How to Manage Up When You Have Two Managers
By: Jessica Powell
Tags: Work, Careers, Succeed, Management, Leadership

My work is split between two managers, and I worry that neither one has full visibility into what I do. How can I make sure this won’t hurt me, especially when it’s time for performance reviews?

Sometimes employees will get split between managers because their core job isn’t enough to fill a work day. One way of looking at this is the company is squeezing out as much work as possible from the human they have employed. (Welcome to capitalism! You are little more than a work unit!)

A more upbeat way to think of it is it can also be a chance for career growth for you, the employee. An additional manager, and a new project or challenge, is a chance to showcase your talents to a wider audience as well as learn from a different leader.

That said, there is a legit reason to worry when your boss comes along to sell you on the benefits of a split manager. How will you be evaluated fairly and holistically when there is no longer just one person tasked with evaluating your work?

To the degree this is in your control, I would strongly advocate for asking that one of your managers has a little more than half of your time. The 51% number is a bit arbitrary, but the point is that you still really want to have one primary manager who oversees the majority of your work and feels they can evaluate your performance on that basis. Otherwise, how will you disabuse them of their notion that you spend most of your time watching YouTube unboxing videos on the job?

You should also try to pin down your managers on the objective. Is this just about getting a specific piece of work done, reporting into an additional manager while you do this? If so, fine, but how long do they expect you will do it? Alternatively, is the assignment about teaching you a new skill and having you work with the person with the relevant expertise? In that case, what does success look like?

Err on the side being an officious bureaucrat and document what you are doing each week via short blurbs that can be emailed to both of your managers.

A common problem employees run into when their work is split across multiple managers is that those managers don’t think the employee is working hard enough or don’t understand why something they’ve asked for isn’t completed more rapidly. Meanwhile, the employee doesn’t know anything is going wrong — they’re plenty busy, between talking about Project A with Manager A and Project B with Manager B.

To head this off before it becomes a problem, I would err on the side of being a bit of an officious bureaucrat and try to document what you are doing each week via short blurbs or snippets that can be emailed to both of your managers simultaneously. This way, you’re providing full visibility into what you are doing, plus you have a nice record you can pull from when you need to write up your self-assessment or prioritize your projects with your managers.

Depending on your company’s performance process, make sure your second manager is inputting into that process and delivering some form of feedback. You might even suggest a three-way meeting right at the start to agree on the objectives — though know your work culture because in lots of fast-moving places, this might seem like overkill and unnecessary.

If all goes well, you will end up with two or more managers who are familiar with your work and will vouch for you during the performance evaluation cycle. Think of it as two upvotes rather than one (and double the networks you can tap into as your career progresses).