Avoiding the Reluctant Frontline Manager

Extend L&D's Role Beyond Development into Selection to Obtain Committed Frontline Managers

• Only one–fourth of frontline managers are committed to management roles, having defaulted into those roles because they see few viable career options.
• Pull development forward into the selection process to minimize the number of "reluctant" frontline managers. L&D should provide pre–management development approaches that allow visibility into the role and early identification of employees who are reluctant to manage others.
• Organizations that incorporate pre–management development in the selection process employ more effective frontline managers with higher–performing direct reports. The direct reports of effective frontline managers perform 25% higher, are 52% more committed, and are 40% more likely to stay than those of ineffective frontline managers.

Frontline Managers are Reluctant Managers

The Roundtable's survey of thousands of frontline managers and their direct reports reveals that frontline managers typically default into management roles, seeing few other career options. In fact, 57% of frontline managers would have opted for a career path that does not involve management if another equally attractive opportunity was available. Most current frontline managers actually prefer non–management career paths, and only about a quarter are committed to their current management career paths. This reluctance of frontline managers negatively impacts their direct reports, reducing their commitment, intent to stay with the organization, and performance. This impact can be extensive given that the typical frontline manager averages 10 direct reports.

Use Development to Aid Frontline Manager Selection

Fortunately, L&D can improve the selection of frontline employees into management roles by pulling management development forward, allowing for early identification of employees who prefer not to manage others. The most powerful approaches improve selection by providing early transparency into frontline management roles. These approaches can be arrayed along two dimensions: a) who is making the selection decision (the employee or the organization) and b) the basis for the decision (i.e., is it a conceptual or experiential approach?).

• Self–Selection: Approaches supporting self–selection provide employees with visibility into management roles, allowing them to make their own decisions about their suitability for the job.
• Organizational and Self–Selection: Combined assessment approaches allow both employees and the organization (e.g., current manager, future manager, L&D) to assess readiness for frontline management roles.
• Conceptual: Conceptual approaches provide detailed information about the nature, benefits, and challenges of frontline management roles.
• Experiential: Experiential approaches expose management candidates to actual hands-on management experiences, providing them with an opportunity to "try out" the job beforehand.

Improve Employee Performance through Better Selection

Organizations that improve the job satisfaction of frontline managers by using premanagement development solutions not only employ more effective managers, but also experience significant increases in the productive and engagement of their direct reports. In contrast to employees directly reporting to ineffective managers, employees reporting to effective frontline managers exhibit:

• 25% higher performance
• 52% greater emotional commitment
• 40% higher intent to stay with the organization

Proven Pre–Management Development Strategies

Although designing approaches to improve frontline management selection may be a new role for some L&D functions, progressive organizations have implemented a range of approaches that others can easily adopt to overcome many of the typical obstacles.

Apply Progressive Practices

How can L&D increase visibility into the benefits and demands of frontline management?	How can L&D increase visibility into the benefits and demands of frontline management?	How can L&D leverage premanagement experiences to assess management potential?
Ameren provides both a course and workbook titled "Is Supervision for Me?" detailing the nature of the job, expectations, and job duties.	REI details the critical success factors of the role using a "10 Factor Worksheet" of activities, competencies, and behaviors of high–performing managers, used during a three–stage management selection process.	Alpha Company requires management candidates to participate in four core premanagement experience , ensuring candidates have the aptitude, interest, and readiness to succeed.