The living world is rapidly changing. Brought by technological innovations, knowledge revolutions, and paradigm shifts, top managers face a challenge in establishing loyalty and integrity among their employees. Consequently, the top administrators are seeking ways to make their employees motivated, productive, and committed to the company; thus, calling for professional development by seeking management training programs.
Employees want learning and development opportunities so badly that according to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report, 94% would stay at a company longer if the company was invested in their development. This is particularly true among managers who have several responsibilities to work on and deal with. Among such responsibilities are the following:
- Team leadership
- Employee Relations
- Project Management
- Workplace Conflict
- Business Risks
- Client Relations
With these situations, there is an urgent need for the top management to attend several management training sessions. Here are 7 types of management training that companies can conduct for the benefit of their managers throughout their administrative journey.
Leadership Training
Aiming to maximize efficiency and achieve organizational goals, leadership training is considered as ideal for anyone in a supervisory role, from people who have just stepped up to a new level, and even to those who have already been managing for a long time. With the vast changes currently happening, effective leadership contributes a great impact on growth and success within organizational settings. This includes aligning leadership with business strategies, building the loyalty of clients and employees, fostering innovation and improvement, and establishing a strong organizational culture that is supportive and responsive to the fast-changing world.
By giving opportunities to managers to undergo leadership training, they are able to transform organizations, enhance work value creation, and engage their employees to deliver better results in terms of work productivity and efficiency. Leadership skills training also entices managers to find innovative and systematic ways of developing and managing people, develop new business opportunities for further collaboration and profitability, and tackle broader managerial issues they constantly face.
The perceived effects of leadership training bring a huge impact on managers. Leadership training will give opportunities for managers to build, improve, and maintain their competence in analyzing organizational problems, preparing strategic activity plans, and performing the tasks to improve the performance of the work organization.
Soft Skills Training
Soft skills refer to communication, personality traits, social graces, and other personal habits used to describe relationships with other people. An example of this would be training employees the manner of answering the phone and establishing a welcoming atmosphere to clients and potential customers. Dealing with sexual harassment and ethics training are also among the examples. The call to provide soft skills training is vital for it teaches people to be flexible and enthusiastic to learn new things that will contribute to the growth of an organization and its employees.
Through soft skills training, other aspects of the managerial roles and responsibilities are also emphasized that include how to motivate others, maintain small talk, and establish rapport. According to a survey by Computerworld Magazine, there is an increasing need for people to hone their communication and listening skills, which are two of the most useful soft skills in every company. These skills promote harmony and unity in the organization which is also crucial.
Numerous problems in organizations are due to a lack of soft skills, not by problems with the business itself. As a result, the human resource management team and top management team should work together to strengthen these employee skills. Take note that soft skills training significantly contributes to the overall success of the organization.
Project Management Training
Project management training includes specialized training for planning and control of projects. A major challenge in the project-based organization is the manner of applying projects as their major business vehicle. To optimize work efficiency in a certain organization, project management is customized to the needs of three organizational levels:
- Administrative staff level
- Technical staff level
- Executive and management level
Each of these levels has processes that must be in accordance with the needs and responsibilities that an organization desires.
This type of training aims for project managers to develop critical thinking skills that they need in times of dealing with complex projects. In addition, this training also aims to develop both technical skills and other relevant skills such as interpersonal skills and leadership skills. With this type of training, managers in different offices are able to innovate feasible projects that they can use as their vehicle in making their organization profitable; thus, contributing to the overall productivity.
By acquiring this type of training, managers will become equipped with fundamental skills in dealing and evaluating projects, as well as the methodologies and frameworks to follow when managing projects.
Performance Management Training
In a business organization, performance plays a crucial role. Performance exerted by employees and other executives in the organization brings a huge impact on their overall success. It is always equated with the work productivity done by the employees and efficiency of the strategies innovated by managers to make sure that work productivity is sustained. With certain paradigm shifts and vast changing times, organizations face a huge challenge in managing their employees and clients in terms of loyalty and innovation.
Performance management training is significant for providing an opportunity for impactful communication to advance employee careers and strengthen relationships between the manager and employees. The process of setting goals, evaluating performance, communicating performance feedback, rewarding high performers, and managing low performance are just some of the things emphasized in performance management training.
This type of management training equips managers in crafting frequent review sessions, team building activities, and balancing past performance with future development which ultimately leads to successful performance management; thus, increasing the work quality of all the members of the organization.
By aligning the workforce with business goals and focusing on continuous individual development, performance management creates a strong culture that maximizes individual, and organizational performance.
The process of performance management training are as follows:
- Performance management planning, where goal setting and complete understanding of both goals established by the employees and managers is emphasized;
- Employee performance assessment, where managers conduct an assessment among their employees based on the attainment of goals on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
- Recognition for accomplishments, where employees become more engaged in the attainment of business goals by giving them an opportunity to recognize their outstanding work; and,
- Career development where employees and managers arrive at an effective performance management strategy to further execute their business goals.
Building a performance management system, anticipating the future of performance management, and managing employee performance problems, are frequently determined to make sure that work productivity is enhanced for the overall attainment of the business goals.
Conflict Management Training
In executive leadership training programs, conflict management training becomes extremely important for it limits the negative aspects of conflict while also recognizing the positive elements of conflict such as creative tension. Effective training in this area delivers skills applicable to many situations, from managing employees to handling organizational issues and communication problems in the workplace.
Conflict management requires that managers have the necessary conflict management skills applicable in dealing with internal conflicts between an employee and the organization itself, or among employees themselves. Through effective conflict management training, managers will be able to relate better with their employees, resolve conflicts as soon as they arise, avoid further escalation, and repair employee-company relations.
How a manager is able to deal with conflicts affects the organization at scale. With conflict management training, every company will be able to enhance the ability of the managers in an organization to deal with potential external pressures and ultimately establish a strong reputation for the company.
Risk Management Training
They may say that experience is the best teacher, but the fees are high. Occupational safety and health, psychosocial, financial, ergonomic, and other hazards contribute to the downfall of the organization’s performance. Consequently, when performance is affected, the profitability and productivity of the organization are at stake. Risk management is concerned with the decision-making process responsible for minimizing these drastic effects brought by the hazards. With this, top managers usually arrive at certain risk management decisions successfully and effectively when they frequently attend risk management training.
Risk management training is related to the identification, analysis, and treatment of risks; thus, risk management utilizes the experiences of managers to help the manager make effective judgments about what might happen in the future. Anticipating bankruptcy, health emergencies, natural calamities, economic crises, and other unbecoming instances are considered in this type of training.
Risk management training seeks top managers to be familiar with the techniques in assessing certain risks and their degree of sophistication. In this way, managers can effectively determine feasible and practical options they can utilize if in any case, unexpected instances happen. Risk management is an essential continuing activity in an organization to mitigate several risks and effectively make immediate solutions whenever an anticipated or abrupt problem happens.
Client Relationship Management Training
Client relationship management refers to a kind of training that enhances a company’s interactions with clients and their approach to building a positive working relationship.
Managers do not only handle projects or lead teams, but they also manage clients and work with them for the duration of a project. This is why it is necessary for managers to improve their ways of handling clients and managing deliverables.
If managers are not equipped in nurturing the company’s relationship with the clients, it can lead to irreparable damages, including loss of revenue. Or worse, it may result in legal conflicts. Client relationship management training prevents this from happening and enforces a healthy working relationship between managers and clients.
If you’ve already made a decision about what certain management training course makes sense for the organizational, professional, and personal goals of the company, the next step is creating a training program plan that embodies the goals of the program and focuses on the overall needs of the company.
It is also important to ensure frequent organizational reviews to determine where an organization stands in relation to its objectives. Unless a company continues to pursue development across the board, it will cease to grow and thrive. Much of this depends on the company’s frontliners—the managers.