There's a particular kind of exhaustion that experienced managers rarely talk about openly. It's not the exhaustion of long hours or difficult decisions. It's the exhaustion of doing work that shouldn't need to be done, like walking a capable person through a process for the third time, untangling a situation that a simple checklist could have prevented, or sitting across from an auditor trying to reconstruct a paper trail that was never built in the first place.
For one senior operations manager overseeing approximately 400 personnel in a government agency, that exhaustion is a familiar companion. But so is the remedy.
Managing in Four Directions at Once
His role is not what most people picture when they hear the word “manager.” It pulls in every direction at once. Most of it is relationship work rather than operations in the traditional sense.
“My day is generally about people, managing relationships with clients who are other government agencies, building managers, the corporate team within our organisation, and most importantly, the personnel we have doing the actual work,” he says.
Below him sits a team of direct reports, each responsible for their own portfolio of personnel and operations. Here's the challenge that shapes everything else: those direct reports are not a uniform group. They arrive with different levels of experience, different educational backgrounds and different strengths. In theory, they each own their domain. In practice, the gaps in capability flow uphill.
“What generally happens is I have to take on a greater amount of the load in making decisions, having direct oversight of process to ensure it's done correctly, as well as mentoring those personnel underneath me.”
This is a dynamic that plays out in organisations everywhere. After studying 2.7 million employees, Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in their team's engagement.¹ The manager is the single biggest factor in how a team performs, which is exactly why being pulled down into routine process work carries a real cost. Often the structures simply don't exist to give direct reports the confidence and clarity to act independently. The cost isn't just efficiency. It's strategic bandwidth. Every hour spent managing someone through a process is an hour not spent on culture, client relationships, or the longer view.
What a Template Actually Does
Ask most people what a template is and they'll describe a form. A document with boxes to fill in. Something bureaucratic, even constraining.
That's not how it works in practice.
When the manager describes introducing a structured checklist to guide his direct reports through an employee separation process, what he's actually describing is something closer to a transfer of competence. The checklist doesn't just list the steps. It carries the institutional knowledge of what needs to happen, in what order, and why.
“By providing the direct report with a structured checklist to guide them through the separation process, and also guide the member through the separation process, we ensured the member was seamlessly able to transition out of the organisation, while also ensuring accountability of equipment and ensuring the member received all their entitlements prior to separation.”
One process. Two audiences served. One manager who didn't need to be in the room.
The contrast with the unstructured version is stark. He's watched the same task go sideways when there was nothing solid to anchor it.
“We've had experience where other members have separated from the organisation and there's been an inconsistent approach. Things have been missed. Equipment not returned, or delays in the member receiving entitlements they deserved. And then the doubling up, having to go back over the process to identify where the gaps were and ensure all the boxes were checked to meet our risk and audit responsibilities.”
This isn't an unusual story. When the World Health Organization introduced a 19-item surgical safety checklist across eight hospitals, the rate of major complications fell from 11% to 7% and inpatient deaths fell from 1.5% to 0.8%.² The numbers are striking, but the underlying mechanism is simple: when the process lives in the document rather than in someone's head, the process survives that person's absence, inexperience, or bad day.
The Checklist as Evidence Trail
In a government context, there's another dimension to this that goes beyond operational efficiency. Risk appetite is low. Public accountability is high. Audit is not a theoretical concept. It's a real question from a real person asking how a decision was made and whether the right steps were followed.
“Having a structure provides the ability to satisfy audit compliance requirements, ensuring things like equipment are returned, reducing the likelihood of overpayments or underpayments for members, reducing the impact on other sections of the organisation such as HR and payroll.”
This reframes what a completed checklist actually is. It's not just a tool for doing the work. It's the proof that the work was done correctly. When an auditor asks the question, the checklist is the answer.
Surgeon and author Atul Gawande made this case compellingly in his landmark book The Checklist Manifesto (2009), where he argued that in complex environments like medicine, aviation, construction and finance, checklists exist not because people are incompetent but because complexity defeats memory and attention even in the most capable hands. As Gawande put it: “The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably.”³ A checklist is how organisations capture what they know and make it repeatable.
In a government agency managing 400 personnel, with audit obligations, client accountability and a strict hierarchical chain, the logic applies directly. The structure doesn't diminish professional judgement. It protects it.
The Australian Public Service Commission reinforces this point directly. Its performance management framework for APS employees states that behaviours are as important as outcomes and that both must be assessed and documented as part of any performance process.⁴ The implication is clear: if it isn't recorded, it didn't happen, at least not in any way that matters when things are later scrutinised.
When Structure Isn't There: A Manager Exposed
The flip side of having structure is what happens when you don't. Here the conversation gets more candid.
Ask him what's actually helped him grow as a manager and he doesn't reach for a tool. He talks about trying to lead authentically and about staying connected to where his own manager and the organisation are heading.
“It's really about maintaining that relationship so that you have the confidence and support of your own management and the organisation.”
But authenticity and good intent don't protect you when the process isn't documented.
He recalls trying to performance manage a team member whose behaviour was dragging on the wider team and the culture. The member resisted at every turn. Formal grievances were lodged.
“The process was weaponised by the member to a point where even senior executive members of the organisation were unable to find a direction to improve the behaviours of the person.”
What's particularly sobering is how common this pattern is. The Fair Work Ombudsman's best practice guide on managing underperformance is direct on this point: employers should document all discussions, decisions and outcomes as they go and should provide written performance improvement plans with clear milestones and timeframes.⁵ When evaluations are unsupported by clear and specific performance evidence, it creates a perception of unfairness, a perception that becomes a grievance and a grievance that becomes a distraction from the original problem. In Australia's workplace relations system, where the Fair Work Commission assesses whether a dismissed or managed employee was treated fairly, that paper trail isn't just good practice. It's your defence.
In hindsight, he's clear about what would have made the difference.
“I definitely think if I had a more structured process, it would have improved the situation, or at the very least provided me with a documented evidence base of attempting to improve performance and behaviour for this individual, which would have enabled other disciplinary approaches, which are currently not available to us.”
The absence of structure didn't just make the process harder. It closed off options that might otherwise have existed.
Structure as a Gift to Your People
There's one thread running through this conversation that deserves to be named directly. The case for structured templates is often made in terms of risk reduction or efficiency gains. Those arguments are valid. But they miss something more human.
When a less experienced direct report is handed a framework for handling something difficult or unfamiliar, something shifts. They don't just know what to do, they have something solid to stand on. That changes how they show up, not just in that moment but across their work more broadly.
Research supports this. The Australian HR Institute (AHRI) identifies performance management as a strategic function that, when done well, links individual performance to organisational goals and provides employees with clear expectations of what is expected of them and how they will be assessed.⁶ When that clarity exists, engagement and motivation increase. In a 400 person operation, that compounds quickly. Globally, Gallup's analysis of more than 100,000 teams found that the most engaged teams have between 18% and 43% lower staff turnover than the least engaged, depending on the industry.⁷
“By providing a structured process or framework in dealing with a particular issue, it lessens the burden on me as a manager in having to walk that person through the process. But it also gives them the confidence to deal with that situation. And makes them feel that they are supported.”
That's not a minor outcome. In a workplace where people are making real-time decisions about security, compliance and people management, confidence and a sense of support are not soft outcomes. They're operational ones.
The Advice He'd Give
If he were talking to a manager stepping into a role like his, with a large team, a complex stakeholder environment and a high compliance burden, his advice would be direct.
“Having structured and consistent frameworks for dealing with performance and culture in the workplace is really important because it provides a basis for consistency, so that every person is subject to the same rules. And the bureaucracy is able to be navigated effectively.”
Consistency. Navigation. Two words that, in practice, are worth a great deal.
Consistency means that a separation process runs the same way whether it's handled by your most experienced direct report or your newest one. It means a performance conversation follows the same documented steps regardless of who's having it. It means an auditor asking how something was handled gets the same quality of answer every time.
Navigation, in an environment loaded with bureaucracy, red tape and systems that don't talk to each other, means having a map before you enter the territory. Not because the territory will always cooperate, but because having the map is the difference between being lost and knowing where you are.
The template doesn't replace the manager's judgement. It frees it up for the things that actually need it.
This article was produced as part of an ongoing series on practical management in complex organisations.
References
Gallup. State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders. (2015). https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx
Haynes, A. B., et al. A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(5), 491-499 (2009). https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa0810119
Gawande, A. (2009). The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. Metropolitan Books. Summarised at https://www.blinkist.com/en/books/the-checklist-manifesto-en
Australian Public Service Commission. Performance Management in the Australian Public Service. https://www.apsc.gov.au/working-aps/information-aps-employment/performance/performance-management-australian-public-service
Fair Work Ombudsman. Managing Underperformance: Best Practice Guide. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/best-practice-guides/managing-underperformance
Australian HR Institute (AHRI). Performance Management. https://www.ahri.com.au/resources/ahriassist/performance-management/
Gallup. The Benefits of Employee Engagement (Q12 Meta-Analysis). https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236927/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx