Validate field box as a requester or agent to pass approval

Hi folks!

I have a SC form where the requestor is asked to input the email of an X employee. I’d like to be able to grab the requestor’s manager approval which I already can, alongside the additional X employee’s approval too.

I’m having trouble passing the field box in the SC item as an approval since its a plain text. The requestor and X employee(s) do are not in the same org chart so using custom objects to hardcode an approval won’t work.

Anyone have any insights on how this can be performed? Thank you!