Taking on a management role is a significant step for most employees because it requires a change in skillset. People management involves coordinating a team to deliver business objectives. It can encompass everything from assigning daily tasks and communicating goals to effectively resolving team conflicts decision making, and conducting performance reviews.
You often hear about employees promoted to managerial positions without adequate training and support. The skills involved in being a manager are frequently very different from those required for those working without management responsibilities, and it’s not uncommon for new managers to feel that they have been thrown into the deep end.
Offering a training course or programme for new managers can make a huge difference in how supported individuals feel in their new role as well as provide an opportunity to develop the new skills they need and help them achieve success. As an HR professional, you may be asked to create a management training course tailored to specific requirements. Here are some step-by-step suggestions to get you started.
Table of Contents
1. Understand the Needs
Before starting work, gather as much information as possible on what the management training course should deliver. While it may be obvious that certain aspects of management such as giving feedback, running performance reviews and leadership skills are generic areas that training can be built upon, there may be other elements that should also included.
If specific areas of development have been identified, these should be included, but you may need to widen the scope and think strategically about long-term objectives for the business and short-term needs. Meetings or surveys to get the perspectives of key stakeholders are essential for understanding what should be included in the course.
Budget
You also need to be clear on the budget available, for example, you may want to hire an external trainer with industry experience to run sessions on having difficult conversations or get an agency to create a tailored online programme which teaches new managers who to use the internal performance management system.
2. Create Objectives
Once you have a good idea of what the training needs to deliver, you can create objectives for your leadership programmes which should be SMART. Ensuring that the goals for your training course are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound will help you focus time and energy in the right areas. For example, if you have identified that middle managers need help with communication skills and conflict resolution, you could create a two-hour training session which can be measured by team feedback within a specific time period such as six months.
When thinking about goals for management training, it can be helpful to divide the management skills required into hard and soft. These can include:
Hard Skills
- giving feedback
- assessing performance through specific systems
- coaching
- prioritising
- facilitating meetings
- public speaking
- budgeting
- time management
Soft Skills
- leadership
- inclusivity
- empathy
- problem-solving
- conflict resolution
- coaching
- team building
3. Design the Course
With a clear idea of the goals for your training, you can then create a content outline for what needs to be delivered, how and when. Content should be linked to the company culture and values, and should use terms and language that are in daily use in the organisation. As much as possible, refer to company guidelines rather than rules as this creates a sense of trust and empowerment which leads to better leadership in the long term.
Good management training courses also provide attendees with a chance to reflect on their own habits, behaviours and communication styles, including any biases they may have, and their preferred leadership style. Thinking about their natural management stye is part of the learning process to becoming a manager with emotional intelligence, strategic thinking and effective delegation skills.
Remember too that the most dynamic and engaging programmes incorporate different learning methods such as online, classroom-based, role-play and peer learning. It’s also a good idea to build in ongoing support beyond the specific training sessions due to the on-the-job learning that comes with managing people. Inviting attendees to consider ways they and other managers can work to support each other in the future can be a valuable addition to the training course.
Scenarios & Case Studies
As much as possible, training managers should include real-life scenarios and case studies that the participants can work through. Being able to think about how something might play out in a conversation and to understand how you might respond yourself is essential to developing the skills needed to be an effective and empathetic manager. Just practising the words you might use or considering an approach you might take starts to create the muscle memory and techniques that will become instinctive over time.
4. Encourage Ongoing Learning
As well as encouraging participants to work with each other after the course, it’s essential to provide them with resources for their own ongoing development. Building up your own library of recommended books, podcasts and videos is a great basis to help others develop their management skills.
To be good leaders, even experienced managers return to leadership training from time to time to lead their team effectively. Regular manager training offers a chance to reflect on how you are working, hone existing skills and develop new ones. Building in this ongoing commitment to manager training can be a valuable aspect of creating a management training course.
5. Get Feedback
It is good practice to ask for feedback on the training you have created and delivered so that you can learn from what you did and make adjustments as required. Listening to feedback also emphasises to attendees how important it is to ask for, receive and give constructive feedback, a key aspect of management that can sometimes get forgotten. Most people work better when they feel that they are being listened to, so management training courses should ideally model this approach.
