Companies that succeed in redefining the job of the frontline manager can improve their performance remarkably. Instead of administrative work and meetings, they should focus on coaching their employees and on constantly improving quality.
District managers, store managers, plant managers and line supervisors direct much of the workforce and are responsible for the part of the company that typically defines the customer experience. Yet most of the time, these managers operate as cogs in a system, with limited flexibility in decision making and little room for creativity.
This limited flexibility can make companies less productive, less agile and less profitable. Change is possible, however. At companies that have successfully empowered their frontline managers, the resulting flexibility and productivity generate strong financial returns. The key is a shift to frontline managers who have the time to address the unique circumstances of their specific stores, plants or mines; to foresee trouble and stem it before it begins; and to encourage workers to seek out opportunities for self-improvement. In difficult times, making employees more productive is even more critical than it is ordinarily.
To unlock a team's abilities, a manager at any level must spend a significant amount of time on two activities: helping the team understand the company direction's implications for each team member...and...coaching for performance. Little of either occurs on the front line today. Across industries, frontline managers spend 30 to 60 percent of their time on administrative work and meetings, and 10 to 50 percent on nonmanagerial tasks (traveling, participating in training, taking breaks, conducting special projects or playing on their own team--versus managing their team--by undertaking direct customer service or sales themselves). They spend only 10 to 40 percent actually managing frontline employees by, for example, coaching them directly.
Time Better Spent
At best practice companies, frontline managers allocate 60 to 70 percent of their time to the floor, much of it in high-quality individual coaching.
Such companies also empower their managers to make decisions and act on opportunities. The bottom line benefit is significant, but to obtain it companies must fundamentally redefine what they expect from frontline managers and redesign the work that those managers and their subordinates do.
Such changes free managers to spend more time providing on-the-floor coaching and helping teams solve immediate problems. Managers receive on-the-job training in lean technical skills as well as in coaching, teambuilding and problem solving.
Source: McKinsey Quarterly, August 2009
