For HR and People leaders
A manager program you can measure.
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Manager Fundamentals gives frontline managers the standards, tools and conversations the job requires, then reports progress against each manager's own baseline. It works alongside HR, not around it. Anything touching performance, pay or separation stays with you.
Promoted for doing the work well. Rarely trained for the new job.
In CMI and YouGov's 2023 research in the UK, 82% of people moving into management had no formal management or leadership training when they started (CMI, 2023). The job they walk into is getting heavier: 71% of leaders report a significant increase in stress since taking their current role (DDI, 2025). And the people they manage notice. Only 15% of employees say their manager helped them build a career plan in the past six months (LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2025).
The program is built the way the research says training works: practice, feedback, and sessions spaced over weeks rather than crammed into a day. Here, the practice happens on each manager's own team. A meta-analysis of 335 studies found those design choices were linked to stronger results (Lacerenza et al., 2017).
- Session 01: The Job Is Different Now
- Session 02: The Job Description Is The Spine
- Session 03: Accountability And Operational Efficiency
- Session 04: The Team Priority Matrix
- Session 05: Delegation And Capacity
- Session 06: The Conversations Managers Avoid
- Session 07: Hiring And Interviewing
- Session 08: Performance Management And Separations
Measurement
Individual baselines, not group averages.
Why individual
Each manager is measured against their own baseline, not the group average. The cohort is mixed on purpose, so averages wouldn’t mean anything.
The baseline
A baseline time audit in Session 01 shows where each manager’s week actually goes.
The re-measure
Every person on each team is placed on the Team Priority Matrix in week one and again in week eight. Movement on the grid is the result.
The readout
A week-eight readout turns the baseline and the re-measure into an executive summary.
The 9-box is for executive talent reviews. This is for a frontline manager's week.
The Team Priority Matrix is a three-by-three grid with morale on one axis and technical capability on the other. The center is the baseline, the top right is the target, and the bottom left is the zone where the answer is a performance plan or an exit, after support. Each box has its own strategy, so the manager knows where their coaching time goes this week.
It isn't the HR 9-box, which rates performance against potential for talent reviews, and it isn't an Eisenhower matrix, which sorts tasks. Managers place each person in week one and again in week eight, and the movement is the result.
Guardrails
Built to stay on the right side of HR.
- Use company-approved AI tools only.
- Use placeholder names for employees.
- Route anything touching performance, pay or separation through HR.
- AI is an administrative staff officer. It drafts the artifact. It never makes a people decision.
- Pay gets a short handling script, not a full topic.
- Performance, separation and offboarding templates are operational tools, reviewed by your HR team or counsel before use.
- Sessions aren't recorded. Who said what stays in the room.
Logistics
What it takes to run.
Cohort size
Six to twelve managers from your company for the eight-week cohort. Four to twelve for a full-day or half-day intensive.
Format
Live and interactive, run remotely or on-site in metro Atlanta. Not a webinar: managers are asked to talk about real situations.
Schedule
Forty-five minutes a week for eight weeks, plus about thirty minutes of homework each week, done on the manager's own team.
What managers need
Their team's real work to practice on, access to a company-approved AI tool, and the calendar protected for the session.
Questions
Asked before, answered plainly.
No. It teaches managers to run the one-on-ones, the feedback and the documentation well. Policy, decisions and legal review stay with you. Anything touching performance, pay or separation routes through HR, in the sessions and in every AI prompt.
Yes. Company-specific details are swappable: tool names, templates and the org structure. The job description prompt, for example, checks for your company template or brand voice before it drafts anything.
Sessions aren't recorded. Concepts leave the room; who said what doesn't. In AI tools, managers use placeholder names for employees and company-approved tools only.
The week-eight readout: each manager's movement against their own baseline, how placements on the Team Priority Matrix changed between week one and week eight, and the themes across the cohort. Nothing personal a manager said in the room.
Pay isn't taught as a topic. Managers get a short script for handling the question when it comes up, and the conversation routes to HR.
No. The improvement plan template, the offboarding checklist and the rest are operational tools. Your HR team or counsel reviews them before they're used, and they're written so that review is quick.
Sal Cervantes, who spent more than fourteen years in SaaS customer operations and, along the way, built an SOP library, wrote a company-wide OKR framework, and authored job descriptions and compensation structures. More about Sal.