Consider a common workplace situation. An employee’s performance has changed. They’re missing deadlines, seem withdrawn or are struggling to engage with colleagues.
Is it stress? Menopause? A mental health difficulty? Neurodivergence? Problems outside work? Or simply disengagement?
The manager may not know. And in many cases, they don’t need to know before starting a conversation.
What they do need is the confidence to approach that conversation constructively, listen without making assumptions, explore what support may be appropriate and understand where their responsibilities begin and end.
As organisations navigate increasingly complex workplace health and wellbeing challenges, we risk overlooking something important: while the circumstances employees face vary enormously, many of the human skills managers need to respond effectively remain the same.
Different challenges, shared human skills
Workplace wellbeing is often approached through individual subjects: mental health, menopause, neurodiversity, stress, burnout and other health or personal circumstances. Each has its own guidance, awareness campaigns and training.
This knowledge matters. Understanding how different conditions or circumstances may affect someone at work helps managers respond more appropriately and avoid misconceptions.
But managers rarely encounter these issues as neatly defined categories. They encounter people whose behaviour, performance or wellbeing may have changed, sometimes without an obvious explanation.
Whatever the underlying circumstances, the starting point is often similar: noticing a change, opening a constructive conversation, listening with empathy, avoiding assumptions and exploring what might help.
These are transferable human skills. They enable managers to respond with care and confidence without feeling they must immediately identify the cause or have all the answers.
Of course, what happens next will depend on the individual situation. Appropriate adjustments, specialist advice or formal processes may differ considerably. But the ability to navigate that initial conversation provides a foundation across many different challenges.
Moving beyond awareness
Awareness training has played an important role in improving understanding of workplace health and reducing stigma. But recognising signs and symptoms is only one part of effective management. The more difficult questions often come afterwards.
How do you raise a concern about someone’s performance without making assumptions about their health? How do you listen empathetically while maintaining appropriate expectations? When might adjustments be needed? And when should you involve HR, occupational health or other specialist support?
These are practical judgements that require more than knowledge alone.
Our recent work with an international media and information services organisation illustrates why this distinction matters. The organisation wanted to equip its managers to recognise and address performance concerns earlier, with a better understanding of the factors that may be affecting employees at work.
Work Well Being designed and delivered a programme combining awareness of mental health and menopause-related challenges with practical skills for navigating sensitive conversations, exercising sound judgement and identifying when additional support may be appropriate.
Through interactive workshops, individual manager clinics and virtual sessions, the focus was on helping managers approach performance concerns with greater understanding and confidence, while maintaining appropriate expectations and boundaries.
The aim was not to turn managers into experts in individual health conditions, but to strengthen the core management skills that can be applied across a range of situations.
The growing responsibility placed on managers
The wider workplace health agenda increasingly recognises the importance of managers.
The government’s Keep Britain Working Review places emphasis on earlier conversations about health and work, practical support and helping employees remain in employment. Managers have an important role in making those conversations possible.
Similarly, with menopause action plans expected to become mandatory for larger employers from spring 2027, organisations are considering how policies and commitments translate into everyday management practice.
Yet these developments also raise a question: as expectations of managers continue to grow, are we giving equal attention to their capability and capacity?
Managers are navigating organisational change, evolving technology, economic uncertainty, performance pressures and employees facing challenges both inside and outside work. We cannot simply keep adding to the list of things managers are expected to recognise and respond to, without considering what they need to fulfil those expectations.
Who supports the manager after the conversation?
There is another dimension to manager capability that receives less attention.
We encourage managers to listen empathetically, create psychological safety, support colleagues experiencing difficulties and handle sensitive conversations with care.
But what happens to the manager afterwards?
A conversation about someone’s mental health, a difficult performance discussion or supporting a colleague through a personal crisis can carry an emotional weight. For some managers, these conversations may be happening alongside several other demanding situations, while they are managing their own pressures.
The ability to support others effectively also requires the ability to look after ourselves. This means helping managers recognise their own emotional responses, regulate themselves during and after challenging interactions, maintain healthy boundaries and understand when they need support.
Practical techniques for managing stress, taking time to recover after difficult conversations and recognising when to seek advice are not peripheral to effective management. They are part of developing sustainable capability.
And this cannot be left entirely to individual self-care. Managers need access to appropriate support, opportunities to discuss difficult situations and clarity about what they are responsible for. They should not be expected to absorb the emotional demands of supporting others without somewhere to turn themselves.
Building capability without adding to the burden
Rather than treating every employee challenge as a separate training requirement, organisations should consider how they can build the core skills managers need across different situations, alongside appropriate specialist knowledge.
That means asking:
• Are managers given opportunities to practise constructive conversations, empathetic listening and sound judgement, rather than simply learning about signs and symptoms?
• Do they understand how to explore individual needs, consider appropriate adjustments and access specialist advice without stepping beyond their responsibilities?
• Are they equipped to manage their own emotional responses, maintain boundaries and recover after challenging interactions?
• Do organisational expectations, workloads and support structures give managers the time and capacity to put these skills into practice?
These questions matter because manager capability is not simply about what an individual knows or can do. It also depends on the conditions in which they are expected to manage.
Supporting the people who support others
Managers cannot be expected to have all the answers. Nor should they be responsible for resolving every health, wellbeing or personal challenge affecting their teams.
But they can be equipped with the human skills to recognise when something may be wrong, open a constructive conversation, respond with empathy and judgement, and know what to do next.
Those skills are valuable across a wide range of circumstances, even when the underlying issues are very different.
Equally important is recognising that managers are people too. They need boundaries, emotional resilience, practical support and space to look after their own wellbeing.
As organisations place greater emphasis on the role of managers in workplace health, the priority should not simply be asking more of them. It should be ensuring they have the skills, confidence and support to navigate what is being asked of them, without having to carry it all themselves.
About the author:
Louise Padmore is the Founder of Work Well Being. After more than a decade in senior roles within fast-paced corporate environments, she founded the business in 2014 to help organisations create healthier, more sustainable ways of working. With a BSc in Management Science from Alliance Manchester Business School, Louise leads a multidisciplinary team supporting organisations across the UK and internationally to develop the human skills that strengthen wellbeing, leadership, team effectiveness and sustainable performance.
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