For decades, the goal of corporate workers was to rise through the ranks of their organizations. They’d want to quickly shed their individual contributor roles and take up management opportunities. This was perceived as the traditional way to climb the corporate ladder of success—gain more responsibilities, earn more money and wield power over a large staff.
However, times have changed. In a recent survey by CoderPad, a technical interview platform for leading development teams, 36% of tech workers expressed not wanting to take on a managerial role, as Gen-Zs and Millennials tend to prioritize a healthy work-life balance compared to older generations. For this cohort, the trade off in extra hours without much more compensation isn’t worth all the extra time, aggravation and stress commensurate with overseeing workers.
Why Being A Manager Is No Longer Enticing
At the onset of the pandemic, managers were advised to have their employees work from home. Then, they needed to establish policies and procedures for people working remotely at scale. Once it became time to have everyone return to the office, managers were tasked with coordinating hybrid schedules, overseeing vaccination statuses and other responsibilities on the behest of top corporate executives.
Managers had to navigate dramatic swings in the job market. Once the pandemic waned, there was a fierce battle to start hiring talent once again. The Great Resignation made it difficult to recruit and retain workers, and companies found themselves short-staffed. Directly following the war for talent, a steady stream of white-collar layoffs announcements started to take place in an array of sectors from tech to Wall Street.
When the going gets tough, the target is often getting rid of middle management positions. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously deemed 2023 the “year of efficiency.” Zuckerberg called out the inefficiencies within his organization, which was also happening at other large tech companies, stating, “I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work.”
Although manager effectiveness is a top priority for companies, research shows that organizational support for managers is plummeting, according to MIT Sloan Management Review.
These professionals, according to leading executive search firm Korn Ferry, take a “disproportionate share of blame,” which understandably tarnishes the allure of being a manager. A 2022 survey by think tank Future Forum revealed that in the post-Covid workplace, middle managers are the most exhausted employees at any level of an organization. According to the findings, 45% self-reported that they were burned out.
There is also a feeling of loneliness that comes with being the boss and not a part of the team anymore. As a middle manager, you are on the outskirts, stuck between senior-level management and the rank-and-file workers. When you walk into a room, instead of being part of the club, everyone stops talking and becomes more serious in your presence.
Every time there’s a crisis in the office, the manager is tasked with putting out the fire. The supervisor is now demanded to play office politics, in an attempt to smooth out feuds and arguments. No matter how the dispute is remediated, invariably someone will walk away unhappy and cast the blame on the manager.
Managers deal with a litany of challenges, including dealing with decreased performance levels, being understaffed, lack of communication and teamwork amongst staff, constant pressure to meet objectives, building a structure, dealing with difficult personalities and finding ways to pivot from being a worker to reinventing yourself as a manager of people and processes.
By taking on a management position, these professionals sometimes forfeit doing the thing they actually love because they are pulled in other directions. For instance, someone could be a gifted coder who rose to management level. They were then tasked to build a team and manage 10 staff members. The once-rockstar software developer, instead of coding, now spends the day managing the minutiae of the daily workflow.
Source: Forbes
