Manager Mindsets: Best Practices for Engaging Frontline Managers

Manager Mindsets: Best Practices for Engaging Frontline Managers

By effectively engaging frontline supervisors and hiring managers in practice and culture change, companies can build buy-in for Opportunity Employment and reap the benefits for frontline employees and businesses alike.

Every company, every employee, understands the importance of having a good manager. Companies can easily make public commitments, diversity statements, and other top-down signals of inclusivity. How those commitments are put into action and tangibly impact frontline employees—usually the most diverse segment of a business—is the true indicator of success. At the same time, we know that frontline supervisors and hiring managers (often one in the same) who are responsible for enacting these commitments on a day- to-day level face immense pressure, have limited capacity, and are often overburdened.

As more and more companies make commitments to inclusive talent practices, or Opportunity Employment, we’ve found that these efforts often overlook the critical role of frontline supervisors and hiring managers and underestimate the role of mental models, assumptions, and organizational culture in supporting this shift. By effectively engaging frontline supervisors and hiring managers in practice and culture change, companies can build buy-in for Opportunity Employment and reap the benefits for frontline employees and businesses alike.

In Manager Mindsets we share best practices for engaging and supporting frontline supervisors in systems change for inclusive talent. These insights were gathered from companies and workforce organizations who have experienced these challenges and lessons firsthand.

The research included in this report was made possible through funding from Walmart.

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