Healthcare
Manufacturing
Hospitality & Travel
Manager Enablement
Performance Reviews
Employee Experience
WHY MACORVA
HR professionals and high-level managers recognize that the market is in a state of rapid change. In response, post-pandemic organizations prioritize efficient workforce development, transparent analytics, and manager enablement through technology transformations. This is one of the reasons why HR leaders ranked technology as their top investment priority in 2023.
With so many business leaders investing in technology solutions for manager enablement, it’s clear that the industry is recognizing the potential for AI-assisted tools to optimize their productivity and employee engagement. This includes using continuous feedback solutions, virtual coaching, and skill assessment technology as part of a centralized strategy to integrate AI into management and engagement strategies moving forward.
However, the role of technology in manager enablement is not always clear. Even top-performing businesses can risk overcomplicating their management workflows with inefficient or unoptimized tools. But when used right, technology can transform how managers lead. Keep reading to find out how effective tech can boost manager enablement and help your organization excel in employee engagement in 2024 and beyond.
Enhancing Managerial Effectiveness
Manager enablement is all about giving managers the tools and resources they need to lead effectively. HR managers face rising challenges related to project transparency, internal communication, and team engagement, which inhibit their ability to make informed decisions. Tech-enabled management strategies provide the means to improve productivity and engagement through numerous features. From real-time insights to streamlined reporting, technology offers tools that can simplify complex data and empower managers to lead more effectively.
Data-driven insights
While employee performance metrics represent a focus for most major organizations, manager performance insights are often overlooked. Digital transformation in management requires tools that can track managerial skill development to identify the areas where teams are excelling and those where certain managers may benefit from additional training.
Consider these ways in which manager enablement tools like Mavorva MX can amplify management accountability:
- The system can notify managers to review each employee’s priorities at the end of each week to help teams stay aligned with their goals and track their progress.
- AI-assisted tools can generate and document high-level performance review surveys both for managers and the workers they evaluate.
- The system can provide recognition to managers and employees based on recent performance.
- The system organizes insights into a central data dashboard to help managers analyze trends and make strategic decisions for their employees’ productivity and alignment.
Employees can even request feedback using skill assessment technology, encouraging a direct dialogue with management that is focused on the employee’s performance and development. Managers can regularly check in with their teams to give and receive timely recognition for recent tasks, which research has shown is far more effective at encouraging engagement than biannual feedback.
Automated Reporting
Automated reporting tools can keep insights organized and centralized in the feedback system for managers to easily access and distribute. By generating reports and insights, the system can significantly reduce manual data compilation time, freeing management to focus on strategic tasks such as career development plans and employee alignment. These tools also extract the most important data to surface key trends and deliver it to the right people at the right time, ensuring that critical information is always at hand.
Continuous feedback solutions that provide real-time performance metrics for managers can keep managers accountable while they increase the productivity of their teams. The goal of automated reporting in management is to collect as much data as possible and organize it into actionable insights. This not only reduces manual data entry time but also provides a fact-driven foundation for manager-employee relations, free from managerial biases.
Here are some simple ways managers can use these reports:
- Performance Reviews: Give detailed feedback to employees.
- Employee Engagement: See how engaged your team is.
- Project Progress: Track project timelines and milestones.
- Training Needs: Spot skill gaps and plan training.
- Turnover Analysis: Understand why employees leave.
- Diversity and Inclusion: Measure diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Resource Allocation: Balance workloads and team capacities.
By using these automated reports, managers can make better decisions, keep their teams engaged, and drive business success.
Facilitating Communication and Collaboration
Engaged employees are vital to the success of companies of any size. However, Gallup reported 30% employee engagement for Q1 2024, marking the lowest engagement level since 2013. 17% reported “active disengagement,” a two-year high. Even the best organizations struggle to facilitate communication and collaboration among employees despite having a majority of workers engaging with global communication tools, particularly in remote and hybrid work models.
This gap demonstrates the need for refined employee engagement technology, including the ability to conduct better engagement surveys. AI-assisted tools allow managers to create surveys based on the work histories and career development plans of each employee while 360-degree feedback collection allows their peers to provide insights on their performance. Effective engagement technology should also measure employee skills and use AI-enabled tools to create personalized career development plans.
By providing centralized access to resources that encourage continuous improvement, manager enablement technology creates a more collaborative workplace. With updated feedback at their disposal, managers can better gauge team morale and address learning and development issues proactively. Additionally, continuous feedback tools allow managers to utilize virtual team-building resources that foster a sense of workplace community and collaboration, even among hybrid and remote workers. These include virtual communication spaces, gamified progress trackers, and peer feedback tools.
Training and Development
HR managers equipped with automated reporting tools can upgrade their leadership style through personalized skill guidance. This translates to a better ability to drive employee engagement and productivity, improve team communication, personalize employee learning and development, and adopt an environment of continuous learning with greater transparency between managers and workers.
However, digital transformation in management cannot be achieved with a one-and-done solution. Instead, HR managers must integrate multiple platforms and strategies to seamlessly engage workers and management in an environment of continuous learning, including:
- E-learning platforms: E-learning resources allow employees to access training materials, skill development courses, and handbooks from anywhere. Managers can also use these self-service tools to access personalized guidance generated by the system and monitored by top leadership. By improving their leadership strategies, they can promote engagement more proactively.
- Digital adoption platforms: DAPs guide users through management software to help them identify key tasks and streamline their workflows. A unified solution allows managers to adopt new software solutions that drive internal user adoption using their self-help systems, analytics, and in-app guided learning tools.
- Virtual coaching: After identifying workers who would benefit from additional help, virtual coaching systems allow managers to connect with them, even if they work remotely. Virtual conferences allow them to build trust with workers in an age when in-person assessments are not always practical.
- Skill assessment tools: Managers can facilitate continuous employee learning with skill assessment tools. These allow them to identify existing skills and detect areas of improvement, streamlining the talent management process and aligning career development plans with the company’s objectives.
Maximize your return
on every training investment
Successful manager enablement through multiple integrated learning platforms helps managers set clear performance goals, define the behaviors that lead to success, and reinforce interpersonal skills with employees through continuous feedback. With AI-driven systems like Macorva MX offloading administrative labor in learning and development tasks, managers can focus on high-value tasks such as negotiating individualized career success with employees and deploying actionable strategies for improving workplace communication.
Challenges and Considerations
Despite the numerous benefits of OKR platforms, which align team goals with company objectives, and continuous feedback tools that offer real-time performance insights, many managers resist adopting new technology for various reasons. Studies show that 84% of businesses plan to adopt enablement technology solutions before the end of 2024 despite the fact that 42% of those that do also report managerial resistance to the new workflows.
By identifying the reasons that many managers resist enablement tools, organizations can better prepare for resistance in their own personnel as they attempt a digital transformation in management.
Technology Adoption
There are numerous reasons why managers resist technology adoption, some related to a broader resistance to change. A familiar workflow can be taken for granted. Attempting to integrate trending technologies like AI in management can be perceived as a stressor by experienced managers. Over half of businesses that adopt enablement technology cite their managers’ lack of awareness of how to use the new software as a primary reason for this adoption hesitancy.
However, an even greater challenge, affecting as many as 64% of managers as they adapt to new technology workflows, involves technology readiness. Readiness refers to how easily the technology can be adapted to its current use. Many managers resist adopting technology workflows due to their own inability to adapt to new systems or their belief that the technologies are not “ready” to replace their current workflows.
Additionally, generational differences have a significant impact on the adoption of tech-enabled management. In a multi-generational workforce, workers of different generations may have varying levels of comfort with technology, implying the need for training programs tailored to these differences. It's important to choose technology that is user-friendly, easy to integrate, and offers custom training initiatives. This ensures that each group of managers is equipped to use the new tools effectively and can smoothly transition into the new workflows.
“Macorva won our scorecard by a landslide due to their one-of-a-kind Radiant AI action planning. It is truly a game-changer. Our managers have been able to get results and take action immediately.”
Latoya Atwell-Williams | VP, Corporate HR and L&D
Data Security and Privacy
Data security and privacy remain a major concern for technology adoption in management models since an increased reliance on digital tools has resulted in increased data centralization. This implies the need for more robust security measures and more specific training programs to teach managers the best data security practices for their new systems.
To protect a centralized data system, decision-makers should look for software that provides numerous security features to address the concerns of technology-hesitant managers, including:
- Data exposure limited to a list of authorized users
- Automated monitoring for suspicious logins and other threats
- Regular internal audits, including compliance checks
- Data encryption at each entry point
- Integration with the business’s existing security infrastructure
With AI-assisted tools, organizations can automate their threat detection process and streamline regulatory compliance. As data collection becomes more centralized, data governance will become a larger priority for businesses seeking efficient documentation, data classification, and protocol implementation processes.
Custom Training Programs
Directive training programs are key in helping managers adopt new enablement technologies. 87% of businesses believe that custom training programs are a necessity, emphasizing the importance of catering to different learning styles, preferences, and generations. As workplace dynamics evolve under this new technology, integrating AI-powered training workflows will allow top leadership to engage with management and help them maximize technology adoption in their company.
In addition to learning how to use manager performance technology, managers also need to learn the value of it. While this comes with time, as with any new technology adoption, a training workflow customized for hesitant or multi-generational management teams can help companies adopt real-time reporting, continuous feedback tools, and more with less resistance.
Future Trends in Manager Enablement Technology
Manager enablement technology promises to create a culture of higher performance and increased collaboration among the organizations that adopt it successfully. AI and machine learning play a pivotal role in modernizing this technology and will have a lasting impact on how performance data is collected and analyzed.
However, over the next decade, businesses will learn the value of AI beyond data analysis. AI-enabled skill enhancement systems will allow managers to connect with their employees’ career progression in seconds in ways that past generations could only achieve with hundreds of administrative man-hours.
Moving forward, organizations must also adapt feedback and progress monitoring systems to accommodate growing numbers of remote workers with virtual coaching and assessment tools. Continuous data collection will lead to continuous feedback, enabling managers to adapt learning workflows to the needs of each worker, increasing productivity and collaborative growth.
Manager performance technology must be oriented toward this future, developing not only current skills but also the skills required to adapt to new technologies on the horizon. Anticipating future roles and developing management to respond to them when the time comes will be key factors in how leading organizations encourage collaborative innovation in their workforces in the next decade and beyond.
The Benefits of Manager Enablement with Macorva MX
Integrating technology in manager enablement will be a key indicator of efficiency, productivity, and collaboration as more companies acclimate to the opportunities provided by AI, machine learning, and other tools. The benefits of using technology in manager enablement include:
- Enhanced decision-making capabilities
- Improved team communication and collaboration
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Personalized learning and development
- Greater transparency and accountability
The Macorva EX/MX systems provide organizations with manager enablement tools that can provide real-time data for managers, automated reporting, continuous feedback, and updated security measures for organizations of all sizes. For more information on how manager enablement tools like Macorva can transform your workforce, read the resources below or watch this product demo.
