Are Leaders Ready to Shape Employee Experience - Not Just Manage Tasks?

5/20/2025

Simona Bernatavičiūtė, Consultant at Figure Baltic Advisory

Empowering Managers - A Strategic Priority

The 2024 Global Talent Trends survey conducted by consulting firm Mercer highlighted one of employers' top priorities: investing in the development of managerial competencies, particularly in areas such as compensation, employee value proposition, and communication. This direction is especially relevant in preparing for the implementation of the European Union’s Pay Transparency Directive, which from 2026 will expand employees' rights to understand and question pay-related decisions. As a result, managers will be expected to clearly communicate pay policies within their teams.

The Primary Architect of Employee Experience

While HR departments are traditionally responsible for key personnel functions - such as recruitment, training, and engagement programs - research shows that up to 80% of an employee’s experience is shaped by the actions of their direct manager. This spans multiple aspects: daily communication, transparency in decision-making, providing feedback, and fostering trust within the team.

Organizations that recognize shared responsibility between HR and management achieve stronger results in employee retention, engagement, and productivity. This creates an urgent need to clearly define the role of managers within the architecture of people management.

A New Era of Transparency: What Will Managers Need to Know and Do?

As mentioned earlier, the implementation of the EU Pay Transparency Directive will require managers not only to understand compensation structures but also to communicate them clearly, consistently, and empathetically. This involves a grasp of the principles behind pay formation - the ability to contextualize decisions within labor market conditions, macroeconomic factors, and competitive environments, sensitivity to individual employee motivations and situations, and the ability to link compensation to organizational performance.

A manager who cannot justify their team’s compensation structure with clarity and rationale becomes a risk factor to the organization's culture and transparency.

The Profile of a Successful Manager: What Needs to Change Today?

A modern manager is more than a task delegator or project executor - she or he is a holistic leader. They must be capable of effective, clear, and timely communication, fostering psychological safety within the team, providing high-quality and constructive feedback, openly discussing performance results, and supporting change initiatives. These competencies must be at the core of managerial development programs - not treated as optional "soft skills."

However, it’s not just managers who must evolve - organizations themselves must transform their practices. This means establishing a clear people management framework that defines the respective responsibilities of HR and managers. Companies will need to incorporate people management competencies into the processes of managerial selection, development, and evaluation. To identify areas for development, they should use data and feedback. Ultimately, organizations must reposition their HR business partners as advisors to leaders - not as compliance enforcers.

Partnership Is a Necessity, Not a Choice

In conclusion, responsibility for the employee experience cannot rest solely with HR professionals. Companies and organizations must develop and foster a true partnership between leaders and HR, one centered around the human experience. This raises a fundamental question: are today’s leaders ready to become architects of the employee experience - or will they remain mere overseers of management processes?