Skipping Manager Training Is Too Big a Risk for What’s at Stake

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By Cathleen Snyder, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

One of the most frequent complaints that we hear about mid-level managers is, “They don’t manage their people.”  A team isn’t meeting productivity goals, has high turnover, and/or low engagement.  Add to that, that most companies evaluate their managers on productivity goals, but overlook how they achieve those goals.  Are they effectively managing their people, providing feedback, and motivating their employees?

We’ve all heard the adage that employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers.  With managers being such a critical element in employee retention it’s important that organizations take a hard look at what they are doing to help their mid-level managers be successful as leaders.

In a recent survey of 500 managers by business and technology consulting firm, West Monroe, managing their people ranked second of the most common workplace stressors.  44% of the managers that responded said they feel overwhelmed at work.  One reason for this may be a lack of management training.  Only a third of managers received 9 or more hours of manager training.  A startling 44% received less than 2 hours manager training.

Without training, managers will tend to emulate the management styles they have been exposed to, regardless of how effective that style may have been.  Even in today’s business world of advanced technology and innovation, we assume that individuals will have management skills, or learn them along the way.  With the impact that managers have on the overall success of the company, it’s too big of a risk to assume managers will “figure it out.”

The good news is, the benefits of conducting management training are many, and well documented.  In the West Monroe survey, of the managers that had training prior to beginning their management role, 92% stated they feel they have an adequate work-life balance (i.e. less overwhelmed).  85% feel that their responsibilities are clearly communicated.

According to Forbes Magazine, “An employee’s relationships with his or her direct manager is the most important single factor in employee engagement.”  Other key reasons to train your managers:

  • Providing management training can lay the groundwork for consistency in how employees are being managed across the organization.
  • Effective, well trained managers are proven to improve morale, thereby improving retention, which is critical to a productive workforce.
  • Training your managers goes a long way towards reducing claims and litigation.

As we continue to stress, today’s job market is challenging to find the talent we need.  Our priority needs to be engaging and retaining the workforce we have.  Ensuring your managers are well trained and effective in their roles is one of the most important steps we can take to being a successful organization.

Cathleen Snyder, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is Director of Client Relations with strategic HR inc., and is passionate about manager training.  If you would like to share your comments or learn more, contact her at Cathleen@strategicHRinc.com.

 

Have you heard about strategic HR inc.’s Supervisor Training Series?  We’ve develop this three-session program to help give your managers the tools they need to effectively manager, engage and motivate your employees.  Register your managers today!

Training and Development: Are They the Same?

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Many of you are deep in the throes of your performance management process: reflecting back on 2015 and the performance of your employees and also looking ahead to how you can appropriately prepare your employees to tackle what needs to be accomplished in 2016.  It never fails that the performance management document seems to have the all-encompassing “Development Needs” section, and we are always struggling to pick the most relevant training from the list of offerings to address our employees’ development needs and move to the next section on the form.  But are we doing our employees a disservice by only focusing on training to address their performance and developmental needs?  Are training and development REALLY the same thing?

Good questions.  Remember back to your high school Geometry class when you learned that a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square?  The same is true of training and development.  Training is the square: depending on the needs you’ve identified for your employees, training can be an excellent source to prepare your employees to succeed in their current jobs or even potentially prepare them for a more responsible role in your company.  Employee development, however, is a rectangle: development may include training (the square), but there are a variety of other ways you can address the needs of your employees that don’t require them to attend a training session.

What’s the difference?
Most of us have benefitted from a training session or two that gave us some knowledge that we didn’t have so that we could perform our job responsibilities a little better. Training is typically focused on making sure we have the information needed to perform our current jobs and our participation is generally required.  Some that may come to mind are compliance training or training on a new system your company is implementing.  The best trainings help us learn rather than merely expose us to a new topic or new content.

Development, on the other hand, goes much deeper than an hour or two of listening to content on one topic.  Development is much more involved, usually longer-term and can include things like strengths assessments, job experiences, mentors or coaches, personality assessments, training, 360 degree feedback and many other approaches.  Developmental activities are used to prepare employees for the next step in their career and are typically voluntary.

Be the rectangle
Think back to the single most defining point of your career.  Did it involve a specific role you were performing or a job experience you gained?  A training course you attended?  Someone taking you under their wing and supporting your career growth and acting as a mentor?  Now, think about each of your employees.  Do you want them to look back at the single most defining point of their careers and remember you, the opportunities that you provided for them and the counsel you gave to them?  How can you become their rectangle?

So, as you’re thoughtfully plowing through your Performance Management documents and identifying some options for developing your employees, make sure to look at their individual needs closely and spend some time thinking through the best method of development for them.  Simply choosing from a list of available training sessions may or may not be the best way to help them grow and to help your organization reach its goals for 2016.

 If you have any questions or would like to share your comments or success stories, you can contact us info@strategicHRinc.com.

 

C-H-A-N-G-E Don’t Cringe, It’s Just a “Six Letter” Word

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By Robin Throckmorton, MA, SPHR

“If the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near” by Jack Welch

In the workplace today, there is so much change taking place, we can’t escape it. But, we have to decide how we are going to handle or cope with each change.

So, what is change really?! Change takes place when something is one way but has to become something different. The problem is the current way usually is more comfortable or believed to be normal. On the other hand, the new way is uncomfortable. But change is unavoidable in today’s work world so we have to find a way to accept the new normal.

Responses to change run the gamut. Think about the last time your computer operating system changed. How did you feel – lost, frustrated, irritated, uncomfortable…But, as you think about it, would you go back to 2 or 3 versions ago? No, for multiple reasons including the newer ones are better and older ones may not even exist anymore.

As you know, change evokes all types of responses – anxiety, fear, irritability, overwhelmed, resentful AND excitement, opportunity, growth, newness, fresh. According to a Change Management program by BLR, there are five defenses to change: deny (if I ignore it, it will go away), blame (it’s management’s fault), delusion (believe it will go back to the way it was), anger (resist and not cooperate), and last defeat (feeling can’t change and give up caring at all).

Knowing these “defenses” you can be more aware of whether or not you are responding defensively. Sometimes, how we view or respond to change sets the stage for how we’ll cope with it. “Is the glass half full or half empty?” Will you respond positive or negative; constructive or destructive; engaging or defensive. So, how can we be sure we respond positively?

“Change before you have to” – Jack Welch

Here are just a few tips to help you through your next change:

– Pay Attention
If you are paying attention, you will notice signs that change is needed and/or going to happen. Even change that literally happens “overnight” has signs it is coming. However, we often get caught up in the situation and intentionally may ignore the signs. If we anticipate a change is going to take place, we can better prepare ourselves.

– Knowledge
When you start noticing the signs, knowledge becomes your power. What do you know about the change? Why is the change happening? What is the goal or purpose of the impending change? What will it look like when it happens? Whether the change is happening or going to happen, seek information to help you understand it. It is far easier to cope with something if you have information, even if it is just a little information.

– Communicate
Everyone exposed to the situation is going through the change and likely having mixed emotions both good and bad. But, some people will be responding positively and others negatively. Share your feelings with others but try not to engage with the “naysayer” who will just bring you down more, hold you back and make others resentful of you. You’ve heard these people – “this will never work” or “we’ve always done it this way.” As you share, you’ll find out you are not alone. And, others are having similar emotions. Together you may be able to identify ways to cope with the change. Use the positive talk to help motivate you and help you see the silver lining.

– Embrace
If you aren’t paying attention to the signs, change may already be in full swing by the time you notice. It is too late to stop it. The more you try the more frustrated you will become to the point of isolation. You have to accept and embrace the change. Make yourself imagine how it will feel once the change becomes the new “normal”. Get involved in the change by finding out how you can help; and, encourage others to accept the change as well through positive talk. Be sure you are helping resolve problems and not avoiding the “new”.

– Coping Skills
During a stressful time, our bodies all respond differently and not always very positive. We can go on an emotional rollercoaster or even impact our eating or sleeping. Some possible coping strategies may include:

  • Exercise – keep doing what you are already doing for exercise. Don’t let the “change” alter your exercise routine. But, if you aren’t exercising, add some form of exercise, even a short walk.
  • Distractions – do something for yourself that gets your mind off of the change for a little bit each day. This will help calm your mind and reduce your stress.
  • Goal Setting – establish goals that will help walk you through the change process so you feel more in control of what is taking place. As you accomplish each goal or step in the process, you’ll be closer to making the change and feel the success of the achievements along the way.
  • Reflect – think about past changes you’ve gone through that you survived and even thrived as a result. What did you do that helped make those situations feel successful?

Change is inevitable so we must find ways to accept change. As mentioned in Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges, “The only certainty is that between here and there will be a lot of change… There’s no way to avoid it. But you can manage it. You can. And if you want to come through in one piece, you must.”

Robin Throckmorton, MA, SPHR is with strategic HR inc. (www.strategicHRinc.com). If you have questions or comments about this article, you can contact Robin at Robin@strategicHRinc.com.

The Dos and Don’ts of Creating Training Materials

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by Susan Otto,  retired from Training-Modules.com, LLC

No matter what jobs, positions, or responsibilities we have, sooner or later we are usually asked to train someone on how to “do it.”  And, if we are asked often enough, or if the procedures are complicated, now might be the time to document the material we use to train.

Over the years I have created a few dos and don’ts that I have found to be useful when creating training materials.

First, remember that we’re training adult learners. Adults like to have “hands on” experiences. Stop lecturing. Turn off the PowerPoints. Let’s just “do it” as Nike says.  Roll up your sleeves and begin, providing lots of opportunities to practice in order to create the desired outcomes and results.

Okay, okay…you have a PowerPoint presentation already prepared…well, go back through it and see how you can make the content more interactive. In other words, if the learners know part of the content, rather than lecturing them, ask them to share what they know. For example, if they are aware of the reasons employees are not providing input to a process, ask them to share it. Don’t tell them what they already know. Besides, you might actually hear something you didn’t know!

Make your training interactive. Include activities and “games,” such as role plays, case studies, large and small group discussions…you get the idea. There are tons of books and websites available to peruse when on this quest. And you can always join NASAGA’s discussion board at www.NASAGA.org and ask the various experts what they would suggest.

Remember, adult learners come to training classes with experiences and expertise that should be tapped into during the training process. If adult learners link the learning with past experience, they remember it.

Tell the learner what they really need to know. If they want to know the history, background, evolution, etc., then they’ll ask. For now, give it to them straight…and only give them what they need to know. In most cases, time is of the essence. Most of us don’t have time for the “nice to knows.” However, do consider notating the extra information in the facilitator guide.

Give the adult learner a job aid or a participant guide. And, no, I don’t mean a copy of your PowerPoint presentation. In other words, give them something that will be of value to them during the training process and can be used as a reference back on the job. And, remember, the facilitator guide should provide talking points that further enhance the participant guide content.

If you know the material “inside and out,” then you probably don’t need to write a “detailed” facilitator guide. Wrong! That’s the issue. You don’t need a “detailed” facilitator guide, but if you were hit by a bus tomorrow, would someone else know what to do and say? If not, then you better start documenting more of your knowledge. Oh, and be sure to have someone read it later. What is clear to you, may be clear as mud to someone else. Besides, the fastest way to get promoted is to have someone who can competently perform your job!

When you think you’re finished, check:

  1. The flow of the content. In other words, is the order logical?
  2. The amount of detail used to explain how to facilitate the activities, simulations, and games.
  3. The start times, stop times, and breaks.

What most of us know, and seem to forget when creating training for others, is that training should be fun…yes, you read that correctly. When you think of the training that you really, really enjoyed, was it fun? You betcha! Let’s “do” make training fun!

do's and dont's

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If you have any questions or would like to share your comments with Strategic Human Resources, Inc. (www.strategicHRinc.com), you can contact us at info@strategicHRinc.com.