SAN DIEGO, CA—August 11, 2022—The Ken Blanchard Companies®, a global leader in management training, consulting, and coaching, released the results of its 2022 Manager Challenges Survey. Its purpose was to gain real-time insight into the lives of today’s working managers, given the heightened pace of change, the broad impacts of COVID, and the shift of power from employers to employees.
This is Blanchard’s first year conducting the survey. Polling was carried out via email during May and June 2022. More than 800 managers participated from around the world and from all levels within organizations. Participants represented the experiences of frontline and middle managers, together with senior managers, directors, and executive managers.
The Blanchard survey included both structured and unstructured questions. Over 70,000 data points were included in the analysis. Jay Campbell, Chief Product Officer with The Ken Blanchard Companies, analyzed the responses and shared three key themes in an August webinar debuting the results.
Theme #1: Managers are suffering from fragmentation. The majority of manager respondents say they have too many priorities to focus on, are spread across too many projects, have too many goals, and are unclear on priorities. As a result, managers find themselves being pulled in multiple directions, with 62% of managers feeling this simultaneous squeeze and stretch.
Theme #2: Managers are overworked. Respondents reported working an average of 48.5 hours per week. But that didn’t mean managers were getting all their work done. When asked, “How long would it take to complete your work?” managers estimated it would require 62.5 hours weekly. Not surprisingly, two out of three managers have experienced burnout in the last 12 months.
Theme #3: Managers give themselves a mixed grade on effectiveness. On a scale of 1 to 10, managers rate their overall effectiveness at 7.55. Effectiveness scores were gathered on 15 additional dimensions, with ratings ranging from a high of 7.9 on listening skills to a low of 5.4 out of 10 for recruiting skills. This showed many areas where managers rated their effectiveness as surprisingly low, including important areas like encouraging innovation, dealing with conflict, and tracking progress against goals.
“Today’s managers are carrying a heavy load. They feel overburdened with responsibilities, overworked, and do not feel very effective in their roles. They are squeezed between their responsibilities to achieve organizational goals, support their direct reports, and pursue their own goals. It’s a high-pressure vortex of work and stress for many managers,” said Campbell.
He went on to say, “Organizations can help by honoring their requests for more time to complete their tasks and mentor their people, along with additional budget for hiring and upskilling staff. If that’s not possible, protect them from being overly fragmented by providing more vision and clarity to help them manage and prioritize.”
A free e-book that summarizes the survey findings is available here.
About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is a global leader in management training, consulting, and coaching. For more than 40 years, Blanchard® has been helping organizations develop inspired leaders at all levels and create cultures of connection that unleash talent and deliver extraordinary results. Blanchard’s SLII® powers inspired leaders and is the leadership model of choice for more than 10,000 organizations worldwide. Blanchard also offers a suite of other award-winning leadership development solutions through flexible delivery modalities to meet the specific needs of its clients.
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