These have always been the top responsibilities of leaders and managers at work.But their job responsibilities have become more time-consuming and complex due to the pressures of the pandemic, deep political discord, pressing social justice issues, geopolitical earthquakes, big resignations, and now recession fears.
Keeping employees focused and happy in all this — while trying to meet everyone’s scheduling needs, health concerns, and personal obligations, not their boss’s — has been…well, a lot.
Claire Deason, an attorney with employment law firm Littler Mendelson PC, said: “We’ve never been here before, and the entire workforce is going through social, economic and psychological changes in the workplace.
This changes the way leaders — from the C-suite to middle management — think about work and what they really want in life.
A recent survey of 2,100 respondents from four countries by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence found that “nearly 70 percent of executives are seriously considering quitting their jobs in order to better support their well-being.” The vast majority. Executives (81%) say improving their well-being is now more important than progressing at work.
Meanwhile, in the first five months of 2022, global recruiting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas found that 668 U.S. CEOs left, the most since the company began tracking monthly CEO changes in 2002. The highest record of the month..
“The exodus of CEOs continues. Economic conditions, rising inflation and recession fears are prompting boards to rethink leadership, and leaders to rethink whether to address these challenges,” said Andrew Charlin, senior vice president of the company. Andrew Challenger said.
When it comes to middle management, a Gartner survey of 1,000 middle leaders in 13 countries earlier this year found that about a quarter said they were overwhelmed by their responsibilities, and 25% said they felt overwhelmed by their responsibilities. Indicates that they are not mentally engaged at work.
Among other things, they are now facing pressure from leadership to get things “back to normal” even though the lives and prospects of the people they manage no longer match the pre-pandemic normal.
What’s more, managers themselves have their own personal and mental health pressures to deal with.
But when it comes to working remotely, many companies have different rules for senior management than they do for rank-and-file employees, Deason said.Senior managers are generally expected to be in the office.Managers looking for a promotion may feel they should, even if they prefer to work from home and are already managing a team that often works remotely.
Another major source of stress for middle managers: Many are relatively new and hired after a wave of more senior managers decided to retire early during the pandemic, challengers said.
“They’re learning to be managers of remote teams. And they don’t get a lot of wisdom or experience from [more tenured managers]. It’s exhausting,” he noted.
At a time when employees are more empowered than ever and turnover rates have been at record highs, managers are also facing greater pressure to unite their teams.The latest five-month layoff rate is the lowest since Challenger began tracking in 1993.
“Companies have been holding on to people and are reluctant to let them go in this environment,” Challenger said.
He expects the red-hot labor market could begin to cool by the end of the year due to concerns about the economy.
But this cooling may only moderate the quit rate rather than cause it to plummet.It may increase layoffs, but not substantially.
If both levers move as challengers predict, it could at least resolve one of the exhausting ambiguities that managers and executives have had to grapple with lately: how many days people will be in the office versus working remotely.
To date, there has been a big disconnect between what employers want and what employees want.”Employers with hybrids may think there are four days a week, and employees think there should be zero,” Challenger said.”As the labor market cools, we will be closer to a new post-coronavirus equilibrium.”
Post time: Jun-30-2022