Almost everyone would agree that being a good manager is critical to career advancement. The trouble is, managers aren’t often given the training and insight that they need to succeed.
Waggl recently used its pulse platform to reach out to hundreds of business and HR leaders and ask them about their priorities for 2017. As usual, the pulse surfaced a few key strategic insights. For one, only thirty-four percent of respondents felt that their current training programs are meeting their development needs. By way of contrast, eighty-nine percent of the participants responded that they are taking active steps to improve employee engagement, and eighty-six percent said that they could be doing more to attract top talent. Fifty-four percent of the respondents said that they effectively execute on their strategic goals and plans.
These results clearly illustrate that that hiring, retention, and communication are top of mind for HR and business leaders. Recruiting may be the hot button right now, but once the talent is secured, engagement and training are essential to building the type of team culture that can effectively execute on strategic goals – especially in our current business climate, which is rife with constant change and disruption. Because, let’s face it, top talent will leave if they are not receiving the development they need.
With 2/3 of the participants for this pulse survey saying that their current programs don’t meet their development needs, there is a clearly an acute need for better management training. Although we were initially surprised to see such a huge gap, it actually makes sense if you look at the larger trends. In North America, the average manager accepts their first managerial role at age 30, but they don’t typically receive leadership training until the age of 42. And that 12-year gap isn’t helping companies grow.
So, what is the other 1/3 doing that the rest of the industry could learn from? Companies that do have effective training programs in place are better able to retain talent, which ultimately cuts down on the churn and disruption, and eliminates the need to constantly recruit for new talent.
According to William Gentry, author of The Insider’s Guide to Becoming the Boss Everyone Wants to Work For, “Becoming a manager is one of the most stressful and challenging transitions in any career. Why do half or more new managers quickly flame out? They’re working from an old script for success. As an individual, your script is about ‘me.’ But when you become a manager, everything about your job needs to change—your skillset, the nature of your work relationships, your understanding of what ‘work’ is, and how you see yourself and your organization. You have to operate from a brand new script, one that’s about ‘we’—ensuring collective success.”
On Tuesday, December 6th at 11 am PT, William Gentry will join Waggl for a free webinar about how to best train the next generation of leaders. William has vast experience in this topic – in addition to writing the book, he serves as the Director of Leadership Insights and Analytics as well as a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked global provider of executive education that serves more than 20,000 organizations across the public, private, non-profit, and education sectors.
Please join us as William discusses why New Leaders are so important to the success of organizations and outlines practical, actionable, on-the-job tips to becoming the boss everyone wants to work for.
William Gentry, author of Be The Boss Everyone Wants to Work For