Management Training

Management training is an important area of discussion in HRM. Managers play a number of vital roles in organisations. Managing people, dealing with conflict, communicating both inside and outside the organisations, and making a variety of decisions are some of the responsibilities of managers. Managers need to have a variety of skills and attributes in order to carry out their responsibilities. Many of these skills are not automatically gained and therefore, managers need training.

What skills do managers need?

Certainly, managers need a wide variety of skills to perform five basic functions of management namely planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling. According to Plunkett & Attner (1994), managers need three skills as follows:

Technical skills

Technical skills are the abilities to understand technical aspects and use tools of the area of speciality a manager is entrusted with. For example, a manager supervising computer engineers must know computer engineering. Technical skills are very important for operational managers.

Human Skills

Managers must have some good human skills. These skills refer to the abilities to communicate with others effectively. Managers need to work with others to develop a team environment. Without human skills, managers will find it difficult to maintain cohesiveness within the team. Human skills are sometimes called communication or interpersonal skills.

Conceptual skills
According to Plunkett & Attner (1994), conceptual skills refer to the mental capacity to conceive and manipulate ideas and abstract relationships. Business environment is ever-changing and therefore, managers must visualise what is happening both within and outside the organisation.

So, what training do managers need?

Managers certainly need training to gain technical skills. The can gain human skills through social interactions, yet organisations such as Tesco spend a lot of money to train employees on communication skills. Conceptual skills should develop through years of experience. At the same time, both formal and informal trainings can also be useful in this regard.

There are a number of training programmes available for would-be managers. For example:

Financials for non finance managers

Coaching skills for managers

Communication skills for managers

Training on effective negotiations skills

Leadership training for managers

Management training: moving into management

Management training: moving from manager to leader

Corporation Development Training

Executive Leadership Programme

Cross-cultural training

Organisations offer these training programmes  both online and offline. Some of them are short courses which are usually delivered face to face in one day, while others are very structured and delivered over a long period of time and lead to nationally recognised qualifications once completed. Big organisations usually have their own staff development plans in place incorporating different training programmes. At the same time, a would-be manager can express his/her interest in certain training programmes which are useful for managerial development. It is worth mentioning that what training programme managers will attend, usually depends on the level of management they are in and the level they wish to progress to.

The article publication date: 06 November 2016

Further reading/References

Plunkett, W., & Attner, R. (1994) Introduction to Management, 5th Edition, International Thomson Publishing

Photo credit: Pixabay