Managers sit at the centre of almost every HR priority for 2026.
They’re expected to support wellbeing, turn feedback into action, embed learning, lead through change, explain AI, and create psychologically safe environments, all while delivering on demanding targets.
In Hive’s HR Trends analysis, manager capability consistently emerged as one of the biggest delivery constraints across engagement, wellbeing, learning, psychological safety and AI adoption.
And yet, confidence in manager capability is strikingly low. It just doesn’t add up.
In our research, only 5% of HR leaders said they are very confident in their managers’ capability. The remaining 95% reported moderate or low confidence, despite managers being the frontline of engagement and delivery.
This matters because manager confidence was one of the lowest-scoring areas across the entire HR Trends survey, despite managers being central to almost every strategic priority organisations are pursuing in 2026.
That gap isn’t about intent. Most managers want to do a good job. The issue is clarity, support and prioritisation. So how can HR and organisations better support managers in 2026?
Where manager delivery breaks down
When expectations are broad and support is vague, a few predictable things happen:
- Feedback gets reviewed, but not acted on
- Difficult conversations are delayed or avoided
- Managers feel overwhelmed and unsure what “good” looks like
- Employee experience becomes inconsistent across teams
Over time, this erodes trust, not because managers don’t care, but because confidence drops.
Psychological safety isn’t created by policies or programmes. It’s shaped by everyday manager behaviour: how feedback is handled, how concerns are responded to, and whether people feel listened to when things feel pressured.
Our wider HR Trends analysis shows that communication, trust and leadership visibility are the strongest drivers of engagement and psychological safety. In practice, those drivers show up most clearly in everyday manager behaviour.
Why more training isn’t always the answer
Many organisations respond to this challenge by adding more: more frameworks, more content, more expectations.
But managers don’t need more information. They need focus.
One of the clearest patterns in our HR Trends analysis was that capability issues aren’t caused by a lack of content, but by a lack of clarity.
They need to know:
- What matters most right now
- What action is expected of them
- Where they can get help when things feel unclear
- How employee voice supports managers, not scrutinises them
How employee voice supports managers, not pressures them
This is where employee voice is often misunderstood.
Used well, employee voice isn’t about judging managers or adding pressure. It’s about giving managers insight they can actually act on.
Clear, focused feedback helps managers:
- Understand what’s landing well and what isn’t
- Prioritise the behaviours that have the biggest impact
- Start conversations earlier, before issues escalate
This is especially important given that our HR Trends research shows many HR leaders want to use people data to drive decisions, but don’t yet feel confident translating insight into action at manager level.
When managers feel supported rather than assessed, confidence improves quickly. Conversations happen earlier. Feedback leads to action. Teams feel safer speaking up.
What supporting managers actually looks like in practice
Supporting managers is not about asking them to do more. It is about reducing noise and increasing confidence.
This is where platforms like Hive play a different role to traditional engagement tools.
Used well, Hive helps HR leaders:
- Translate employee voice into clear, prioritised expectations for managers with key drivers and Action Grid
- Signal what matters most right now, rather than everything at once
- Provide visible backing when managers are expected to act
In-platform manager reports (landing in the Hive platform soon) give manager insights, not just data, on key areas affecting engagement in their team, and clear actions for them to take.
Instead of sending managers broad engagement scores or generic action plans, Hive enables a more focused rhythm.
Managers see a small number of themes that matter most to their teams. They are guided towards practical actions that are proven to make a difference. HR can see, in real time, where managers are confident and where they are stuck.
This shifts employee voice from something managers feel assessed by, to something they are supported by.
For HR, this changes the conversation:
- from “Why hasn’t this manager acted?”
- to “What does this manager need to act well?”
When managers know what good looks like, what is expected of them now, and that HR will back them when issues surface, confidence improves. Conversations happen earlier. Feedback turns into action rather than frustration.
Employee voice becomes the mechanism through which managers are enabled, not exposed.
The real shift HR leaders need to make
Manager capability doesn’t improve through expectation alone. It improves when managers are enabled with clarity, insight and backing.
Employee voice is a critical part of that system, not as a scorecard, but as the infrastructure that helps managers focus, act and build trust with their teams.
As organisations head into 2026, manager capability is no longer a supporting issue. It’s one of the core HR priorities that determines whether insight, strategy and trust translate into real impact.
