To think managers don’t give a hoot about their team’s wellbeing

I don't think it's the fault of managers, I think in some companies the aim is to bleed every last bit of profit from every team member, and this means a shower of shit that flows downhill.
Companies get greedy- they want maximum work from minimum resources and for minimum pay.
We hear the old rhetoric about how the business will go under unless we give blood, sweat and tears and yet year on year they celebrate bigger profits Imcluding huge bonuses for the top dogs.
They give zero care about how this impacts on their staff- management or otherwise.
Not that I'm bitter stuck in a job I despise...lol

My manager has listened to me about issues (work and home problems), has helped me in arranging flexible hours around my childcare, supported me though multiple miscarriages, stuck up for me when I had issues with other departments, put me in my place when I was wrong but in a way I said “fair enough”, came to an appointment with me when I was nervous about it and DH couldn’t come, helped me fill out paperwork, helped my colleague with a financial crisis by finding her agencies with support, has come to an event I arranged outside of work, given me a lift home when I had a prang in the car park… I could go on. All while keeping things ticking over at work and trailblazing several new projects.

She. Gets. Results!

Goes to show that you reap what you sow because we are the highest achieving team and are very loyal to our manager. In a job that is pretty thankless.

I am a good manager on the SLT - 45k employees globally. I am a team player, I will muck in and get shit done in tough times every day of the week if I have to. I once started work at 4.30am on Christmas Eve to get a job done because a team member had let me down.

However (as per quoted post), junior colleagues do seem to need so much support than before in my 20+ years' experience as senior management. I'm not sure what it is. This year, I have taken courses in mental health first aid and counselling to try to offer better support.

Back in the day we said "fire in the belly" made the difference and it was an 80/20 split (20% having the fire to really progress); now it's about 95/5. There seems a real lack of resilience - not sure if it's Covid, parenting, social media...

I say this as someone who was bullied to burn out at age 49 and took a good year to recover, so I am massively sympathetic to employees experiencing mental ill health. As a leader, it is incredibly exhausting, and I spend the majority of my time taking care of people issues rather than business issues.

I care about my team and I like to think they respect me for it. Have really struggled recently with protecting them from the crap coming down from on high. There is only so much you can do and obviously I care about my ability to support my family and parent my kids well more than I care about my team. I've been pretty open with them about it and been clear they need to do the same.

I imagine it's a 70-30 split. 70 being those who do care. I've had both and it's rotten when management don't care. I had one who used annual leave to take each Friday off to use up 20 days leave which caused no end of discomfort for the rest of the team as she was counted in the one person off at any one time rule. I thought that was very selfish.
I think that 30% can be broken down into those who really do not care and those who have no capacity to care as they are under immense pressure themselves.

My manager could not care less about our teams wellbeing she is vile. I love my job but struggling working under her micro managing ways. No work life balance either

Nope.

Support my staff through life events, promote flexibility for all and work life balance.

Actually one of my team sent me flowers last week.

But there's a whole boatload of shit ones out there.

This is not my company culture at all, so I have the opposite issue where I've had to tell one of my direct reports off for sending emails and updating files online at 1 am. She is choosing to work unsociable hours and my company is flexible, but that did not go down well with our director.

But we're lucky, and I feel people often forgot that middle managers have often little influence on these things. Either the company culture does not support late working and it's your responsibility to push back on the deadlines/workloads.
Or it support and encourage this type of behaviours, and then your manager is under the exact same pressure and doesn't really have a choice.

I had a female manager who totally stressed me and I worked till 3:30 am once , now have a wonderful male manager , I messed up recently and he’s been taking the flack and checking in on me , we need more like him

I think I’m a kind manager.

I never make any kind of issue of childcare stuff, appointments etc. I frequently let them take this sort of thing off without having to book annual leave like others do.

I find this breeds goodwill for when the pressure ramps up.

However, (and this isn’t woe is me) I do think sometimes my team forget that 1. I’m a person too with my own pressures outside of work and 2. I do have my own job to do and it’s not just looking after them!

I guess it’s wrong to generalise

Spot on there!

I care deeply about the people I line manage, who are all managers themselves.

I’ve had some absolute cunts as managers and some inspirational, empathetic ones.

I’m biased as a manager of a team in public sector.
genuinely well being is a top priority, if a team member is struggling or having personal issues then they need support put in place.
if someone is not supported with well being then they are not at their best.
if I need to reduce workload and pressure at the cost of next months performance report then so be it.
no good will ever come of unrealistic deadlines or increasing demands. A person will reach breaking point, early intervention is key but the employee needs to be open about this as sometimes it’s hard to identify

Think it's company culture. My current place takes wellbeong genuinely seriously and I know I had the room to really look after my team as best I can...other places not so much.

Yabu to generalise.

Management broke me, I worked tirelessly for my team and protected them from all the shit I got. It was brutal and although my team did really like me, I had to leave for my own mental health.

Yes of course there are shit managers but there are also incredibly good staff doing their best to manage teams.

I am sorry your experience is crap, it really does sound like you have a shit manager. Not everywhere is the same.

Middle management is a rubbish place to be. I always tell my team not to work extra hours because they'll always feel under appreciated for it. If their job isn't doable in the time they have then there is either an issue with how they are doing it or with the expectations of the role. A good manager will know the difference and deal with it accordingly. There are a lot of people that think presenteeism gets them brownie points but that's often not the reality.

I'm lucky enough to work for an organisation that takes mental health and staff wellbeing seriously, and a very supportive manager.

If she thinks someone is under pressure, and that none of the rest of the team has capacity to take on some of their caseload, she makes us stop taking referrals.

Thing is though the work life balance seems to have swung in favour of employees so much since Covid that the well-being of every team member and their outside commitments seems to be seen as more important than what’s best for the business - I think it needs to be evened up a bit personally, it’s a tough time for many businesses these days and being expected to consider everyone’s kids, pets, extended families etc is sometimes a bit much - I can see why a manager would struggle.

It feels these days as though you are expected to maintain your wellbeing in order to cope with all the demands of the job. It's your responsibility, not theirs.

There's no question that the demands should be reduced to help your wellbeing.

Definitely my current experience - I tried saying no to an extra project that I knew would be really stressful and time consuming on top of my other work load.

I was shamed into doing it anyway - and the there's faux surprise at my manager at how I "seem to get very stressed".

If talk to them about it they will use a lot of words and go through the motions but if I think about what was said afterwards it boils down to "it all needs to get done, I cant help you decide the urgency of different projects and I'm not going for one second to take anything off your hands and oh dear have you always been this anxious?".

I have anxiety and stress partly because I have ADHD and I do feel that it is very subtly used against me.

YABU, as you admit yourself I guess it’s wrong to generalise

I'm sorry you've had your poor experiences, but I could equally say the last 3 managers I've had have all been great people who have supported various colleagues through all sorts of thing, and encouraged growth and using our initiatives, and given us autonomy and supported us higher up in the structure.

Every manager is an individual person with individual skills.

Varies from manager to manager. I spent 13 years under an awful manager leaving me feel so worthless. I had zero confidence in my ability and zero confidence in applying for another job as I felt so inadequate. Eventually I got laid off during COVID and started work at another company and the manager was a proper manager who motivated his team and went over and above for his team.

I think the British class system still holds sway and reeks of bosses get carrots and workers need sticks or they'll skive and try to pull fast ones.

I would honestly hate to have this type of manager.

My manager is quite new to the role but deputy has been there since I started 10 years ago. They are both just absolutely wonderful. They check in with everyone daily when we sign in and out, they’re always there for a chat if needed. They have recently brought in a wellness day where we get treats in our staff room and have mental health first aid trained people in HR.

The deputy manager also buys everyone an easter egg out her own money every year!

I think only a certain type of person is actually successful at being a manager. You need to be empathetic and caring along with being good at whatever industry they’re in.

What about the managers wellbeing? Mental health? Immense stress they have whilst being criticised from upper management and junior staff? One saying they aren't doing enough and one saying they are doing too much?

It's a thankless job

From my experience, when this happens, it's usually because the manager is under pressure themselves and rather than dealing with it or pushing back, they pass that pressure down to their direct reports. Your boss is probably getting pressure from their boss and their boss is probably getting pressure from above them!

I think it depends on the company itself over individual managers IME. We have some nice managers at work but the entire team are overloaded and all work too many hours. Managers are screaming for recruitment but keep hitting a wall with the Senior leadership team. I worry they’re putting profit over people I really do. Sadly, people have started voting with their feet and leaving, I
mean good for them but it’s making everyone else’s situation worse (I’ve worked out for every 1 FT person who leaves we bring in 0.5 back, it’s an absolute sinking ship)

People are forever going off with stress, I witnessed a girl have a bad panic attack during the work day. The managers really do care about these individuals but no one above them is willing to do what actually needs to be done to enact change.