Organizations use managers – with varying titles from supervisor to director and vice president – to coordinate activity across parts of the organization.  These managers’ role in the organization is to encourage, support, and coordinate the activities of the people they’re responsible for.  In this role, they’re constantly directing their staff towards productive work, which may or may not align with the proposed change initiative.

People managers are concerned with the engagement and productivity of those they manage and therefore will be appropriately concerned about the degree of disruption that the change will entail – while likely being cautiously optimistic that the changes can help their team.  Situations which place additional burdens on teams that are already saturated with work are likely to be resisted.

The human resources team can work with people managers to make sure that they’re resourced and supported properly, so that the change initiative doesn’t feel like another burden but can be accepted as another opportunity.  Training and support provided through the projects directly to managers will go a long way towards garnering their support.