The love is gone. Middle-management jobs are fast falling out of favor as the brass ring loses its allure. Instead, the jobs are being seen as handcuffs that require long hours with scant reward — a one-time career goal now being shunned in large part by the newer generation of workers now entering the workplace.
This major workplace shift has employers worried about how to glamorize middle management at a time when looming baby boomer retirements will have companies facing an urgent need for leadership. Some, such as IBM, are adding special programs to their middle-management jobs, giving them more of the glory. Others are trying to find ways to provide middle managers with some of the same flexibility and other perks long considered the domain of front-line employees.
“Today, people don’t want their boss’s job. They’re wary of middle-management jobs,” says Bruce Tulgan, author of “It’s “OK To Be The Boss” and a management consultant in New Haven. “There is not as much glory in it; it’s seen as a place you can get stuck. There are forms to fill out, meetings. All the pressure today is on the midlevel leaders, and employers need to breathe new life into middle-management jobs.”
Research shows waning interest in middle-management jobs and higher levels of dissatisfaction among those holding the positions. Just four in 10 managers are extremely or very satisfied working for their employers, according to a 2007 survey of more than 1,400 respondents by Accenture, a management consulting and outsourcing company. About 25 percent of those looking for new jobs said they were searching because of a lack of advancement prospects, and 43 percent of all middle managers polled felt as if they were doing all the work but not getting credit for it. One-third reported frustration with their work-life balance.
Evolving Workplace
There are many reasons that middle-management jobs are losing their desirability, and it’s a shift that reflects how dramatically the workplace has evolved. Today, company loyalty is an anachronism, and that means employees are building their own career marketability. Front-line employees may have an easier time showing measurable results, but middle managers, who may have less tangible skills, such as the ability to motivate or deal with conflict, may be less easy to market.
But that’s not the only driving factor:
More work. Middle-management jobs have become more demanding. Technology means middle managers have to do more multitasking and are expected to be accessible to their staff, a Herculean challenge in the age of globalization. Employees may be spread across the globe, and a manager may have to get up at 3 a.m. to take a call from an employee in another country.
“They’re working longer hours, but they’re not getting the recognition and excitement. They’re literally jumping from meeting to meeting. The jobs can be marginalized,” says Dan Coughlin, a business speaker and author of “Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum.” “If you go from meeting to meeting, the company may not realize the value you’re creating.”
Generational differences. Baby boomers, including those employees born roughly between 1944 and 1964, were reared with the ideal of company loyalty and the notion of a hierarchical career path that included paying dues and gradually ascending the corporate ladder. Middle management was considered a plum assignment that brought job security.
But that’s not true for Millennials, or the younger generation, also known as Generation Y, born generally between 1980 and 2000. Now coming of age along with their Generation X predecessors, they have seen the massive downsizing frenzies since the 1980s that often targeted middle managers. Research shows this demographic group also places a higher value on work-life balance and is less willing to sacrifice family and personal time for the office. In addition, the younger generation of workers — raised on stories about ethics scandals at major companies such as Enron — tend to be leery of those in middle management jobs, says Terry Bacon, author of “What People Want: A Manager’s Guide to Building Relationships that Work.”
