Managers who don’t get management training are 36% more likely to leave their current job
Two stats from Digit to get us going:
- 1 in 4 of those who manage or supervise people have never had any management training.
- Managers who don’t get management training are 36% more likely to leave their current job.
The second stat focuses the mind on a pertinent issue. I sit typing this article in February 2022, a time when finding good people is very difficult – there are more jobs than applicants. If one of your managers left because of a lack of investment in them as managers, could you cope?
On top of the risk of good managers leaving, there are so many other reasons why it is essential managers are trained.
My own experience over the last 10 years leads me to believe that not prioritising the training of managers is a big, costly mistake. Managers are absolutely critical to the overall success of the entire organisation. Managers are the front line, the ones on the ground making day to day decisions, dealing with HR issues within their team, motivating, measuring, organising. The list goes on.
If a board considers that an engaged employee is productive 80% of a working week, and a disengaged employee only 20% of a working week, it really puts into sharp focus the direct impact managers can have on productivity across an entire team or business. If engagement drops, productivity drops, profits drop.
It’s a fact that with untrained managers you’re much more likely to face more HR issues. This is common sense – if they don’t know what they’re doing, then errors in people management will happen. All this increases the risk of an Employment Tribunal.
Further, if you have untrained managers in your business, you are likely to be wasting money. Why? Because the business is paying a premium for them to manager in the form of a higher salary than being ‘on the tools’. Yet if they’re not managing, the higher salary cost is wasted. In bigger businesses, you then tend to have HR spending all their time on reactive issues, when the business needs HR looking at proactive issues such as how do we recruit better, induct better, performance manage better etc etc! All the things that lead to more profit through people.
Finally, I would ask you to consider the last 18 months and what the future looks like. During the COVID pandemic, never have managers been as critical to the success of an organisation. As we look to the future, according to Harvard Business Review, managerial tasks are likely to be replaced by technology by as soon as 2024. Managers will no longer be needed to manage workflows after this, so the role will change. Harvard suggests it will then be “less important to see what employees are doing and more important to understand how they feel.”
Are your managers ready for this? You have to ask yourself, with increased demand for talent, increased risk of HR issues, and pressure to perform at an all-time high, the question is: can your business afford not to train your managers?
Author: Gavin Howarth, Managing Director of Howarths
