Management training is essential, perhaps now more than ever, yet many organisations were forced to suspend or abandon their management training plans due to the pressures of the pandemic.
But this situation is untenable in the long term.
New research by Digits (published just a few weeks ago, November 2021) suggests that managers who haven’t received any management training are 36% more likely to leave their current jobs in the next year, than managers who receive regular management training.
Organisations wanting to retain their best management talent, must find the confidence to start investing in their management training programmes again.
The decision to train your managers is a good one but in the current climate there are a few things you really must consider before you turn your management training plans back on.
Design and Format
The tried and tested management training solutions you’ve always relied upon are unlikely to meet your new needs in a post-Covid workplace. Live workshops will be blighted by disruption, cancellation, social-distancing and self-isolation requirements and won’t offer your managers the flexibility they need. Instead of picking up where you left off, this is your chance to embrace all of the advantages of the digital world. However, simply transferring old material onto a new platform won’t get you the results you want. You’ll need a well-designed, fully-blended learning solution that incorporates all the best parts of live learning and online learning, and doesn’t compromise the learner experience. The fully blended multi-award-winning STAR® Manager programme achieves all of this and more. Described as ‘even better than a live programme’, STAR® Manager gives organisations a fully built up solution that can be implemented quickly and easily at scale, without putting further pressure on already stretched L&D teams.
Accessibility and Inclusivity
Sending large groups of managers on long residential training courses isn’t a practical or effective solution right now, and may never again feature heavily in anyone’s future training plans. Online solutions are now more popular and more convenient than ever. Online learning will enable your managers to access management training on their own terms whether they’re based in the office or at home or as part of a hybrid team. But not all online learning is equally effective; the market is littered with poorly designed one-dimensional online training courses which won’t have the reach or impact you’re hoping for. When choosing an online training solution for your manager population, you need to look for robust, inclusive and engaging programmes which successfully incorporate a wide range of learning activities. The STAR® Manager programme exemplifies these features by incorporating 18 different learning activities across the blend, including several bespoke live elements. These work together to create a fun and dynamic learning experience which is inclusive of all learning styles.
Credibility
Learner Engagement
What’s really important, especially if you want to retain your best managers, is to make sure your management training solutions are very engaging for the learner.
Managers tend to harbour a bit of scepticism about training, especially if they don’t expect to experience the impact of the training until long after the programme has been completed or if the training is perceived as a one-off event that yields little or no results.
Managers can also be put off by long periods of study and time away from an already busy workload which can increase pressure and lower commitment to learning.
That’s why the STAR® Manager programme is particularly effective for busy managers. The programme has been designed to be completed in short 30-minute bite sized chunks at the convenience of the individual learner. The learner is also invited to go on a learning journey which includes frequent live missions in the workplace that relate directly to the job at hand. This enables managers to stay engaged with their learning, complete their training, apply what they learn in real-time and get results without any serious downtime. Learners also have ongoing, just in time, access (via phone, email or zoom) to a support team at Notion to help them to get the most out of their programme.
Outcomes
Lastly, before you turn your management training back on, get clear about the outcomes you want from your training and don’t choose management training solutions that can’t explicitly help you to deliver them. Keep in mind that learning doesn’t happen until change takes place and improvements haven’t taken place unless action is taken. So your management training solutions must not only ‘teach’ your managers, it must also help them to embed real behavioural change and support them in taking actions that will move them closer to the intended outcomes.
If you’re thinking about working with a management training company who doesn’t want to talk about ROI – walk away quickly. There are still so many training organisations that hide behind the excuse that you can’t measure the ROI of training. It’s simply not true. In the UK government trial previously mentioned, the STAR® Manager programme was subjected to significant testing within organisations, followed by a rigorous academic review by the London School of Economics. The results showed that over 75% of managers had made changes to their management style and that managers had also increased their time spent coaching by 70%. This resulted in a learner ROI of 74 times and £19 million worth of benefits including: higher recruitment of staff, 6X higher employee retention, increased gross asset value and hundreds of recorded successes for individual managers and their teams.
The team at Notion also provide a full programme support both for you and your learners, with tracking, regular reports and strategic programme meetings so that you can leverage the maximum value from your investment.
So yes, it is time to turn your management training back on, but, if your management training doesn’t hit the mark you won’t retain the managers you’re worried about losing. You need to give them training which is brilliantly designed, accessible and inclusive, credible, incredibly engaging and which delivers an ROI for the manager and for the organisation. When you have management training like this, you may never be asked to suspend or abandon your training plans again.
