Training is often perceived as an expensive luxury, and the first cost to be cut when cash flow gets tough. Yet when it comes to relying on our business managers to ensure productivity, deciding NOT to invest in the right training could prove to be an expensive gamble.
Many will relate to this scenario: the most productive worker achieves their inevitable promotion to Manager, only for the team’s performance to drop through the floor, swiftly followed by the newly appointed Manager’s motivation.
The lesson? Just because a worker achieves the best output of a group, it doesn’t make them a natural choice for management. They may not have a clue how to go from team member to team leader.
The true definition of a Manager is someone who gets things done through other people, taking a structured approach to delegating, monitoring and nurturing staff to make sure their work meets the company’s overall objectives. This depends implicitly on the appointed manager having the technical capabilities and sound leadership skills to get the best possible performance from their human resource.
Yet here in the UK we are notoriously poor at training our future managers and executives.
A 2017 survey concluded that, “UK Managers are ill-equipped to lead and get the best from their people”. The Chartered Institute of Professional Development survey highlighted that one in five candidates lack planning and communication skills, as well as not having the functional capabilities for their job. Performance Management and People Management skills were voted the ‘top leadership behaviours’ needed in the next three years, yet 53% said leaders’ performance management skills were ineffective, and 44% considered that leaders fail in people management.
Based on first-hand experience, and many hours of observations in the work place, interviewing and talking to supervisors and managers about their techniques, I wholeheartedly concur with these findings. When I ask them how they manage their teams, too often their response is, “they know what they have to do, and I just let them get on with it” or, “they don’t like to be micro-managed, so I tend not to bother them much”. This then begs the question of why we need a manager at all, and it’s little wonder that the UK has fallen behind our G7 counterparts in the productivity stakes.
Because productivity is really the whole point – and why training is a necessity, not a luxury. Properly trained managers will be energised and energising, managing productive teams whose goals are aligned with the business. The business owner knows, the manager knows, and the workers know exactly how well they are performing.
The good news is that management is a skill that can and SHOULD be learned through the right training. Leadership skills CAN be developed and nurtured.
Register now for a Leadership and Management Development Programme
Alluxi Consulting, an industry expert in business performance improvement are running a complete Leadership and Management Development Programme is for business owners, executives, and managers with the desire and ambition to develop their skills to achieve growth in their organisations.
The programme is recognised by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) as meeting National Occupational Standards. Participants will not only experience a management mind-set re-boot, but will benefit from a wide range of support from the CMI, including one year’s Affiliate Membership of the CMI and access to the CMI’s Management Direct online library and resource centre.
For further details please email [email protected] or call 07717 221368.
