Four Steps to Creating a Successful Manager Toolkit and Combating the ‘Great Resignation’

Gallup recently talked about The ‘Great Resignation’ and said that “reversing the tide in an organization requires managers who care, who engage, and who give workers a sense of purpose, inspiration and motivation to perform. Such managers give people reason to stay.”

One way to accomplish that goal is to up-skill managers. This is how we are equipping manager with the tools they need via a Manager Toolkit.

Step 1: Determine what managers need

Before creating any toolkit or training, get representatives from all departments and elicit ideas from both newly hired managers and top performing managers. A large sample size avoids the trap of delivering incomplete content or the wrong content.

Step 2: Organize the Manager Toolkit

This is how our Manager Toolkit organically organized itself for our organization.

Fundamentals

The fundamentals section was a management 101 that addressed general concepts and questions that new managers or newly hired managers have. Questions like, “who is my people business partner and what exactly do they do?” or “who is my talent partner and how can they help me with recruiting?” Additionally, the fundamentals set the baseline for how to recognize employees, what the PTO practices are, and how we handle security.

We also heard that learning more about “one-on-ones” is crucial. Although many managers have had one-on-ones throughout their career, they were hoping for guidance or structure for running them on their own. They wanted to add their own spin on the concept, but wanted to be sure their one-on-ones were adding value rather than becoming a superfluous meeting. This section answered the questions: “Should one-on-ones be catching up, or should they be for obstacle removal, or are they status updates?“ and “What determines success for one-on-ones?”

Finally, we included a section on managerial skills like decision making, delegation, moving from friend to manager, emotional intelligence in leaders, building effective teams, the Employee Resource Groups (ERGs or Affinity Groups), organization, communication expectations, and wellness.

Employee Events & Policies

Policies and documentation can be all over the place, so the Manager Toolkit serves to neatly link managers to the material they need:

• Hiring, On-boarding, Off-boarding, Transfers, Interns
• Short-Term Disability
• Performance Management
• Engagement Survey
• Organization charts
• Bonus plans & Equity
• Employee and income verification and reference requests
• Swag store
• When a life event occurs
• Handbook and policies

Manager Resources

After we addressed the low-hanging fruit, it was time tackle the needs of tenured managers who wanted to up-skill. These were the 21 areas that managers felt they wanted learning and development in, and each area offered additional material:

1. Attract Retain and Grow Talent
2. Building an Effective Team
3. Coaching
4. Communication
5. Conflict
6. Culture
7. Empathy
8. Executive Communication
9. Goal Setting
10. Hiring and Interviewing
11. Leadership
12. Mentoring and Feedback
13. Organization, Productivity and Execution
14. Performance Management
15. Professional Development
16. Recognition
17. Recommended Reading List
18. Return to Office (RTO) Management
19. Team Building Activities
20. Trust
21. Wellness

Technical Tools

Whether new or tenured, managers needed help on technical software. Everything from Slack tips-and-tricks to querying in JIRA. Ergo, the last section addressed up-skilling in technical software. And, if the software they needed was not available, we pointed managers to the due-diligence process for procuring new software.

Step 3: Put the content in the right location

Oftentimes we have all the right content in all the wrong places. Content is:

• behind a firewall that no one wants to VPN into
• hidden on pages in an intranet whose search functionality is lack-luster
• linked to old content rather than the newest content
• scattered amongst the learning ecosystem in LMSs, intranets, and file locations

Ease of use is key when designing a Manager Toolkit. We choose a Google site so that the content could be accessible on a mobile device, outside the firewall, linking to material across our learning ecosystem.

Step 4: Get managers to use it and grow

The only way to get managers to use the Manager Toolkit is to communicate, communicate, communicate and communicate. This can be accomplished by leaning into People Business Partners, getting the CEO or executives to talk about the Manager Toolkit in an all-hands or team meetings, launching a learning campaign, or setting up marketing emails.

Once managers begin using the Manager Toolkit, the best metric of success is gathering data on managers accessing and implementing the material. For example:

• managers begin reminding their employees to take PTO and disconnect when on vacation; the metric is PTO usage data and a residual cultural norm of employees truly disconnecting when they have scheduled time-off
• managers give feedback on their team’s performance and elicit feedback on their own performance; the metric is survey data on employee satisfaction in performance management and employee confidence in management
• managers talk with their teams about mental health and wellness; the metric is wellness program utilization data
• managers understand the terms intersectionality, gender identity, unconscious bias, transgender and LGBTQ; the metric is survey data on belonging and inclusion

When the culture starts changing, when the engagement scores begin going up, when people are ready to learn and are hungry to grow and foster productive teams, then the Manager Toolkit is working.