The Most Important Investment in Your Early Career Employee is in Their Manager
I am thrilled every time I see a company investing in their early career hires with rotation programs, leadership development programs, targeted trainings, and more. While these initiatives are incredibly valuable, the impact of this work won’t be fully realized until you invest in these employees' managers.
Many years ago when I worked at Microsoft, our global college hire team ran a survey with early career hires. The most striking result of that survey was that managers overwhelmingly were the #1 influence on employees satisfaction, engagement and intention to stay. My takeaway as a rotation program manager was that I could build the most perfect, beautiful program for employees, but if I wasn’t investing in manager capability, I was still missing the mark.
If organizations truly want to maximize the potential of their early career hires, they must equip managers with the tools, training, and structure to effectively support them. Here’s my recommendations on how to better support your managers:
1. Manager onboarding
This ensures that early career employees start off with informed and proactive managers, rather than managers who are figuring things out as they go.
Manager onboarding should occur before the early career employee's start date to ensure managers are fully prepared for their role.
Best case scenario is that early career employees start within specific windows and you can onboard managers in cohorts.
Even experienced managers should be onboarded if they have never managed an early career employee or if it’s been a while.
I often asked my most experienced managers of early career employees to attend onboardings to share insights with others in the group.
Managers need clarity on company expectations for managing early career employees because it is often different than managing experienced employees.
What is their responsibility to the employee on Day 1? Week 1? Month 1?
How often should they be meeting with employees 1:1 and what is the expectation on giving feedback?
What are common challenges early career employees experience and what is the role of the manager in supporting those challenges?
2. Talent review discussions
Talent reviews often occur within a single team or department—but managers and employees can benefit from a cross-organization approach, especially if your employees are connected through a rotation/development program.
Bringing managers from different teams together ensures alignment on expectations of impact. This is especially helpful when a team-level talent review would only include one or two early career employees.
Assessments must be fair and consistent, avoiding situations where one team fast-tracks promotions while others don’t.
Early career employees talk—they often know who’s getting promoted or receiving raises. Lack of alignment can lead to frustration and disengagement, especially when they see discrepancies in how performance is evaluated across teams.
Holding structured, multi-team talent discussions ensures managers are making equitable and transparent decisions about career progression.
3. Combined training events
If companies are hosting training sessions for early career employees, they should consider including their managers in the experience.
For example, if early career employees complete an assessment, managers should take the same assessment, so they can discuss results and adapt to each other.
If employees learn a new framework, their managers should learn it as well, ensuring a common language and shared understanding.
This approach strengthens communication and alignment, ensuring managers can actively reinforce what early career employees are learning rather than operating in silos.
4. Demand accountability from managers and their leaders
Not everyone is suited to managing early career employees.
Managing early career employees requires more patience, adaptability, and curiosity than managing experienced professionals.
If managers are not meeting the standard, leaders must be willing to push back and address underperformance.
Companies must be willing to reevaluate whether certain managers should remain responsible for early career employees.
Strong leadership means setting expectations for managers and ensuring they have the mindset and capabilities needed for success.
Final Thoughts
Investing in early career employees without investing in their managers is an underperforming strategy. Strong managerial support increases engagement, retention, and overall impact. Companies must ensure managers are properly onboarded, aligned, trained, and held accountable to maximize early career success.
Organizations that recognize the interconnected nature of these investments will see stronger teams, healthier workplace culture, and a more successful early career pipeline.