How To Provide Effective Manager Training

Have you ever had to do a job without the proper training? Unfortunately, many companies are setting managers up for failure by failing to build out a process for effective manager training that would improve the lives of many employees.

We know that managers have a drastic impact on employee engagement, accounting for at least 70% of the variance in how employees interact with their companies. When companies work to provide effective manager training, the chances of creating an engaging manager improve. In our 2022 Workplace Report, 53.8% of the surveyed employees indicated that an unsupportive manager was a top reason for leaving an employer.

Manager training needs to be comprehensive but approachable for new and veteran leaders. In addition, it’s crucial to introduce relevant and timely ideas to make managing people easier.

As you determine how to make your manager training practical for team members, let’s discuss what to include in your training and how to make it more effective:

What To Include When Training Effective Managers

To become a better manager, you’ve got to know what employees and employers are looking for in a leader. Based on that, scope out the topics you want to address during the training sessions.

As you are putting together your effective manager training, here are a few ideas of the types of lessons you should be teaching managers:

• Creating an inclusive workforce
• Conflict resolution
• Nurturing and coaching talent
• Building an engaged workforce
• Helping managers earn respect from past colleagues

Above all else, consider what it means to manage a team. The best managers aren’t sitting down barking orders at employees. Instead, effective managers display certain qualities like trusting their team, promoting professional development, giving great feedback, and being fair to their employees.

The Process Of Training An Employee To Become A Manager

Many organizations struggle with the training process. Some of your managers may have never received manager training, or they may be working with outdated information from when they first began leading people. Companies must understand where their managers are to create a program that works best for all employees.

The best effective manager training programs take a multi-pronged approach. How can your organization support new, recent, and veteran managers?

You’ll need to create a new manager training and training for continued manager education. For recent managers, you might create a test to see how much they know before placing managers into the programs you’ve already made.

Management best practices are continually changing depending on what’s happening in the workforce. For example, The Great Resignation has altered how managers connect with their team members. If you don’t have continuing education training for all managers, you do your leaders a disservice.

Creating an effective manager training program with a well-thought-out and structured curriculum is important. Utilizing technology to build your transformative manager training can help your organization implement continued education and upskilling for managers.

The Best Ways To Make Manager Training More Effective

Next, it’s critical to think of the elements that will make training at your company stand out. Effective training goes beyond words on a screen or videos with exciting scenarios. Here are some ideas you can use to create manager effectiveness training.

Offer Company-Supported Mentorship Programs

Employees need support from successful leaders in the company, especially when they are new. Mentorship programs are a great way to increase friendships and instill management skills and values.

Based on performance evaluations, pair your best people managers with new and recent managers. Encourage each mentorship pair to meet every week to share stories and advice on being a better manager. A quick thirty-minute conversation can make a difference for new managers. Set a specific time frame, like nine weeks, so the mentorship program has a defined end date.

Before your mentorship pairs get stuck, create weekly themes for the meetings based on what new managers need to learn. You can also develop pre-prepared questions to kick off every conversation.

Train Managers On How To Build High-Performing Teams

Creating a highly engaged team that consistently meets its goals isn’t easy. So companies must give managers the tools they need to build high-performing teams. 

To build a high-performing team, managers must put on their coaching hat. Coaching team members can feel scary because it often involves letting go of some control that managers typically have. Instead, leaders must be ready to let employees take the reigns without jumping in to save the day every time. Coaches teach people how to do their work more effectively through delegation and trust.

Teach Managers To Lead With Empathy

Each employee will arrive at the office with different baggage and backgrounds. Influential leaders understand that employees need different levels of service and support, and they work hard to meet individualized needs. Teaching empathy at work starts with how you treat your people. Give managers training on being more empathetic, and ensure they have the necessary tools to lead employees with different backgrounds.

Share Best Practices On Time Management Skills

As a manager, it’s easy for the day to get away from you. Managers are in charge of several employees, they need to go to tons of meetings, and they still need to get their work done. Finding time to move your projects along without working an 80-hour week can feel impossible for new managers.

Effective manager training is more important than ever before, with manager burnout at an all-time high. Company leaders must teach managers how to protect their time, limit meetings on their calendars, and get their work done every day.

Instill Mental Well-Being And Empowerment

One reason that companies teach empathy is that the world impacts how employees show up at work. The same can be said for managers. When things are intense at work, it’s easy to put mental well-being on the back burner, but that’s when we need emotional support and empowerment the most. Great organizations are teaching leaders that it’s okay to take a mental health day, seek therapy, and create a mentally healthy environment for themselves at work.

Help Them Identify Team Training Needs

If things are moving along, it can feel like everyone is up to speed, but there may be needs going unaddressed under the surface.

For example, Gartner found that 58% of employees will need to learn new skills to do their jobs effectively. New software, industry best practices, and company directions may require an employee shift. Effective managers can keep up with workforce trends in their industry and organization to spot potential training needs.

As an organization, you must give your managers the tools to needed make these high-level decisions. For example, providing performance review software for managers can help them rate employees to spot potential skills gaps.

Conclusion

Building effective manager training can feel like a daunting task for HR leaders. Managers have such an impact at work, so creating a program to build their skills can be a monumental task. However, the easiest thing to do is think about the qualities of the best managers you’ve had and then create a curriculum that instills those qualities.

Above all else, remember you can’t create an effective manager during a one-hour training session. Management skills are grown with time, trust, and training.

Do you need help proving the importance of effective manager training? Read our eBook, Spotlight on Manager Effectiveness: Why It Matters and How to Improve It, for tips and strategies you can share with executives.