Stuck in the Middle
Over-worked, under-rated and so often berated, is it any wonder that middle managers get over-looked in the development stakes? Mark Mercer, a training consultant at learning and development consultancy MaST International, suggests this hard-working backbone of UK plc deserves a bit more attention from the training and development team. Middle managers play a central role […]
£220bn Cost of Not Training Middle Managers
Underperforming middle managers are estimated to be cutting the productivity of British business to the tune of £220 billion per year.More than a third (38%) of UK directors surveyed said that their organisation was “paralysed” by ineffective middle management. Close to half (40%) of British directors claimed that their middle management was the single greatest […]
Failures Make Good Leaders – Says Cranfield Professor
Leaders must be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, Sunningdale Institute Fellow Professor Keith Grint has said in a new interview.Prof Gint said that good leadership is not about the individual leader but about how we constitute leadership culture, and added that “unless we give people opportunities to fail they are never going […]
Management Learning with Style
Bob Selden, MD of the National Learning Institute in Australia, looks at how understanding individual learning styles can help managers tap into the development opportunities most suited to them. Training courses! The most recent had been termed “Management for Senior Officers” and had been a minor disaster – all psychology and how to be nice […]
Disparity in Personal and Organisational Definitions of Success
Managers across the UK believe there is a discrepancy between how individuals and their organisations judge success. According to the results of surveys conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), managers achieve personal success by making an impact at work and developing their colleagues, but think their organisations are more focussed on market leadership and […]
Training Business News in Brief
Helmsley Fraser Commits to TAPLearning provider Hemsley Fraser Group has announced a policy commitment to the TAP (Trainer Assessment Programme) Learning System, the training skills certification programme administered by The Training Foundation.Under the requirements of the TAP Partners Programme, Hemsley Fraser’s learning professionals will achieve TAP certification following participation in a skills refresher and assessment […]
Study Finds Half of Managers Have Coaching
A new study suggests as many as half of managers have received some sort of coaching in the workplace in recent years. Minneapolis consultants CO2 Partners surveyed middle to senior-level executives via the Internet and found that 50% were provided with coaching on more than one occasion. Have you ever received formal coaching in the […]
Partnership to Boost Management Skills
The Management Standards Centre and SkillsActive are developing National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership across the Skills for Business Network.The standards will lie at the heart of a new management and leadership strategy for implementation across the whole SSC network from April 2007.The partnership will enable both organisations to develop, maintain and promote the […]
How Bosses Can be Good for Workers’ Health
New research has discovered a range of behaviours that bosses can use to prevent and reduce stress among their team members.Although the research has identified 19 key ‘stress management behaviours’ it’s so new that the relative importance of each has yet to be determined.Key behaviours include: managing workload and resources, having a friendly style, good […]
Free Thinking: In Praise of Jargon
Despite its bad press, could management-speak actually turn out to be a good thing? Martin Shovel comes out in defence of the apparently indefensible. Management jargon, management-speak, workplace gobbledygook; whatever you call it, according to a recent YouGov survey, it is choking the life out of meaningful communication in the workplace. Senior managers think it […]
Thriving Under Pressure By Dawn Smith
Stress Down Day on 1 February aims to encourage people to take small steps to reduce stress in the workplace. Dawn Smith looks at approaches to stress management training, and some of the barriers to success. Recent research from the TUC cited stress as the number one workplace problem, while the Health & Safety Executive […]
Staff Blow the Whistle on Ineffective Managers
British bosses are disinterested, ineffective and lack vision, according to the people who work under them.A new survey from chareterd psychology firm Ros Taylor Ltd (RT), shows that business leaders fail across the board at setting clear objectives, motivating staff and weeding out poor performers. More than 1500 people from different sized organisations throughout the […]
Technology and the Team
Being miles apart, whether tens or thousands, is no longer a barrier to team working thanks to technology, yet staff are often slow to grasp these opportunities. Kelly Low, sales director of Premiere Global Services, looks at collaborative technologies and their implications for training. According to new research from Frost and Sullivan1, collaboration is a […]
CIPD Launches Management Cerificate
Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) suggests that many UK managers are failing to do an effective job. Almost half of employees (43%) are dissatisfied with the relationship with their line manager, while one-third of employees (30%) say they rarely or never get feedback on their performance. The statistics come as […]
Managers Struggle with Burden of Information
Middle managers claim to spend more than a quarter of their time searching for information necessary to their jobs, and when they do find it, it is often wrong. A survey of more than 1,000 middle managers of large companies in the US and UK found that managers spend up to two hours a day […]
‘Heads Up’ – Just Who Does Like Business Jargon?
Weeks after a survey told us that staff want their bosses to ditch the jargon, a new poll reveals that managers also want to see an end to this often unintelligible waffle.The latest survey, of more than 200 managers, found that 67% of managers are turned off by terms such as “blue-skies thinking” and “blamestorming”.They […]
The Way I See it: Train to Retain
Research from City & Guilds reveals that nearly a quarter of British businesses don’t have adequate structures in place to train and develop their employees. The Train to Retain report highlights growing competition from developing nations and recommends a simple way to maintain productivity: providing sufficient training and development opportunities for employees. Judith Norrington explains […]
‘Marital Disharmony’ of Managers and Staff
Relationships between employers and employees in many British workplaces resemble a marriage under stress, characterised by poor communications and low levels of trust, according to research released today.In turn this rocky relationship leads to under-performance, low productivity and high levels of staff turnover.The conclusions are drawn from a new survey of 2,000 UK employees commissioned […]
The Way I See it: Quangos – Just a Merry Dance?
Quangos and other government-sponsored organisations can help companies source training and grants, but in the internet age is that enough? Simon Derry, director of Project Leaders International, argues that government quangos need to offer businesses something more. Last week I was contacted by a very nice person who wanted to set up a meeting to […]
Managers Describe Most Meetings as a Waste of Time
Eight out of 10 managers believe that most of their work meetings are unnecessary or unproductive, according to research by recruitment experts. A survey of over 2000 managers across the UK by recruitment agency HTW Selection revealed that 82% of respondents agreed they were wasting time in at least half their meetings. The greatest cause […]