From boom to bust and coming out the other side
Lately, few news stories have been more likely to send a shiver down the spine than the seemingly constant stream of job losses - banks, retailers, automotive giants; the list goes on. The economic downturn has already had a significant impact and the concensus certainly seems to be that the aftermath will continue to be felt for several months, and beyond. The sudden shift from boom to bust has meant that the management skills businesses had all too often taken for granted are now becoming increasingly critical.
There is real pressure on managers to respond quickly and confidently to daily challenges, and to drive productivity within their teams. They need to be extraordinarily good at the basics. There is an art to motivating a team, for example, and driving continuous improvement even when all targets are being met. In the boom times these things become a dying art, but it is in the tight times that you rely on them the most. The result is that training needs have changed.
What managers want is clear advice and direction on how they should deal with a situation, and some simple tools to help them get on with it. They no longer have the time or the inclination to explore options and learn by discovery; they are impatient and committed to results. The time will come when managers can benefit from being encouraged to reflect on what they have done and why it has worked (or otherwise) but for now, they are generally happy to follow direction and contribute in the most direct way they can. Equally, the business is generally happy for them to do so as the training budget cannot withstand anything more aspirational than this.
Yet what if businesses haven’t had the chance to hone those particular management skills? Many existing managers have inherited their team, and have not been shown how to maintain and develop competence. There are also many relatively new managers who have never worked through economic downtimes and so simply don’t know what is expected of them. Those who lack the right experience tend to look for guidance from the business, and in turn, the business should be thinking about whether their training delivers this.
The problem with economic slumps though, is that typically, training budgets are the first to be slashed. After all, who is going to pour money into training when the cash is so desperately needed in other parts of the business? Well, you’d be surprised. Luckily, the most switched on businesses are investing in training and creating strong teams that won’t just see them through the slump, but will also carry them into the future. The key is to help managers feel confident in their ability to lead their team through the storm.
At Training for Advancement, we have seen a rise in the number of first-line manager development programmes and on-the-job performance support tools, and a tightening of operational procedures so that people have absolute clarity on what is expected of them. Many of the customers we speak to have said that they don’t intend to stop training just because the markets are taking a beating, but they do expect to be more focused on pragmatic and cost-effective solutions with high expectations of results. They also expect to renegotiate terms with key suppliers to find innovative and mutually agreeable ways to drive down costs without impacting quality or service.
So what does all this mean for the future? It’s a good news story for a change. Not only is it predicted that the economic downturn will weed out those managers who can’t cut it, there are those who believe that it will create strength - a more mature, experienced and wise workforce who may have had to toughen up, but will have become better informed, slicker, leaner and meaner as a result. At least that’s a positive sign for the future.
If you would like to talk to Training for Advancement about your training requirements, or any other aspects of this article, please contact Anne Nash on 01782 717817 or a.nash@tfa.co.uk.