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The first role of the manager is to supervise employees and push them to get involved. In fact, 97% of managers believe that it is their responsibility to develop the commitment of their employees (Engagement Observatory). This framework is available on two levels: the collective and the individual.
On the collective level, the manager sets out the strategic vision of the organization. He must ensure the coordination of work and promote team dynamics. The aim is to achieve the team's collective goals. On an individual level, his role is to set goals, to delegate, to delegate, to follow, to monitor, to debrief, to reframe, to evaluate or to congratulate.
Team supervision includes the coordination of actions, the stimulation of actions, attention, and pedagogy. The articulation of actions ensures the coherence of the team's action. In this case, the manager ensures that the actions of each teammate are articulated effectively taking into account expectations.
Stimulating actions consists in implementing production in practice. The manager then distributes the work to be done, takes over on certain tasks or missions.
The manager must be attentive to the work of his colleagues and help when necessary to improve their performance. It is essential that he be pedagogical during these processes.
Beyond supervising the work, the manager must be the mediator between managers and employees.
The manager as a strategic pivot
The manager is the essential link between management and teams. He must be able to translate strategic objectives into concrete missions. He must listen, be pedagogical and ensure that employees remain committed.
Managing conflicts
As a hub, the manager acts as a mediator. It is important to ensure that the expectations of managers are met by the team. At the same time, he must ensure that the wishes of employees are transmitted to management.
Cohesion is essential. It is therefore responsible for managing the various conflicts.
There are various professional conflicts:
- The disagreement of method which arises when the procedures for carrying out tasks vary between actors;
- The conflict of interest that arises when two parties focus on their own advantage or pursue the same goal;
- The conflict of role or positioning occurs when areas of activity are not clearly defined. It may also occur due to an unequal distribution of workload among agents;
- The value conflict that occurs when two employees do not have the same perception of the environment in which they work;
- The generational conflict occurs when employees of different generations have different working methods, communication and professional approaches. This can lead to tensions and misunderstandings within the team. It is important to promote communication and mutual respect to avoid these conflicts. Generational differences can also be a source of wealth and complementarity in a team.
Organizations expect managers to increase the quality and quantity of team production. Human resources managers make the manager the guarantor of production.
Overcoming complex situations
Projects may be stopped along the way for several reasons, including budget cuts or changes in priorities. In this case, management alerts the manager in charge of the project and lets him notify the teams working on the subject.
This type of event puts the manager in a complex situation. He may disagree with the decision and yet must explain it and have it applied to the teams.
It is obvious that employees will be disappointed and frustrated and may react in the moment. The manager must therefore start by regulating his own emotions. He will thus be able to adopt the right speech when speaking to the teams, and remain neutral. His approach will then be more measured.
Finally, the manager can check in with the teams afterwards to find out if and how the information has been accepted. This can be an opportunity to organize a leaders-team meeting. It is also a crucial moment that allows decision-makers to value employees, rewarding the mediation work carried out by the manager.
It is important that these types of situations be resolved quickly and intelligently. If employees do not feel listened to or valued in their work, it is obvious that they will prefer to leave. Indeed, 31% of employees chose to leave their jobs due to a lack of rewarding work (Proaction International + UTrakk).
The place of the manager in the age of hybrid work
The implementation of a hybrid way of working in most organizations is redefining the way managers work. It is no longer a question of managing teams on site but of coaching employees remotely for part of the week.
Coherence or cohesion?
Team cohesion is the quality of the bond that unites, that binds employees together. Coherence is the ability to work well together. The complementarity of these two concepts consists in putting individual skills at the service of collective performance.
Indeed, a cohesive team won't go anywhere in the long run without cohesion. And vice versa. It is therefore not necessary to oppose these two concepts.
They complement each other, but do not have to be implemented at the same time. You have to start with cohesion, a pillar for the team.
However, cohesion cannot do without coherence. Prioritizing cohesion, failure or lack of performance pushes teams to look for a culprit or to designate a scapegoat. Emphasizing coherence, and therefore on skills and the ability to work together, leads to the development of strong human relationships.
The role of the manager is therefore to know how to make everyone's skills work together so that collective work achieves the objectives. It is important to think in advance about how to ensure coherence and achieve cohesion.
For example, the manager must recruit with the prism of consistency and not only that of “fit”. Nevertheless, it is advisable to set up times that give common meaning and value individual skills. Thus, it is necessary to focus on a period of integration to promote cohesion and regularly valorize skills to promote coherence.
No hybrid management without mastering digital tools
For hybrid work to be synonymous with performance, it must be built on solid foundations. Thus, it is necessary to ensure the inclusion of all. This challenge lies in the difficulty of maintaining cohesion in a context where not all employees are in the office. This can lead to differences in relationships, with some employees finding themselves isolated and therefore less involved.
The manager must therefore find solutions to include remote collaborators. It is important that they are committed to team dynamics as soon as they arrive.
Discover our tips for successful remote onboarding
In addition, hybrid work and technology are inseparable. Using the right digital tools is essential for the hybrid mechanism to work. However, equipping yourself well digitally has its share of difficulties for managers. He must be able to juggle solutions and push teams to adopt them.
Focusing on a dedicated and effective tool out of need will suffice to collaborate in a hybrid way, and will prevent the appearance of confusions. In addition, companies that have already implemented agile methods would be up to 2.7 times more efficient (The Agile Performer Index).
