Organizational Wellness

The Dynamic Role of People Managers, Explained

Last Updated Dec 13, 2024

Time to read: 9 minutes

What’s the secret to business success?

The truth is that every thriving company has one thing in common: there are excellent people running it.

Who you have at your organization can ultimately affect how your business performs, because top-tier talent is eight times more productive than the average employee.

But it’s hard to find top performers — and even harder to keep them.

That’s why some companies are focusing on something called people management as a way to seek out and retain their best workers. People managers are individuals who support the employees at your company, and they can be a powerful solution for your team to find and hold onto great performers.

Intrigued? Let’s dive into how to leverage this innovative solution at your company.

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What Is a People Manager?

A people manager is someone who handles all the tasks involving supporting or guiding a company’s employees. This role goes beyond just managing projects — it involves supporting the growth, development, and wellbeing of the employees.

Usually, people managers work within an organization’s HR team. Depending on the size of the company, there may be a single individual with this role or there could be an entire department. At organizations without a people manager, an HR manager often takes on these responsibilities.

The Main Responsibilities of a People Manager

“Support people” is a fairly vague description, so here are a few specific tasks a people manager (or HR pro in a similar role) might take on:

Recruitment and Hiring

Step one is finding great employees. People managers will often work on recruitment, like interviewing candidates or sifting through resumes. They might contribute to final hiring decisions alongside other leaders.

Once a new hire starts, a lot of people managers will be the ones overseeing the onboarding process. This is because these individuals are trained on how to create a strong program that makes people feel welcome. With onboarding boosting new hire retention by 82%, this is a particularly important responsibility.

Training and Development

A people manager is often also the one helping workers develop professionally and learn new skills. They might design the programs and run them, or they might be in charge of a pre-existing course that needed better management — another critical responsibility since having these offerings for your workforce and running them well can improve employee engagement and retention.

Evaluating Employee Performance

People managers can also be the ones responsible for holding reviews. They might have mid-year evaluations or get the whole team involved with 360 reviews. The information from these conversations can then help the people manager determine how to better support employees in the future.

Building Motivation and Engagement

High engagement improves retention. A people manager can help boost that metric by developing programs and adding initiatives that support workers. For example, creating an effective parental leave policy can help increase employee wellbeing and engagement. The people managers at your organization can help design these kinds of programs and determine which ones workers want.

The Benefits of Effective People Management

Having a full-time people manager (or a well-trained HR leader) can help your company improve its:

Retention. Most of the responsibilities a people manager tasks on can help people want to stay at your company. On top of that, these leaders make it their job to connect with your workers and help improve their experience — all of which can help improve retention.
Employee engagement. A major goal of people management is to empower employees. When your workforce feels encouraged, they’re often more engaged with their work.
Organizational effectiveness. Supporting your employees can lead to a higher level of organizational effectiveness. People just work better when they feel valued.

Key Skills for People Managers

Whether you’re looking to hire a people manager or are an HR manager taking on the role, here are some important characteristics to develop:

Empathy. People management involves working closely with a wide variety of individuals, so it’s helpful to have high levels of empathy. This can help people managers understand someone and learn more about their workers’ needs.
Communication. These managers will spend a large amount of their days having conversations with employees and letting them know about policies. Being able to do so effectively will help them be successful people managers.
Active listening. Since people managers work so much with the individuals at your company, it’s helpful to be an active listener. This type of listening isn’t just sitting quietly and waiting for the other person to finish speaking. Active listening is paying attention to what someone is saying and to any physical cues. Doing this can help the people manager understand those they’re talking with better.
Creativity. Working with people is tough, and it often requires some innovative thinking. Effective people managers are often those who can think of unique ideas and who are willing to experiment to reach out-of-the-box solutions for the tricky situations HR pros are so often called to address.
Organizational aptitude. Being a people manager requires balancing many different areas and wearing a few different hats. To be good at this part of the role, these individuals should work to develop organizational skills. Learning to manage time and resources well can help them stay on top of their work.

Strategies for Effective People Management

Adding people managers to your roster can be a powerful way to support your workers. If you’re looking for strategies to be successful in this role, try these six tips:

Identify the “Why” Behind Your Management Approach

Managers lead in a variety of styles. Some people have a democratic approach where they include the team in decisions while others use a coaching style where they nurture strengths. As you become a people manager, it could be effective to identify why you’re drawn to a particular leadership style. That helps you understand yourself, which can then help you understand the people you work to support.

Set Clear Expectations and Co-Creating Accountability

Clear expectations help create an environment of co-ownership. As you work closely with the people at your company, having these set up and sharing accountability can create a team relationship with your employees.

Use a Strengths-Based Approach to Empower Your Team

Being a people manager typically involves evaluating individuals’ performances. Doing so with a strengths-based approach involves highlighting what someone does well and how that can also be applied to areas that need improvement. Providing feedback this way can help everyone develop a growth mindset.

Establish Regular Communication Channels

Because communication is so important, you’ll likely need several ways to reach employees. Setting up regular check-in meetings or having a messaging platform can help make it easy for workers to reach you.

Build Psychological Safety for Open and Honest Dialogue

Try to create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their successes and their failures. This psychologically safe environment also fosters sharing all ideas to solve a problem and one where innovation happens without criticism. To do this, try expressing your own ups and downs. This can help model to your employees what kind of environment you want to create.

Encourage Feedback and Celebrate Achievements

Employees want more formal recognition from their managers when they succeed in their role. Consider taking some time to celebrate all types of successes. It might be as simple as a shout-out or as elaborate as a service award.

Developing People Management Skills

Whether you have official people managers or just want to push your HR team to grow, these suggestions can help you boost your skills:

Enhance Emotional Intelligence

When you’re working with people, everyone’s emotions are at the forefront. It could be helpful to learn more about your own emotional intelligence and have your team do the same. For example, you might take a test to determine your EQ and give you a few starting points. Once you understand where you’re all at, you can work toward enhancing your emotional intelligence and building empathy.

Invest in Leadership Development

People management is a leadership skill that can be learned. Consider investing in some type of development. For example, you could consider coaching. This would allow you to work one-on-one with a team member to help them learn how to develop their people management skills.

Encouraging Collaboration and Delegation

Delegating allows you to grow beyond an executor role and become a teammate with your employees. That can help you foster collaboration. On top of that, it eases your workload and allows you to focus on larger problems. Consider who on your team might be able to take on some of your tasks and work with them to make it happen.

Conduct a 360 Assessment

If you’re not sure where to start your development, try a 360 review. A 360 assessment gathers feedback from all different sources, like your manager,peer, and those you supervise. This holistic view information can help you know where to actively pursue development.

Balance Personal Wellbeing

To be there for your team, it’s important to take time to recharge and take care of yourself. One of the most effective ways to improve an entire team’s wellbeing is for leadership to model wellness strategies — like participating in a company-wide steps challenge. When you’re also focusing on your wellbeing, those habits can trickle down to benefit the whole team.

Enhance People Management with a Wellbeing Program

People management aims to support and engage your employees, but focusing solely on professional needs may overlook personal wellness. This can lead to disengagement, burnout, or even turnover, as employees struggle to balance their work and overall wellbeing.

Implementing a wellbeing program alongside people management strategies addresses these challenges by offering holistic support. In fact, 98% of HR leaders reported that wellbeing programs reduce turnover, and 91% noted lower healthcare costs. These benefits make wellbeing programs a critical part of improving employee satisfaction and retention.

Speak with a Wellhub Wellbeing Specialist to integrate wellbeing into your people management strategy and keep your team engaged and thriving!

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See how we can help you reduce your healthcare spending.

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[*] Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.