Acting Roles

Why acting roles are lose/lose

When a manager leaves, it is quite common for the organisation to ask a direct report to ‘act up’ in the management role.

The logic often goes like this: ‘The manager is leaving—and you’ve been working in this role for some time. Clearly, we’ll go through a recruitment process, but in the short-term it would make sense for you to perform the role’.

Of course, when you’re asked, it’s very likely that you’ll accept. Who wouldn’t? You get more money, a chance to show that you can do the job and you don’t have to worry about an interim boss.

So what’s the problem? Well if it’s a short-term acting role (say less than a month), there shouldn’t be a problem. However, many of these acting roles extend for many months (and in really bad cases for years)!

The problems for the employee include:

You are suddenly thrown into a management role—often without any training.
Without any training you may make mistakes, which tend to get more notice than success!
One day, you’re working with colleagues and the next you are managing them.
Employees will know this is only an acting period; as such, they know that they only need to weather the ‘storm’ for a short time.
More often than not, you will not get the substantive job. If that happens:
You will be back working at the same level as your colleagues again, often an uncomfortable position.
You may appear to have ‘failed’ since there is a high expectation that acting in the role leads to acquiring the role. Consequently, you are likely to become dissatisfied and start looking for other opportunities.

The problems for the organisation include:

Since acting roles are considered short-term, the focus of the acting person tends to be short-term also.
Acting roles tend to promote the status quo rather than considering improvement and change.
When the new manager is appointed, the acting person is unlikely to accept the new order.
From having a good employee with promotion prospects (Why else would you have proposed they act if they weren’t?), you now have a disgruntled employee who is likely to leave or, at the very least, be disruptive. Then you’ll have another role to fill!

So, how can you have a successful ‘acting’ role?

Make sure that the role is only for a short time, perhaps up to six weeks.
See the role as an opportunity, but not as a guarantee that you will get the substantive job.
Don’t ‘burn your bridges’ with former colleagues who you are likely to be working with again.
Try to manage expectations to ensure that no-one is disappointed.
Create ‘bookends’ for the acting period.
At the beginning, agree what is expected during the ‘caretaker period’
At the end, review against those expectations and ensure that the outcome is considered in your performance review.
Ensure that management, you and the team attend a briefing that describes what is happening during the acting time.

Of course, an organisation can also ensure that acting roles are kept to a minimum by:

having realistic notice periods
promoting good communication about career progression so that an exit from the organisation doesn’t come as a shock
ensuring that up-to-date job descriptions exist for all roles that can be used as the basis for recruitment when needed
providing management training for those showing potential so that if they do need to act they are prepared
creating appropriate processes to manage acting roles when they occur
speeding up your recruitment process, so that it takes weeks not months

Managing and reducing acting roles will help everyone. Make the extra effort and it will more than pay for itself.