Why Should Train a First Time Manager and Its Importance

Every year, some of the most talented and top performing individual contributors are promoted to the role of managers by the organization in hope that this would replicate their earlier success in their new role. Although, it has been noticed previously that the enthusiasm that is expressed when announcing these promotions is not always followed by the comprehensive support and guidance that is required to navigate through this major transition in their training a first time manager career.

A Deloitte report of 2014 reported that an average of 29 percent of organization’s L&D budget is spent on training a first-time manager. It is not enough even if it sounds like development. Thereby, it becomes significant to recognize the factors that have a critical impact on ensuring that this investment is maximized and so there are no pitfalls to be experienced in the last-minute.

The Critical Impact of Proper Training

Grovo found that most of the first-time managers didn’t have the right training to be effective on the job despite the contrary expectations of leaders that newly promoted managers are aware of the expectations that come with their role. It was further found that 44 percent felt unprepared for the role and 87 percent wished they received more training.

The importance of training a first-time manager is as follows:

Due to the impact a manager can have on the team, they are expected to be successful. Problems could be created by a bad manager such as unproductive staff. Health issues can be caused by low productivity levels, lack of engagement and unhappiness which companies spend a lot of money on the treatment as a result of bad managers.

The High Cost of Ineffective Management

A study found that a high and unnecessary staff turnover occurs due to employee’s admittance to leaving an organization due to a bad boss. This could also lead to loss of high-quality talent that could be more expensive to replace.

Training a first time manager should include the following ideally:

1. Personality Assessments

Self-awareness is an important aspect in leadership. A proper understanding of individual differences, communication styles and modulation of inappropriate behaviour made critical skills effective. Before promoting the new employees to managerial position, it is wise to make them self-aware and provide better understanding of themselves. The profile created through the personality assessment could provide an insight on the type of manager they will be.

2. Strengths Profiles

Personality assessments should be ideally followed upon with good strengths profile. There are psychological assessments that will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the manger, which will provide insight to in turn mange them and ensure that their work is effective. Training first-time managers through strength profile, that is providing them insight on their strengths makes them six times more likely to be engaged and effective in work.

3. New Manager Curriculum Courses

The fundamentals are deemed as important for the success of the mangers while training a first-time manager. Training a first-time manager can be carried out through in-person workshops, virtual remote workshops, or on-demand videos for self-paced learning ensuring that it covers everything a first-time manager need to learn.

The five primary skills are:

Ensuring a smooth transition from individual contributor to first-time manager

• Effective feedback
• Coaching
• Delegating
• One-on-one meetings

It was found by Global Leadership Forecast that millennial managers loathe the long, traditional PowerPoint-driven lectures. They prefer or demand the training they receive be:

• Personalized
• Ongoing
• On-demand
• Mobile
• Coaching-based

It was found that podcasts, short on-demand webinars, book summaries, and even AI-powered chatbots are revolutionizing the online education world which is why one should consider incorporating these methods in training a first-time manager.

Conclusion

While training a first time-manager, the training and support provided to the first-time managers should stop on the account of the training being completed but it should continue despite the successful transition of the employee.