Number of organisations training newly appointed managers more than doubles

In the last three years the number of newly appointed managers attending leadership and management open training courses has more than doubled. In the period between 1st September to 31st December 2014 the percentage of delegates attending Impellus’ open courses who had been in their current role for three years or less represented 33% of all delegates. For the same period of 2015, the percentage jumped to 66% and in 2016 it accounted for 70% of all course delegates.

Positive impact of leadership and management training

The encouraging findings are from research of over 1,950 Impellus’ delegates and align well with a recent report from the Open University. In the Open University’s Trends in Learning 2016 Report 71% of employees questioned said they were more likely to stay with an organisation that recognises their potential and takes an interest in the development of their skills.

The upward trend in managers who have been in their current role for three years or less is refreshing and illustrates that an increasing number of organisations are realising the benefits of developing the leadership skills of newly and recently appointed managers. Often their people are highly skilled technically and professionally but they lack the knowledge of how to effectively manage their teams. However following high impact leadership skills training, these managers are able to empower their line reports to work better together and to drive their team to deliver the organisational objectives and goals.

HR Managers and training organisers regularly report a positive change in the attitude of their managers and a greater understanding of how their role interacts with others in the business when commenting on the outcomes of Impellus’ open courses. They also praise the fact that their managers’ horizons have broadened and they now realise that their everyday challenges are very similar to those of other managers in different organisations and industry sectors.

High employee satisfaction among ‘trained’ managers

As part of the regular Impellus’ delegate feedback process, managers are asked for their opinion on: ‘Things for me at work are generally better / the same / worse than at this time last year’.  An average of 69% of newly appointed managers felt that things were better for them.  On average, only 6% felt things were worse. These results were consistent across the three years of delegate data that was reviewed.

The fact that the organisations have invested in these managers and given them the opportunity to undertake leadership and management training early in their existing roles is undoubtedly a key factor in how they feel about things in the workplace.  Their optimistic outlook can only have positive knock-on effects for their team and organisation.

So, it’s a win-win situation – the sooner an organisation provides leadership training for its managers, the quicker the positive impacts will ripple through the organisation.