I recently wrote an article for the OMG Center, a community for agency folk to learn, build, grow and exit. My topic of choice was the importance of line managers for team retention. Team retention has become a real challenge in the agency world, and the impact of line managers on retention numbers is significant. Despite this, many agencies still promote subject matter experts with no skills in people management, into manager roles.
Line management is equally wonderful and stressful. Many people actively aspire to become line managers. Others try it and never want to do it again. The positive impact you can have is immeasurable. The negative impact can be equally damaging.
As an industry that is trying to solve the retention conundrum, I am an active advocate for developing our subject matter experts into confident people managers. It’s not the ONLY solution, but it’s a piece of the puzzle. Find the article here: