Recommendations for organisations

Next, I will discuss some recommendations for organisations. First, organi- sations should carefully identify who to promote or hire to FTM roles, be- cause the best expert is not necessarily the best manager (e.g., Park and Faer- man, 2019). Second, it would be beneficial to ensure, that the FTM roles are not too demanding. As becoming a manager requires a lot of learning, an op- timally demanding position likely supports learning the best. Connected to the demandingness of the FTM role is also adjusting expectations towards FTMs to a reasonable level: because they are still learning managerial work, their performance might not be consistent, and they will likely make mis- takes. Also, learning takes time and even more if the FTM is new to the or- ganisation.

Third, the workload of FTMs should be reasonable to support learning and their well-being. If the managerial role includes also expert work, it would be good to limit the number of expert tasks. Also, especially in the case of indi- viduals being promoted from an expert role to a pure managerial role within an organisation, the problem with previous expert responsibilities following to the managerial role should be tackled. In this case, the FTM’s superior

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should at first limit the FTM responsibilities, until the previous expert tasks are finalised. As my findings suggest, having lots of expert tasks can hinder managerial learning and even prevent transforming one’s identity.

Fourth, providing FTMs time, space, and energy to learn, might also help them to become self-aware and more able to control their work environment.

However, it is likely, that good organisational support is the other key ingre- dient for achieving this. Finally, organisations can learn from the experiences of past and current FTMs (Plakhotnik et al., 2011). Therefore, it would be beneficial to ask feedback from them.

Support the FTMs

Support is in a central role in the process of becoming a manager. Further- more, FTMs are the future leaders. Therefore, an organisation should be pre- pared to support their FTMs in several ways. Plakhotnik et al. (2011) suggest a framework for considering the organisational support (see Table 4). It is targeted for a human resources function, but I argue that in a smaller organ- isation also the responsible managers can benefit from using it. The frame- work highlights different types of organisational support such as (tailored) formal training, mentoring and indirect support.

First, the formal training should be tailored to meet the needs of the individ- ual and the specific requirements of the role in question: people have differ- ent backgrounds and work experiences, and FTM roles are also different.

Also, the timespan should be considered: a longer timespan likely supports managerial learning better than just a short induction. Moreover, the train- ing could start before the promotion as Plakhotnik (2017) suggests and it could include anticipating the common FTM challenges (Austin et al., 2013).

Smaller organisations, which might not have resources for organising in- house training, can benefit from FTM trainings offered by e.g., trade unions.

Second, the organisational support should include also social support such as mentoring. Also, peer support and possibly networking with other FTMs would be beneficial: the FTMs would not be alone with their challenges. This would likely help them to solve the challenges better and thus be more effec- tive as well as reduce the emotional burdens of becoming a manager.

Third, according to my findings it is vitally important that the FTMs learn to lead themselves effectively. Capabilities in agenda management, critical re- flection and making conscious choices and taking action based on them were central to my informants in overcoming challenges as well as in taking care of their well-being. Therefore, the organisational support should teach this kind of skills and promote applying them. One possible way to achieve this would be arranging a job crafting intervention (Bakker and de Vries, 2021),

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or then otherwise ensuring that these aspects are included in the training and mentoring of FTMs. Also, a personality test might be helpful. In this, as well as other types of training, providing the FTMs with enough time and space, encouraging them to apply their learnings in practice and giving them con- structive feedback on their progress will increase the chances of learning tak- ing place.

Table 4. Policies and procedures to consider in supporting first-time manag- ers. (Framework developed by Plakhotnik et al. (2011, p. 40–41)).

Process Career develop- ment

Training and development

Organisational development

Building leadership

potential

Does this first-time manager have the knowledge, skills, and

attitude required to succeed in this posi-

tion?

What kind of training and/or development does

this manager need?

Are there barriers to opportunities to participate in organisational

change initia- tives?

Developing of manage- rial identity

Does the first-time manager have a formal

or informal mentor who can provide sup- port during the transi-

tion to management and beyond?

What are the new and/or additional training and de- velopment needs

of the first-time manager?

Does the organi- sation have a for-

mal or informal reward system

for first-time manager’s active

involvement in the activities of management?

Learning from expe-

rience

Does the employee have a personal devel-

opment plan?

Are the em- ployee’s training and development needs a priority for the organisa-

tion?

Are policies and procedures in place to provide first-time manag-

ers opportunities to learn from their

experience?

Fourth, the organisational context can provide indirect support, which is vis- ible also in the framework presented above. This kind of support, such as be- ing trusted, might be vitally important for FTMs’ learning and success. Nat- urally, this indirect support is tied to the organisational culture and ways of operating and therefore cannot be boosted or changed overnight. Finally, in the optimal case, organisational support will make the demanding transition of FTMs manageable.

Provide a good organisational context

As has been discussed already before, the organisational context can play a key role in the process of becoming a manager. In addition to the indirect

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support mentioned above, the organisational context naturally consists of formal processes and practices that can support an FTM. Considering and developing these in advance will help not only the individuals but also the organisation to be successful. Nowadays organisational performance is more dependent on high-quality knowledge work i.e., its people. Therefore, taking care of the employees such as FTMs is vitally important. An example of how the organisational context can impact individuals is job crafting: if the organ- isation supports employee autonomy, they are more likely to craft their jobs (Tims and Bakker, 2010). Therefore, supporting autonomy is beneficial.

Also, it should be noted, that each organisation should themselves consider which processes and practices related to FTMs are relevant in their case.

Companies might have other aspects to consider than other types of organi- sations and vice versa. According to my study, the FTM roles in organisations also vary from having a small managerial responsibility added to an expert role to having a pure managerial role with tens of subordinates and wide re- sponsibilities. Therefore, organisations need to ensure that their environ- ment is suitable for supporting the kind of FTM roles they have.

Remember well-being

Linked to the previous two subchapters is the well-being of FTMs. A company culture that has a healthy orientation towards well-being at work can strongly influence employees such as FTMs. An example of this would be a common practice to not work overtime and having enough staff for achieving the re- quired organisational output. According to the literature (Skakon et al., 2010;

Inceoglu et al., 2018) and my findings, supporting the well-being of (first- time) managers can help in supporting subordinate well-being. Furthermore, with FTMs, organisations should acknowledge their tendency to try to prove themselves (Bergin, 2009; Park and Faerman, 2019), which might signifi- cantly impact their personal well-being. Therefore, recognising this might help the superiors of FTMs to step in before the FTMs get exhausted.

An important thing an organisation can do to support FTM well-being is to allow and urge them to be off from work on their free time. This helps them to recover from work stresses and supports learning, which help FTMs to succeed, be creative as well as become effective and productive. Moreover, also organisations should remember that a stressed person, who needs re- covery the most, is less capable of participating in recovering activities (Bak- ker and de Vries, 2021). FTMs will likely be stressed at some point of their transition process. Furthermore, the organisation could offer support for in- dividual well-being such as trainings or consultations. Also, organisations can support employee well-being by communicating its importance and en- couraging to discuss well-being openly.

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In the big picture, organisations should and could foster also the well-being of FTMs with helping them to manage their job characteristics through job crafting (Bakker and de Vries, 2021). This could be achieved e.g., by the in- tervention discussed earlier. Finally, to support the superiors of FTMs and (smaller) organisations to consider well-being holistically, I would like to dis- cuss the model in Figure 2 suggested by Guest (2017).

Figure 2. Model for considering employee well-being in organisations by Guest (2017, p. 30).

Guest (2017) states that the model is not complete but, in my opinion, it can help to grasp various organisational aspects affecting employee well-being.

At a minimum, it can offer a starting point for discussing and considering well-being better in organisations. The model includes different sectors of individual well-being i.e., psychological, physical, and social, takes into ac- count the formal organisational context as well as more subjective aspects such as the indirect supports referred to earlier.

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Mind the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the everyday life in organisations was in- fluenced quite a bit. Based on my findings, a few things are important to no- tice with FTMs. In general, organisations should support the FTMs in addi- tion to other employees to adjust to the ‘new normal’, whatever it might in each organisation mean.

Organisations should ensure that their new hires such as FTMs coming from other organisations are familiarised well-enough to their new organisations.

This is especially central, if the ‘new normal’ includes a lot of remote work.

Tacit information about the organisation, ways of operating and its culture likely are not transferred via Teams or Zoom as in interactions at the office.

This difficultness of getting into a new organisation even during the later phases of the pandemic was visible with some of my informants.

Finally, this induction to the work organisation is a key for maintaining the organisational culture. A strong organisational culture is beneficial for organ- isations especially in turbulent times, and it seems, in some organisations the culture is at risk to become weaker due to lacking human interactions in live encounters. Also, Wojtczuk-Turek et al. (2022) have pointed out this risk.