How Does Career Trap Impact Frontline Managers’ Involvement in HRM? A Qualitative Approach

The domain of people management responsibilities has expanded beyond the HR department, and frontline managers (FLMs) are expected to occupy the center stage. Acknowledging this shift, scholars have begun to study how FLMs should be prepared and motivated for their HR role; however, evidence has affirmed that FLMs are showing frail enthusiasm and readiness to be involved in HR responsibilities. Although much has been written to address this concern, little attention, if any, has centered on FLMs’ career development. As such, this study attempted to resurface FLMs’ career development in devolution literature. Our findings of 20 semi-structured interviews with FLMs from various industries proved very insightful. After codifying our data, we reached to six underlying themes (i.e., absence of career development planning, unstructured approach to mentoring, misaligned training and development expectations, excessive role overload, role disengagement, and turnover intention), illuminating that FLMs are forgotten and, while they are overwhelmed with a wide array of core duties, their chance for personal growth is largely disregarded. The theoretical framework we have produced here offers novel insights into the FLMs’ actual experience of career development opportunities in contemporary organizations and provides potential explanations behind why FLMs are unwilling to embrace or fail to accomplish their assigned roles.