New findings released this week commissioned by accreditation body, Investors in People has found over half (52%) of British workers in middle manager roles and below, don’t see management as an aspirational career path, and some even actively avoid it. 

Carried out by YouGov, the representative research of over 2,000 employees asked for their perceptions and experiences of management and uncovered that only 32% saw management as inspirational and aspirational, while 40% saw management as necessary but unappealing, and 12% viewed it as overwhelming and undesirable, actively avoiding leadership responsibilities.

The research was carried out as part of Investors in People’s whitepaper, The Broken Ladder, to understand a true picture of the GB workforce’s attitudes towards management roles and to investigate what senior leaders can do to solve the reluctant manager issue.

British employee attitudes to management

Among those who didn’t want to become managers, over half (54%) perceived management as involving too much stress. Additional leading reasons were not enjoying managing people (42%), not feeling the pay is enough to justify the role (30%) and a preference for technical and specialist roles (25%).

The desire to avoid unnecessary stress is an important issue for those aged under 35, with 68% of this demographic citing it as the reason they don’t want to become a manager. This group is also more likely to feel the pay doesn’t justify the role (38% compared to the average of 30%) and to say that they don’t enjoy managing people (59% compared to the average of 42%).

Extra pay is an overwhelming incentive for 42% to become managers. After that, 28% mention career growth, 27% say they want to positively impact the business and other people and 25% say they enjoy working with and developing people.

How do managers feel about their roles? 

With perceived stress the main reason putting people off becoming a manager, it’s not surprising to see that most people view middle management roles as stressful: according to the survey, 74% described them as such and just over half of respondents (51%) see middle management as high stress, low reward.

What can leaders and organisations do? 

To support the whitepaper research, Investors in People also surveyed 500 business leaders to gather their perspectives on improving management roles, asking them what would make management roles more attractive to employees.

They found that over half (52%) of senior leaders thought that enhanced financial and non-financial recognition would make management roles more attractive to employees, 40% stated greater access to professional development, 37% stated reduced administrative burden and 36% stated stronger career progression pathways.

This largely aligns with how British employees felt when asked a similar question, citing incentives such as good training and preparation before stepping into the role (55%), recognition and rewards for good managers (52%), realistic workloads and fewer administrative responsibilities (49%) and a clearer path to senior leadership (35%).

Additional reasons cited by employees were stronger mental health and wellbeing support for managers (30%) and opportunities for managers to feedback on their role (29%).

Paul Devoy, CEO of Investors in People says, “As our whitepaper research explores, Great Britain has a reluctant manager problem. We have too many people in management positions who don’t want to or shouldn’t be managing other people (perhaps never receiving support to learn how to do so). As a result, we risk turning a generation of people off ever becoming managers.”

Anne Francke, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute says “We do have a problem with management not being seen as aspirational. The acceleration of boom, bust and layoff cycles puts people off wanting to do management roles. Management matters at every level. When you have trained managers, you get better organisational outcomes and better employee engagement. But this isn’t going to happen by osmosis: you’ve got to work at it.”

https://www.investorsinpeople.com/knowledge/the-broken-ladder/