As people progress through their careers, it’s often natural that at some point, the next step is management. And while, of course, this progression can come with rewards – it brings its fair share of difficulties too.
Managers can lead team members to success, and the satisfaction of watching your team grow as people and witnessing their wins is a great professional achievement.
But it’s not all plain sailing. When you’re responsible for the development of your employees and the success of your team, there are tough moments along the way. The challenges of managing a team also change with the external business environment, so even when you feel settled into your role, it can all change very quickly.
To find out what managers are facing today, we took a look at some of the top challenges and ways to overcome them.
1. Communicating effectively with employees
As a manager, there can often be an element of distance from the rest of the team. This creates one of the biggest challenges for managers – bridging the distance with effective and timely communication skills.
Good managers need to develop advanced listening and speaking skills as they play a huge role in the success of their team. ‘A lack of interdepartmental communications’ has been found to be one of the biggest causes of stress for UK employees in 2020. This means that when a manager isn’t communicating well with their team about business matters or individual progress, not only could it be damaging the manager-employee relationship, but it could also be greatly adding to employees’ work-related stress.
How to overcome this:
Everyone communicates differently – some methods of communication may work well for some employees, but won’t work for others. The best way to overcome any communication blockers is to discover the different personality types in your team.
Conducting personality tests is a great way to find each team member’s strengths and weaknesses, how these different personality types communicate best and what they’ll respond best to.
Some great personality tests include 16personalities, the four tendencies quiz or, of course, there’s always the more traditional route of Myers Briggs. Whichever personality test you chose, the results will allow you to better manage your team, communicate more effectively and be more understanding of any weaknesses.
2. Confronting performance problems
Performance problems are always going to be a concern for any manager. But in today’s fierce business environment, if your teams aren’t performing to a high standard, a competitor could easily come in and take your customer’s business.
You need to get to the root of any problems quickly. But be careful – managers have the tricky job of finding the balance of getting the results you need and not damaging any relationships with your team members in the process. If you put your ‘strict manager’ hat on too soon, you risk damaging the trust with other members of your team too.
How to overcome this:
If employees don’t have clear targets and goals in place, it can be easy to fall short of what is expected.
Clearly communicate targets and outline expected results to each of your team members. This way, if any results are falling short, you’re able to tackle the problem head-on by comparing expectations to actual performance.
Make sure that you’re continuously monitoring actual performance in comparison to these set targets. You can then spot any problems early on and provide constructive feedback – helping to avoid larger issues down the line.
If performance doesn’t improve, this is the time to follow up with a clear and fair discipline process.
3. Letting employees go
Managing a demoted employee is hard, but letting one go is harder. This will probably always be the hardest part of any manager’s job – and it’s something you never want to get too comfortable doing.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way around this one and it doesn’t become any easier, no matter how much experience you have.
How to overcome this:
If you haven’t already received training, follow up with your HR team to ensure that you have undertaken management training for how to act in the case of severe violations of business conduct. This will ensure that you follow all the right processes and policies and avoid any negative repercussions.
Before letting employees go, you should consider conducting a root cause analysis to see if there is any way to keep them on your team.
4. Making the right hiring decisions
So many candidates out there might have the experience and skills that you might be looking for and they’re probably perfectly capable to do the job. But this doesn’t mean they’re a perfect match to join your team.
A good manager is able to decipher between a good skills hire and a good cultural fit. Finding the right blend of both.
If you make a wrong decision in the hiring process, it can quickly affect your team's morale and performance. You'll also have to deal with the other problems we've outlined here, so making the right decision in the first place is a must.
How to overcome this:
Create a strong selection process and don’t just choose candidates on a “feeling”. Using selection assessments can help to show how the candidate would react in certain situations and give you a little more insight into what they’re like as an employee.
Further, try and get other members of your team involved in the process so you can get a second opinion. This will also help you to find out if the candidate would be a good fit for your team, which can eliminate problems further down the line.
5. Managing conflicts within your team
In a dream world, your team works well together. They’re great collaborators, feel comfortable being creative together and get on socially. Unfortunately, this dream doesn’t always come true. And when a conflict arises between two colleagues, it can be felt throughout the team.
When conflicts aren’t resolved, they can quickly affect productivity and morale – and even lead to top performers leaving the company. Managers are tasked with nipping any conflicts in the bud early, before they become bigger concerns.
How to overcome this:
When a conflict between team members arises, it's important that you fully understand the issue before you take any action. A conflict over an area of work can be healthy and can actually lead to more innovative thinking and solutions – but it’s your job to nurture the conflict into a productive direction.
When a conflict between colleagues is personal, you should step in before it begins to affect the working relationship and the rest of the team.
One way to navigate conflict is to remind your team of your company’s culture and values. When your company values are built around trust, respect and positivity, and you hire for these values, personal conflicts based on personality should be minimised.
Communicating these expectations from the start will make the type of behaviour you expect and will tolerate clear during the recruitment process. This means there’s little room for deviation in the workplace.
If a conflict does arise, conduct a fair and frank discussion. By being there as a voice of reason, employees may quickly be able to come to a resolution.
6. Retaining star employees in a competitive environment
Today, skills are becoming more and more specialised, so if you have a talented employee, you’ll want to do your utmost to keep them. But if you’re not offering your employees what they’re worth, someone else will.
A challenge as a manager today is ensuring that your talented staff are supported, learning new skills, have a clear path of progression and are happy in their role.
A further challenge comes as remote working continues to rise, employees are no longer limited to roles by location – so you’ll have to work even harder to retain your star employees.
How to overcome this:
Make sure your employees know how much you care and appreciate them. Paying your employees what they’re worth is always a priority, but you can expand on the offering through regular rewards and recognition or exciting benefits and perks.
Read next:What is staff turnover and how can you reduce it?
7. Creating calm and reassurance in periods of turbulence
As businesses are developing and changing, they can bring a wealth of exciting opportunities. Unfortunately, these can occasionally bring less exciting consequences too.
Today’s fast-paced business environment includes scenarios such as redundancies. These situations can cause feelings of uncertainty, confusion and frustration among teams – which managers have the extremely difficult job of handling.
How to overcome this:
If a redundancy situation arises, it’s likely that, even as a manager, you may not know all the information until any final decisions have been made.
At this time your main priority becomes reassuring your employees and openly communicating what you can.
When you keep the communication open with your employees and you welcome questions, you’ll keep their trust and reduce their frustrations as much as you can.
In turn, they’ll be reassured that when you know any updates, they’ll know them too.
8. The fight against burnout
One of the hot topics in the business world over the past year has been burnout. A recent survey by Gallup found that out of 7,500 full-time employees, 23% said they felt burnout more often than not, with an additional 44% feeling burnt out sometimes. As a manager, finding the balance between great performance and taking care of both your own and your team’s health is vitally important.
Managers that don’t take time away from work and never recharge their batteries end up burning out. Not only does this harm your own wellbeing and engagement, but it also sets an unrealistic example for your employees.
When managers act in this way, a culture that normalises overworking can sweep through the office – ultimately damaging productivity and morale.
How to overcome this:
People are at their most productive when they’re refreshed, happy and healthy. And, no surprise, this doesn’t come from working overly long hours or taking on extreme workloads.
Set an example by taking regular breaks and using your annual leave to recharge your batteries. When you do this, you let your employees know that you want them to do the same.
Take a look at our reducing anxiety, burnout and loneliness checklist for more ideas on how to boost your teams' wellbeing.
9. Being a constant source of motivation
As much as you might want them to be, not every task that you need your employees to complete is going to be an exciting one.
This is where one of a manager’s main challenges comes to light – you have to work to motivate your employees in all situations.
How to overcome this:
A key skill that you can develop is the ability to show the bigger picture. While your employees might not see some tasks as fitting into the career dream, elements from the task will still be important to their long-term goals. It’s your job to highlight and present the importance of such tasks to your teams to inspire motivation.
Get your teams excited about the future and what it will take to get there. By constantly communicating your businesses plans and goals (perhaps with the help of an employee loyalty program), your employees will see that you’re excited about the company’s future – filtering the positivity on to them.
10. The need to bridge the skills gap
The constant need to ensure the workforce is up-to-date on the latest trends, knowledge and skills is a big challenge facing managers today.
Skills are constantly becoming outdated, so as a manager it's important that you constantly nurture knowledge and inspire growth in your teams.
How to overcome this:
Managers need to provide a way for their staff to stay up-to-date and adapt to advancing knowledge. E-learning can be a great way to help bridge the skills gap and help your teams to be constantly evolving.
When employees are regularly refreshing and learning new skills, they’ll be ready to face any challenges that may come their way. This can also be a great way to help increase staff retention as employees can see that their progression and knowledge is being invested in.
