What a waste of resources with two in a box / people managers. They don't have a clue with what your working on. Have your functional manager be your people manager!
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The 2 in a box is an old 2008 idea that was initially built up as a big push on coaching and competency groups to 'develop people' but the model had one tiny flaw, which was this:
it was was complete B*llocks! For all the reasons mentioned herein. It added too much overhead costs and did not provide an effective one-to-one coaching from people who know you and understand the challenges you faces. These so-called 'people managers' were usually people who hated being people managers and were often open about how much they hated it and saw it only as a once-a-year-appraisal-thing. The idea was to remove the "people caring" bit from the direct manager who might otherwise be able to coach DURING the year, rather than hand over to some hollow farce at the end of the year, by people who don't give a d@mn to give out numbers that mean nothing and even if it did - there is no reward anyway. So a pointless, costly exercise of which DXC has become a dab hand at inventing.
It was a hopeless model and thank god has not been taken up anywhere else I've worked since.
I'm amazed it just adds layers upon layers of unnecessary non management.
You would think Mike 2 would be chopping these layers out to improve the margin.
Instant cost saving with no impact.
''Who can describe precisely and exhaustively what the people manager does?"
As a (very happy to be) ex DXC people manager (left end of last year) I can tell you what my duties were in terms of priority.
1 - Manage WFR (identify people to put on the list, check with account they can be WFR'd, if push back escalate to snr manager, put person back on list, plan their exit stealthily, ambush them with a meeting invite (usually Monday or Tuesday) and run the exit interview). repeat this exercise every quarter year after year.
2 - provide the endless information snr management needed for various initiatives and reporting. Always spreadsheets and never heard much back when completed.
4 - spend endless time trying to get permission to hire, request pay rises or promotions for your team (but never succeeding)
5 perform tick and flick end of year reviews (i had 60 staff so could spend no time with them individually as I was always working on items 1 and 2).
btw I spent approx 70% of my time working on item 1.
Who can describe precisely and exhaustively what the people manager does? What are his deliverables? What talents are we looking for in the people manager? The functional manager is typically the project manager for the staff that are billable and the line manager for those that only cost money. If they can not manage people then eject them: we must stop pampering the overhead!
The 2 in a box is just another deception for buying time again: do you really think anything will change? 2 persons will now do the job of one? What prevents the first one from doing his job?
Instead of vomitting pre-cooked solutions one should think first! Think harder! Harder! Get the all the intoxicating overhead out now. The eco system for billable staff is the project! That is where all the fun and excitement is.
Escort these clowns to the exit! Get the overhead out and pay those that bring in the money. I have not exchanged 1 word with my “people mgr” in the last 6 years.