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The workforce trends of 2023 focused largely on employee burnout and decreased job satisfaction, as seen through such trends as quiet quitting, “bare-minimum Mondays” and “boreout,” the TikTok sensation.

Yet with the latest viral career trend, “managing up,” there seems to be a shift in focus.  

Three job experts weighed in on how this latest trend is affecting employees, managers and the U.S. corporate culture and what workers need to know.

“Managing up,” long a concept in the work world, involves intentionally developing meaningful relationships with supervisors and upper-level management within an organizational structure.

“When they manage up well, employees increase their overall effectiveness, thereby contributing a higher value to their supervisor and the organization,” said Beth Radtke, vice president and chief human resources officer with Ketjen, a global specialty chemicals manufacturer in Houston, Texas. 

A good starting point is to understand a managers leadership and communication styles, said experts.

“It is advantageous for employees to directly ask their managers about their leadership style and how they like to communicate,” suggested Radtke. 

“Think of it as an operating manual for the manager,” she said. “When employees know this information, they can tailor their approach, packaging information for their manager that is easy for them to digest, whether it’s in a face-to-face meeting or a weekly recap email.”

In turn, the employees will learn more detailed expectations, such as how often a manager expects updates and/or when to escalate any potential issues on the job, she said. 

“Once employees know this crucial information, they can provide exactly what the manager needs and the manager doesnt get frustrated with too many updates or, conversely, the feeling they need to regularly follow up with the employee for the project status,” said Radtke.

Managing up includes the genuine goal of fostering strong workplace relationships and the employees intentions are almost always good, experts asserted.

“It is important to note that managing up is not about excessive flattery, manipulation, circumventing managers or taking over their responsibilities,” Radtke told FOX Business.

Rather, “managing up is built on the employee-manager relationship and starts with an employee understanding whats expected of them.”

She added, “More than that, it is a critical relationship in the workplace built on mutual trust and respect where the employee feels comfortable demonstrating transparency, courage and humility.”

Respectful relationships generally advance open, honest and clear communication, said Rue Dooley, HR knowledge advisor with the Society for Human Resource Management (shrm.org) in Alexandria, Virginia.

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“When people, managers or not, feel respected, they are, in my experience, much less likely to be silent about matters of significance and more likely to express their ideas and concerns freely, resulting in more effective collaboration,” Dooley said. 

“Respect is fundamental to building trust and trust is crucial in all healthy relationships, maybe even a working relationship, especially,” he said.

Furthermore, when people respect each other, they’re less likely to have visceral disagreements and more likely to approach reconciliation with a mindset toward compromise rather than escalating tensions, he noted. 

“Basic respect is the foundation of a collaborative environment,” Dooley said. 

Sucking up has negative connotations, said Dooley. 

In contrast, he said, “managing up refers to a tried and proven workplace behavior with different roots and fruits.”

Sucking up or brown-nosing is generally the attempt to get special or unwarranted praise by being a so-called “yes” person, agreeing with everything a manager thinks, says or does, said Dooley.  

“Those behaviors are disingenuous and self-serving,” he said.

In contrast, managing up can benefit both employees and managers in valuable ways, said the experts.

“Managing up is showing up and supporting your manager with honest feedback to help accomplish the best outcome for the organization,” said Vanessa Matsis-McCready, associate general counsel and vice president of HR Services with Engage PEO, based in New York City. 

For example, if a manager is about to make a mistake that will negatively impact the company, she said, the employee who is not managing up might automatically say, “That is a great idea.” 

Yet a true partner who is managing up and who has the company’s best interests in mind will share concerns about any negative impacts respectfully so that a manager has a chance to change the trajectory if needed, she suggested. 

“Managing up involves great communication, empathy and understanding,” said Matsis-McCready.

“It is mutually beneficial to both the employee and the manager.”

She added, “With managing up, employees learn about and anticipate their managers needs and priorities. They then use this knowledge to problem-solve, meet their mutual goals and help their managers achieve the companys goals.”

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Entertainment

Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness ‘will only get worse’

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Gillian Anderson warns UK homelessness 'will only get worse'

Gillian Anderson has warned homelessness is a growing problem in the UK – one that will only get worse if we enter a recession.

The award-winning actress, who is playing a woman facing homelessness along with her husband in her latest film, The Salt Path, told Sky News: “It’s interesting because I feel like it’s even changed in the UK in the last little while.”

Born in Chicago, and now living in London, she explained: “I’m used to seeing it so much in Vancouver and California and other areas that I spent time. You don’t often see it as much in the UK.”

Her co-star in the film, White Lotus actor Jason Isaacs, chips in: “You do now.”

“It’s now becoming more and more prevalent since COVID,” said Anderson, “and the current financial situation in the country and around the world.

“It’s a topic that I think will be more and more in the forefront of people’s minds, particularly if we end up going into a recession.”

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film is based on Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir, which depicts her and her husband’s 630-mile trek along the Cornish, Devon and Dorset coastline, walking from Minehead, Somerset to Land’s End.

Written from her notes on the journey, The Salt Path went on to sell over a million copies worldwide and spent nearly two years in The Sunday Times bestseller list. Winn’s since written two more memoirs.

Isaacs, who plays her husband Moth Winn in the movie, told Sky News that Winn told him she “hopes [the film] makes people look at homeless people when they walk by in a different light, give them a second look and maybe talk to them”.

With record levels of homelessness in the UK, with a recent Financial Times analysis showing one in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness, the cost of living crisis is worsening an already serious problem.

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

The film sees Ray and Winn let down by the system, first by the court which evicts them from their home, then by the council which tells them despite a terminal diagnosis they don’t qualify for emergency housing.

Following the loss of their family farm shortly after Moth’s shock terminal diagnosis with rare neurological condition Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), the couple find solace in nature.

They set off with just a tent and two backpacks to walk the coastal path.

Isaacs says living in a transient way comes naturally to actors, admitting like his character, he too “lives out of a suitcase” and is “away on jobs often”.

Read more:
Is this every actor’s bucket list job?

Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Image:
Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear

Shot in 2023 across Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Wales, Anderson says as a city-dweller, the locations had an impact on her.

Anderson reveals: “As I’ve gotten older, I have become more aware of nature than […] when I was younger, and certainly in filming this film and being outside and so much of nature being a third character, it did shift my thinking around it.”

Meanwhile, Isaacs says he discovered a “third character” leading the film just the day before our interview, when speaking to Winn on the phone.

Isaacs says the author told him: “I feel like there’s three characters in the film,” going on, “I thought she was going to say nature, but she said, ‘No, that path'”.

Isaacs elaborates: “Not just nature, but that path where the various biblical landscapes you get and the animals, they matter.

“The things that happen on that path were a huge part of their own personal story and hopefully the audience’s journey as well.”

The Salt Path comes to UK cinemas on Friday 30 May.

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Politics

PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget – as Farage makes two big election promises

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PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget - as Farage makes two big election promises

Sir Keir Starmer could decide to lift the two-child benefit cap in the autumn budget, amid further pressure from Nigel Farage to appeal to traditional Labour voters.

The Reform leader will use a speech this week to commit his party to scrapping the two-child cap, as well as reinstating winter fuel payments in full.

The prime minister – who took Westminster by surprise at PMQs by revealing his intention to row back on the winter fuel cut – has previously said he would like to lift the two-child cap if the government could afford it.

There are now mounting suggestions an easing of the controversial benefit restriction may be unveiled when the chancellor delivers the budget later this year.

According to The Observer, Sir Keir told cabinet ministers he wanted to axe the measure – and asked the Treasury to look for ways to fund the move.

It comes after the government delayed the release of its child poverty strategy, which is expected to recommend the divisive cap – introduced by former Tory chancellor George Osborne – is scrapped.

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Why did Labour delay their child poverty strategy?

Ministers have already said any changes to winter fuel payments, triggered by mounting political pressure, would only be made when the government’s next fiscal event rolls round.

The Financial Times reported it may be done by restoring the benefit to all pensioners, with the cash needed being clawed back from the wealthy through the tax system.

The payment was taken from more than 10 million pensioners this winter after it became means-tested, and its unpopularity was a big factor in Labour’s battering at recent elections.

Before Wednesday’s PMQs, the prime minister and chancellor had insisted there would be no U-turn.

More from Sky News:
PM’s winter fuel claim ‘not credible’
Starmer vs Reeves – the ‘rift’ in Downing Street

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Will winter fuel U-turn happen?

Many Labour MPs have called for the government to do more to help the poorest in society, amid mounting concern over the impact of wider benefit reforms.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown this week told Sky News the two-child cap was “pretty discriminatory” and could be scrapped by raising money through a tax on the gambling industry.

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Brown questioned over winter fuel U-turn

Mr Farage, who believes Reform UK can win the next election, will this week accuse Sir Keir of being “out of touch with working people”.

In a speech first reported by The Sunday Telegraph, he is expected to say: “It’s going to be these very same working people that will vote Reform at the next election and kick Labour out of government.”

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Politics

Sir Alan Bates attacks ‘kangaroo court’ Post Office scheme after ‘take it or leave it’ offer

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Sir Alan Bates attacks 'kangaroo court' Post Office scheme after 'take it or leave it' offer

Sir Alan Bates has accused the government of presiding over a “quasi kangaroo court” for Post Office compensation.

Writing in The Sunday Times, the campaigner, who led a years-long effort for justice for sub-postmasters, revealed he had been given a “take it or leave it” offer that was less than half of his original claim.

“The sub-postmaster compensation schemes have been turned into quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses,” he said.

“Claims are, and have been, knocked back on the basis that legally you would not be able to make them, or that the parameters of the scheme do not extend to certain items.”

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as if money was missing from their accounts.

Many are still waiting for compensation despite the previous government saying those who had their convictions quashed were eligible for £600,000 payouts.

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‘It still gives me nightmares’

After the Post Office terminated his contract over a false shortfall in 2003, Sir Alan began seeking out other sub-postmasters and eventually took the Post Office to court.

More on Post Office Scandal

A group litigation order (GLO) scheme was set up to achieve redress for 555 claimants who took the Post Office to the High Court between 2017 and 2019.

Sir Alan, who was portrayed by actor Toby Jones in ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, has called for an independent body to be created to deliver compensation.

He added that promises the compensation schemes would be “non-legalistic” had turned out to be “worthless”.

It is understood around 80% of postmasters in Sir Alan’s group have accepted a full and final redress, or been paid most of their offer.

Read more:
Post Office scandal explained

Who are the key figures in the scandal?

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‘Lives were destroyed’

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told Sky News: “We pay tribute to all the postmasters who’ve suffered from this scandal, including Sir Alan for his tireless campaign for justice, and we have quadrupled the total amount paid to postmasters since entering government.

“We recognise there will be an absence of evidence given the length of time which has passed, and we therefore aim to give the benefit of the doubt to postmasters as far as possible.

“Anyone unhappy with their offer can have their case reviewed by a panel of experts, which is independent of the government.”

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