is capability but that isn’t always the case.
Most managers genuinely want to create positive experiences for their teams. They understand the importance of regular conversations, recognition, development and communication. The challenge is often finding the time and headspace to do those things consistently while balancing everything else that sits on their shoulders.
It’s difficult to have meaningful career conversations when your diary is full from morning until evening. It’s difficult to support wellbeing when workloads remain unsustainable. It’s difficult to create a strong team culture when priorities change every few weeks and organisational processes make even simple decisions feel unnecessarily complicated.
In other words, the issue isn’t always whether managers know what they should be doing. Sometimes it’s whether we’ve created the conditions that allow them to do it.
This feels like a design problem
One of the principles we talk about regularly at People Lab is the importance of designing experiences intentionally rather than allowing them to evolve by accident.
Ironically, we rarely apply that same thinking to the manager role itself.
In many organisations, responsibilities have grown organically over time. New expectations have been introduced alongside existing ones. New reporting requirements have been layered on top of old processes. Additional initiatives have appeared without older ones disappearing. Each individual decision has probably made sense at the time, but the cumulative effect is a role that has become increasingly fragmented and difficult to sustain.
Rather than immediately asking how we can help managers become better leaders, perhaps we should first ask whether we’ve designed a role that one person can realistically succeed in.
Are managers spending their time on the activities that create the greatest value?
Have we matched accountability with genuine authority?
Where are unnecessary layers of complexity slowing them down?
Which responsibilities genuinely require a manager, and which could be simplified, automated or shared elsewhere?
Better employee experiences start with better manager experiences
We often describe managers as one of the biggest influences on employee experience, and rightly so. Day-to-day relationships with managers shape how people feel about work more than almost anything else.
But managers are employees too.
Their experience matters, not just for their own wellbeing but because it directly influences the experience of everyone around them. If managers are overwhelmed, constantly switching priorities or spending more time navigating processes than supporting people, it’s unrealistic to expect them to consistently create the kind of workplace every organisation aspires to.
Perhaps that’s the conversation Gallup’s research should prompt.
Not simply how we can help managers become more resilient or more capable, but whether we’ve unintentionally created management roles that ask too much of too few people.
Because before we ask managers to create better employee experiences for everyone else, we should make sure we’ve designed a role that gives them the best possible chance of succeeding.
Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report is well worth reading and provides some important insights into the current state of manager and employee engagement. You can access the full report here: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx.
At People Lab, we help organisations design better employee experiences by taking a human-centred approach to leadership, organisational design and employee experience. If you’re exploring how to better support managers while improving the experience of your people, we’d love to talk.
