Staff Roles – A Boon or Bane

A staff role in an organization helps in accelerating, helping, or rejuvenating line activities. If a General Manager-Customer Support is in a Line role, then the Training Manager has a Staff Role. If a Marketing Manager is in a Line Role, then the Blog Coordinator is in a staff role, helping the marketing manager to promote his/her product or service. Thus a line activity directly serves the key result areas of a business and a staff role assists mainstream business.

Handling a staff role is like skating on thin ice. Though the top management will give you full authority and support to do your staff role, you will face a lot of hurdles, sometimes from the same management and your colleagues.

I remember a couple of times when I functioned in the role of a Training Manager, though my designation was otherwise. I had to constantly struggle and fight for resources and time.

I once asked a senior colleague (Palani), with a lot of hands-on field experience to help me in the training lab. At the same time, he/she will be called to help a field engineer, a software engineer, or even the marketing team. So, I put my foot down and said that I need his/her help till the lab session is over.

But even a layman can guess that a field request is high priority and is a line function. But sill a trade-off has to be reached as smooth functioning of a training session without interruption is also important. One of the marketing heads used to joke, “Have you released Palani? Can we take his help?”. But you have to be firm, otherwise, next time you organize a training, people will think twice before they can attend one!

At times, when a department head is in a training session, he/she will be called by the Director for a critical business meeting. Sometimes, I have got phone calls from department heads when their staff are held up in a training session that lasts for more than a hour. At times you will get a mild heartache when a training session is canceled at the last minute due to project deadlines.
Thus a staff role is very delicate, as you cannot antagonize people who are at the front-end of the company's business. At the same time you cannot act like a wimp.

Popularity across departments and company branches is something an employee in a Staff Role will get by virtue of his/her role. Sometimes his or her popularity may surpass and overshadow the popularity of Line Managers. This fame is again a sensitive issue, and has to be handled without hurting the sentiments and ego of senior colleagues. Acknowledging and involving the senior colleagues in your decision making and communication will help in easing ego problems.

So a person handling a staff role has to have a firm will, determination, and also good people skills. Then your staff role is a boon and not a bane!!!