How Middle Manager Jobs Got Harder

After exploring her options, she moved into a non-managerial role at the same company, which she said came with a pay cut.

The last few years have been particularly challenging for many middle managers, whose burnout rates have increased. They have been targeted by layoffs as companies look to cut costs, and those who remain have often been asked to do more with less amid hiring slowdowns. Some face challenges managing remote teams or enforcing back-to-office policies. And as companies cut pay raises and promotions, middle managers are often the bearers of bad news. Some say the job is no longer worth it – and are looking for a way out.

“To some extent, middle managers have historically been the glue that translates high-level strategy into individual actions that front-line workers execute,” Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Business Insider. “But that glue is loosening a little bit in the last few months just because there’s so much pressure going in both opposite directions for that group.”

Caught between a rock and a hard place

While middle managers have always had to please those above them while maintaining credibility below, Terrazas said “that’s a very difficult position to be in right now, and I think you see that in a lot of between their feelings”.

Layne Tisdel Martin, a 43-year-old middle manager for a US technology company, said she was “all too familiar” with the feeling.

“Sometimes I feel like the workers see me as an agent of the ‘bad bosses’ and the C-suite sees me as a union representative,” she told BI. “It’s part of my job to reconcile their interests.”

Part of this involves telling employees more than in the recent past that a raise or title increase isn’t coming. A Workday report showed that median promotion rates in 2023 were lower than in 2022 for all 10 industries measured, with technology, professional services, retail and insurance seeing declines of more than 20 percent.

Increases are getting smaller and less frequent. Annual growth in average hourly wages in August was 3.8%, lower than the most recent peak of 5.9% in March 2022.

Tsvetelina Nasteva, a 32-year-old human resources manager for Casinoreviews.net, said one of the most difficult parts of her job is communicating disappointing salaries to her team, something she has had to do more of. in recent years. She tries to “soften the blow” by reminding her team of her company’s benefits, work-life balance and growth opportunities.

“But I know it’s still hard for people to hear,” she said.

Benjamin Granger, chief workplace psychologist at Qualtrics, told BI that the core of a middle manager’s job is to understand why a decision is made and then clearly communicate that reasoning to workers.

“Sometimes in the academic literature we call this ‘procedural justice,’ where I may not like the outcome, but at least you took the time to explain the rationale to me,” Granger said, adding that managers must also to go ahead and explain. why the decision is relevant to the worker – and may even find a clear reason.

A new sticking point in the post-pandemic world is the back-to-office mandate. In recent years, workers who have been asked to return to their desks have found countless ways to game the system: “Coffee-badging” means swiping your badge in case bosses are watching but not sitting at your desk to work, and ” silent”. “hybrid” means working remotely more than the policy allows, hoping to fly under the radar.

Terrazas calls RTOs “a particular place of friction” for middle managers because they “deputize them to be enforcers.”

Tiago Pita a 37-year-old brand and e-commerce executive based in the UK, manages a team of both in-person and remote workers. He said it can be a challenge to ensure that both groups of employees feel “equally included and involved”.

“It was a learning curve for everyone involved,” he told BI.

Do more with less

Glassdoor Chief Economist Daniel Zhao wrote in a March post that the increased pressure on middle managers in recent years may be due to “year of efficiency” — a term used by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg last year to describe a period of layoffs, project cuts and reduced hiring — that extends through 2024.

“Middle managers are under greater pressure to do more with less, managing the demands of leaders while soothing anxious employees,” Zhao wrote.

Vanessa Yuen, a 34-year-old engineering manager for a US-based SaaS company, said one of her biggest challenges in recent years has been downsizing her team.

She said her team began working overtime during a hiring slowdown and she wasn’t sure when the “extra burden” would end. She said it became a challenge to keep her team motivated and prevent burnout.

“The hardest part is balancing the need to meet the company’s goals with the reality that my team is working at capacity, if not above it,” she told BI.

Not having enough time or energy was a common theme in BI reporting on middle manager burnout.

“In many cases, they don’t have full autonomy to make decisions, but they are held accountable as if they do,” Granger said.

Bryan Hancock, a McKinsey partner and one of the authors of Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work, agreed, saying, “In a world where they spend less than a third of Their time managing people and the expectations of leading people are increasing, it only creates additional stress and tension in the role.”

The question of whether to go for a promotion or demotion

The stress of the job is among the reasons some middle managers told BI they considered asking for demotion. But for now, many said their plan is to try to deal with the stress and make things better.

“Demoting or quitting is a very big decision, and for now, I believe in addressing these issues head-on,” Pita said.

Tisdel Martin has a different perspective. She said she is focused on working hard and getting promoted so she can “attract more chances and make things better”.

But this path does not make sense for everyone.

While Kyle left his role as middle manager earlier this year, he said his new non-managerial role has many similarities to his old position. However, he has no direct reports – meaning they don’t have to worry about firing people or holding them accountable to company policies.

He said his role has “manager” in the title because his company didn’t want his job change to “look like a retirement” – but he expects his new role to pay less than his old one once commissions are factored in . However, the drop in income that comes with having a less stressful job is worth it.

“Honestly, I’ve never been happier,” he said.

Are you a middle manager or have you left middle management? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected] to share your experience.