In the wake of The Great Resignation, organizations are under heightened pressure to improve employee retention rates, with a renewed drive to foster strong engagement and well-being across teams. While “The Big Stay” may be underway, employers are not out of the woods yet regarding the risk of mass quitting. According to a recent EY survey, 34% of employees are looking to leave their jobs in the next 12 months. Salary concerns, burnout, career development opportunities and company culture are top reasons for mass quitting, and mitigating this risk cannot and should not be limited to your organization’s designated human resources (HR) or training team.
Meanwhile, there’s a widespread ongoing disconnect between managers and their teams. In the U.S. in 2023, only one-third of employees felt engaged in their work, costing almost $2 trillion in lost productivity. To solve these issues and risks of talent loss, there needs to be an overhaul of traditional HR practices. That starts with recognizing that HR is a discipline that permeates throughout your organization rather than solely functioning as a one-stop-shop department.
The Shift of Managers as the “New HR”
HR departments are no longer purely focused on managing people but are now embracing wider involvement in strategic leadership in their organizations, leading to an increasingly democratized approach to HR with team leaders. Managers and team leaders hold a unique position as facilitators of HR best practices given their close daily interactions with team members.
Well-trained and informed managers can gauge how small talent and performance gaps can reap large impacts on the organization. For instance, team leaders can spot opportunities for improving employee skill sets and boosting productivity that also strengthen revenue — all while keeping a close eye on employee well-being. Equipping managers with the toolkit to implement HR practices starts with leveraging the right data. There is a plethora of technology that can enable managers to implement HR best practices, including measuring team performance, keeping employees engaged, monitoring well-being and scheduling regular check-ins. Training professionals should encourage managers to also leverage data to craft team surveys around satisfaction, implement 360-degree performance reviews and identify roadblocks to career progression.
Navigating Risks in Transferring HR Responsibilities to Managers: How Training Can Help
Familiarizing managers with HR practices can’t be achieved overnight. Training takes careful planning and considering potential risks that come with placing managers at the HR forefront. Key challenges in democratizing HR include human bias, communication breakdowns and unclear protocols.
It’s not always straightforward to remain objective when working closely with team members. Human bias can easily creep in, so making data-backed decisions is crucial to overcoming this risk. What’s more, analytics and insights can make great conversation starters for recognizing performance fluctuations (the good and the bad), changes in team morale and avoiding conflict.
Additionally, not all team leaders are adept at maintaining clear-cut communication among team members and navigating sensitive discussions. It’s important to familiarize managers with ensuring employees’ concerns, ideas, and feedback are heard. Equally crucial is training team leaders to facilitate effective two-way exchanges between teams and organization leadership.
Managers may not be clear on protocols and when the HR department should be involved, particularly for employees uncertain about who to escalate their concerns with. To avoid this uncertainty, the HR department should establish clear protocols around contact points for specific situations and ensure managers are trained on them.
In these scenarios, technology provides clear-cut solutions to navigating these risks, helping managers establish streamlined HR processes with their teams that encompass accessible insights around employee performance and well-being. Insights from digital platforms also provide great ways for team leaders to implement engaging initiatives for their teams. These include pinpointing learning and development (L&D) opportunities and recognizing and rewarding accomplishments in line with performance management and succession planning.
There are also opportunities to train managers and HR teams on how to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to screen candidates in the recruitment stage. For instance, pre-defined benchmarks can be established to filter applicants and identify the best fit for a role to minimize oversight in the screening process. Managers can also augment talent acquisition processes to plan, attract and select talent through AI technology.
The Importance of Sharing HR Responsibilities Among Team Leaders
Implementing an integrative, democratized approach to HR will strengthen employee affiliation, engagement and trust, bolstering your organization’s performance and productivity. In fact, 86% of employees believe that building trust and empathy with managers has a positive impact on their performance.
What’s more, empowering your team leaders with HR best practices enables your HR department to take a more active role in strategic enterprise decisions.
Make Democratized HR a Mainstay in Your Company’s Culture
The workplace environment will only continue changing, and it’s crucial for organizations to train managers on key HR skills to keep pace with evolving employee behaviors, wants, needs and wider industry trends. Companies looking to augment a strong culture to maximize employee engagement should also consider democratizing their HR function. The right technology can pave the way for organizations to attract and retain the best talent, bolster productivity and streamline team processes to drive overall revenue.
