With many employers having abandoned their old multi-tiered management structures for a flatter organisation, the burden of responsibility falls increasingly on the front-line manager. Yet HR professionals “have little confidence that the task will be done well, if at all,” claims a new report.
However, most of the 62 named companies in the IRS survey said that provided first-line managers were adequately supported, they were very effective – with most citing training and development in terms of HR processes and procedures as “essential”.
The report reveals that the role and responsibilities of first-line managers continues to evolve as they take on more people management duties and are expected to be communications, HR/personnel, budgeting and coaching experts rolled into one.
Key findings:
- Typically a first-line manager takes responsibility for between three and 10 employees, with very few running to teams of more than 25.
- 78% of organisations surveyed said that they always or mostly recruited first-line managers from among the employees they manage.
- More than two-thirds of respondents said that there had been some change in the role of first-line managers in their organisation in the past three years.
- The most commonly identified change was an increase in first-line managers’ overall level of responsibility (identified by almost 60% of organisations), followed closely by an increase in their level of people management responsibilities in over half of organisations).
Although the list of first-line managers’ main responsibilities remains almost unchanged since 2000, there has been a marked increase in the number of organisations that now say these areas are the sole responsibility of line managers:
– absence management
– appraisals
– grievances
– health and safety
– planning/allocating work
– recruitment
– staff deployment
– team briefing
– team development
– ongoing training, and
– welfare.
Almost 70% expect the next three years to bring further substantial change or some change to the role of first-line managers.
For more details on the survey, click here
