The role of a manager is to ensure that resources are aligned to business strategy and that they are used effectively and efficiently. Manager responsibilities also include the line management and development of employees to both achieve organisational objectives and for employee personal growth. Manager skills can be considered in two main categories: performance management and line management.

Performance Management

A manager will be actively engaged in the performance management of employees against business objectives and individual performance objectives. However, they need to perform a number of additional tasks beyond managing performance such as:

• Organisation design -- in conjunction with experts, such as HR advisors, the manager needs to ensure that the organisational design is fit for purpose. The organisational design must support the effective execution of business strategy
• Role definition -- similarly the roles needed within an organisation must be well defined, including the purpose of the role, key accountabilities and responsibilities, capabilities, skills, knowledge and experience needed to perform the role
• Hiring employees. Managers need to be able to effectively search, select, interview, hire and retain suitable employees
• Goal setting and delegation. This is a crucial manager skill and relates to setting SMART objectives that are clearly related to business strategy and objectives
• Planning and resource allocation. Planning of work and aligning that with strategy and business priorities. Allocating the right resources at the right time and ensuring that the work gets done
• Decision-making. Managers must make many different decisions from prioritisation of work to managing resource conflicts to resolving problems
• Communication and reporting. Clearly communicating upwards to more senior managers, sideways to interested counter-parties and downwards to employees

Line Management

The line manager role or line management is less focused on the task to be done and more on the people and includes:

• Motivating employees. Ensuring that people are motivated and engaged and are either performing well or excellently
• Team building. Create or maintain a high performance team
• Regular feedback. Staff should know how they are performing and receive timely feedback
• Development. Identifying areas of growth (content knowledge, skills and behaviours). Agreeing with employees' development steps and providing the necessary support to help make it happen such as paying for training, giving time off or providing on-the-job training opportunities with new projects
• Performance appraisals. Performance evaluation should happen formally at least annually and regular interim appraisals such as quarterly
• Performance improvement. Understand what the root cause is and if appropriate then provide training, support, mentoring or coaching as needed to help employees achieve an appropriate level of performance

Role of Manager

The role of managers is to ensure that business resources are organised to effectively and efficiently deliver against business strategy and business objectives. Two key components of that role include performance management and line management. Effective managers will develop their manager skills in all of these areas.