Skills on the line
British line managers are not up to scratch. While their technical abilities are mostly sound, they are judged to be lacking in people, leadership, and change management skills.
So says the latest online survey from Training Magazine's sister publication Personnel Today.
Only 28 per cent of respondents consider their line managers capable of taking the company forward over the next three to five years. Evidence suggests the problem extends to the vital team leader/supervisor role.1
Training could make a difference, according to 25 per cent of respondents. But how effective is training and how relevant are the qualifications available to supervisors and first-line managers?
"Qualifications are valuable in that they give people knowledge about theory and context, but what they lack is to provide people with a chance to experiment with different techniques and apply the theory," says Godfrey Owen, deputy chief executive of leading experiential learning provider, Brathay.
Since companies often promote the best technical people into management positions, others are left to move into a first-line role, not realising the mindset shift they need to make to become a leader.
"We give people a chance to lead in a risk-free environment and get them to positively influence their team," Owen says. "Trying to lead a peer group is more challenging, as all you have is the force of your personality. Getting feedback on the effect of your behaviour helps you exhibit the right behaviour back at work."
Until very recently, the emphasis has been on middle and senior managers, with only a few qualifications for supervisors and team leaders having much credibility, according to Simon Pugh, group chief executive of Sheffield-based The Training Exchange.
"However, I believe the current qualifications framework from levels 2 to 5 is right on the whole. It's good that qualifications are paying more attention now to leadership."
Pugh's organisation offers Edexcel team leader and management NVQs from levels 2 to 5, along with Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) certificates and diplomas in team leadership and management from levels 2 to 4. The ILM team leader certificate proved the right approach for Training Exchange client Senior & Dickson.
Five managers from the small tool and moulding firm undertook a programme totalling 10 days training over 20 weeks, tailored to meet the company's business needs.
Financial controller, Nicola Breen, was one of the trainees. "None of us ever had any training. We'd just been given the position and expected to get on with it. But you can't do that without training," she says.
"What we learnt each day we had to put into practice and fill out a progress development sheet so the trainer could see we had been able to apply it in our work.
"The training has given us a better understanding of our roles, how to handle situations and people to get the best out of them. It has highlighted a lot of areas we feel we should improve upon along the way," she says.
Pugh sees the image and promotion of management NVQs as a big issue."They are closely attached to government funding and programmes and don't have an independent identity.That needs working on so the business benefits of NVQs are promoted."
He is critical of government policy that has equated training with qualifications and skewed public funding. It has created a dependency culture in which employers have come to expect grants and resulted in much training provision being supplier-led, he says.
"We make sure our training provision is lined up with what the employer wants. If customers want qualifications that's great, if they don't, that's great too. If a qualification is not right for the customer, you shouldn't ram it down their throats," he says.
Adrian Roberts, HR manager at precision engineering manufacturer INA Bearing Company of Llanelli, Wales, agrees. "Qualifications are just a by-product. It is the behaviours we want to change," he says.
Plant director, Roger Evans, adds: "There's no point in undergoing training just to get the qualification. There has to be a tangible difference on the shopfloor, where it all matters."
INA, which says its formula for success is that 'the rate of learning must be greater than the rate of change', won a training award sponsored by TSW Management Solutions - a division of Training Services (Wales).Judging criteria included the programme's relevance to improving management performance, improving quality and changing the business climate.
The programme includes training team leaders to achieve the level 3 NVQ in management awarded by EMTA Awards Ltd (EAL), along with the ILM World Class Team Leader award.
Supervisors, who already hold a traditional NEBS Management supervisory qualification, are embarking on a new EAL level 3 NVQ in business improvement techniques.
"We thought it looked really good so we developed it to suit our needs," Evans says.
Pursuing
the qualification has positively affected a number of business measures. "It
has also impacted on the people skills of our supervisors. They understand more
what we're trying to do, what the business needs are, where it's going - and
interpreting that down the line," adds Evans.
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