This can sometimes be more difficult than gaining the support of top management. Front line managers can be cynical or realistic about innovation – they have seen it all before and/or they believe it won’t work (sometimes with good reason). Innovations pushed down from the top can easily fail.
Gaining line management support requires providing an answer to the question, ‘What’s in it for me’? in terms of how the innovation will help them to achieve better results without imposing unacceptable additional burdens on them. New employment practices that take up precious time and involve paperwork will be treated with particular suspicion. Many line managers, often from bitter experience, resent the bureaucracy that can surround and, indeed, engulf systems favoured by HR people, such as traditional performance appraisal schemes.
Obtaining support requires market research and networking – getting around to talk to managers about their needs and testing new ideas to obtain reactions. The aim is to build up a body of information that will indicate approaches that are likely to be most acceptable, and therefore will most probably work, or at least to suggest areas where particular efforts will need to be made to persuade and educate line management. It is also useful to form ‘strategic alliances’ with influential managers who are enthusiastic about the innovation and will not only lend it vocal support but will also co-operate in pilot-testing it.
Gaining line management support requires providing an answer to the question, ‘What’s in it for me’? in terms of how the innovation will help them to achieve better results without imposing unacceptable additional burdens on them. New employment practices that take up precious time and involve paperwork will be treated with particular suspicion. Many line managers, often from bitter experience, resent the bureaucracy that can surround and, indeed, engulf systems favoured by HR people, such as traditional performance appraisal schemes.
Obtaining support requires market research and networking – getting around to talk to managers about their needs and testing new ideas to obtain reactions. The aim is to build up a body of information that will indicate approaches that are likely to be most acceptable, and therefore will most probably work, or at least to suggest areas where particular efforts will need to be made to persuade and educate line management. It is also useful to form ‘strategic alliances’ with influential managers who are enthusiastic about the innovation and will not only lend it vocal support but will also co-operate in pilot-testing it.
On the principle that ‘nothing succeeds like success’, support for new HR practices can often be achieved by demonstrating that it has worked well elsewhere in the organization.
Gaining commitment will be easier if managers have been consulted and know that their opinions have been listened to and acted upon. It is even better to involve them as members of project teams or task forces in developing the new process or system. This is the way to achieve ownership and therefore commitment.
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