How HR Leaders Can Build Manager Decision-Making Confidence

Frontline managers make people decisions every day, often under intense pressure. These moments carry both operational and HR consequences, yet many managers hesitate at the exact point a decision matters most.

Gretchen Alarcon, senior vice president and general manager of human capital management (HCM) and pay at UKG spoke with SHRM about how HR leaders can give managers the clarity, tools, and confidence to know when to act and when to bring HR in.

SHRM: When you look across the workforce management landscape, what are the most common issues managers wrongly keep to themselves, and what are they too quick to escalate?

Alarcon: The biggest mistake is assuming frontline decisions show up as clean HR issues. They usually do not. They show up as real operational moments.

A manager is not always looking at a dashboard alert. More often, they are staring at a schedule gap at 6 a.m. Two employees have called out. Demand is about to spike. The manager has to decide quickly: move people around, approve overtime, deny flexibility, ask someone to stay late, document the issue, or call HR.

That is the reality CHROs need to design for. Frontline managers are making people decisions inside operational pressure. The question is not whether they have good intent. Most do. The question is whether they have enough context, guidance, and confidence to make the right decision in the moment.

The issues managers most often keep to themselves are the ones that look operational but may actually signal broader workforce risk. Attendance patterns are a good example, but not because a single callout is automatically an HR issue. It becomes meaningful when there is a pattern.

Each decision may feel small in isolation. But across locations, shifts, and teams, those decisions can affect compliance, fairness, employee trust, labor cost, and retention. That is where CHROs need better visibility — not after the fact, but while the work is happening.

At the same time, managers can also be too quick to escalate issues that should be handled closer to the work. When everything escalates, HR becomes a bottleneck, managers lose confidence, and employees wait too long for answers.

SHRM: Say a scheduling tool flags an employee whose hours and availability have shifted in ways that hint at a larger issue, perhaps a compliance risk or a personal hardship. Walk us through how a well-prepared manager should handle that moment, and at what point HR needs to enter the picture.

Alarcon: A manager should treat this kind of signal as a prompt for curiosity, not a conclusion.

In the moment, the manager is usually not thinking in policy language. They may be looking at a schedule that suddenly has gaps, an employee whose availability has changed twice in three weeks, a pattern of missed shifts, a string of shift swaps, or overtime that is starting to accumulate. What they see is operational pressure: Who can cover the floor? Who is approaching overtime? Is someone consistently missing breaks? Is this a one-time issue or a pattern?

A well-prepared manager should start with what is objectively known: what changed, how long it has been happening, whether it affects coverage, whether there are wage-and-hour or break implications, and whether the situation is creating strain for the employee or the team. The policy document matters, but it is not enough on its own. Managers need guidance that translates policy into the next best action in the flow of work.

From there, the manager should have a private, respectful conversation with the employee. The tone matters. The employee should not feel as if they are under investigation. A manager might say, “I noticed your availability has changed over the past few weeks, and I wanted to check in to understand whether there is anything we should be aware of from a scheduling or support standpoint.” That creates room for the employee to share what they are comfortable sharing without the manager diagnosing the issue, asking invasive questions, or making commitments outside policy.

If the situation is straightforward — a temporary availability change, a routine schedule adjustment, or a coverage issue clearly addressed by policy — the manager should be empowered to handle it directly and document the action appropriately.

HR should enter when the signal suggests there may be more at stake than scheduling. That includes potential leave or accommodation needs, recurring missed breaks, overtime or wage-and-hour risk, fatigue or safety concerns, possible discrimination or retaliation, inconsistent treatment across employees, or any situation that could lead to formal employment action. HR should also be brought in when the manager does not have enough context to act fairly or consistently. 

SHRM: What framework or set of signals would you give managers so they can make escalation decisions consistently, rather than defaulting to instinct or avoiding the call altogether?

Alarcon: Confidence comes from clarity, but that clarity has to be designed around the reality of the work. Organizations cannot expect every manager, across every location and shift, to make consistent escalation decisions based on instinct alone.

I recommend starting with a simple framework: act, document, or escalate.

Managers should be empowered to act when the issue is clear, immediate, low-risk, covered by policy, and reversible. They should document when a pattern may be forming or when the issue affects scheduling, attendance, performance, pay, or team dynamics. And they should escalate when there is risk, ambiguity, potential inequity, sensitive employee context, or a decision that could affect someone’s employment status, legal rights, wellbeing, or formal record.

That framework should be supported by a clear set of signals. The first is risk. Managers should ask, “Could this involve safety, wage-and-hour compliance, leave, accommodation, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, or another area where the organization needs HR expertise?” If the answer is yes, the manager should not handle it alone.

The second is pattern. A one-time issue may be handled close to the work, but a pattern can point to something larger.

The third is consequence. If the manager’s decision could affect pay, schedule stability, benefits, job status, or formal discipline, HR should be part of the conversation.

The fourth is fairness. If two employees in similar situations might be treated differently, or if the manager cannot clearly explain why the decision is consistent and fair, that is a reason to pause.

The fifth is context. Managers are often closest to the work, but they may not have the full human story. If an issue may involve caregiving, health, burnout, financial stress, safety, or another sensitive factor, HR can help ensure the response is appropriate and respectful.

The best escalation frameworks give managers confidence without asking them to become HR experts. They make clear when to act, when to document, and when to bring in HR so the organization can move quickly while still protecting employees, managers, and the business.

SHRM: For HR leaders who want to build stronger managers, what's the most important shift they can make to help their people know when to escalate and trust that judgment when they do?

Alarcon: The most important shift HR leaders can make is to stop treating manager confidence as a training issue alone. While training matters, confidence comes from operating clarity.Managers must understand which actions they own, what they should document, when to escalate, and how their decisions affect employees, teams, compliance, cost, and the broader business.

HR leaders should still invest in scenario-based training that reflects the real situations managers face such as attendance changes, overtime, fatigue, shift swaps, missed breaks, performance concerns, employee conflict, and potential accommodation or leave issues. But managers also need tools that help them apply that training in the flow of work.

This is where a workforce operating platform can help. Rather than making decisions from fragmented data, outdated reports, or instinct alone, managers need a connected view of time, scheduling, pay, HR, compliance, workforce patterns, and employee context. When that data comes together, managers can better understand what is happening, what action is recommended, and what the likely impact of that action will be.   

The goal for CHROs is to surround managers with the clarity, data, tools, and trust they need to lead consistently. When managers can see the context, understand the recommendation, and anticipate the impact of their decision, they are more likely to act quickly, fairly, and confidently — and bring HR in when the moment truly requires it.