Why the Line Manager is integral to the Learning …...Why bother with Learning Journeys? Whatever...

Why the Line Manager is integral to the Learning Journey

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WHITEPAPER Why the Line Manager is integral to the Learning Journey

Investing in Line Managers

Organisations invest in Line Managers for many reasons, it can be one of the quickest and most effective routes for driving employee engagement and has immediate business payback by positively influencing performance, commitment, high levels of customer service and quality outputs, it also helps encourage innovation and creativity, as well as managing change effectively, which is now ongoing within the forward-thinking organisation.

The most important part of a line managers role, is to be able to effectively support and develop their team, providing feedback, coaching and on-the-job support.

“First-line managers are responsible for providing a clear link between business strategy and goals, as well as the role of the individual. They are crucial in making the difference between low-performing and high-performing organisations.” Source: CIPD1

How effective are your Line Managers?

To understand how effective your Line Managers are you could ask yourself the following:

1. What is your organisation doing to make sure Line Managers have the skills to build and lead teams today and in the future?

2. What is being done to ensure managers aren’t underperforming? 3. Is enough being done for managers to develop the skills they need to

succeed?

Only 13% of companies say they do an excellent job developing leaders at all levels. Source: Deloitte University Press, Leaders at all levels, 20142

Naturally, most of us want to learn and understand more As an organisation, Line Manager and at an individual level, we all want to learn more. The role the Line Manager plays in influencing the organisation and the individual is vital, this together with the shift towards learning at the moment of need, and in shorter component elements, provides employees with a greater sense of autonomy in their own development (which in turn brings additional benefits in employee satisfaction and engagement). This type of approach to learning is also likely to deliver a greater degree of learning transfer, as the new knowledge, skills and behaviours that each employee acquires has direct relevance at the point of learning within their daily environment, under the influence of the Line Manager.

The comment, on the right, further reinforces the importance of training for Line Managers, the new ways in which individuals wish to learn should be contextualised, personalised, absorbed and applied on-the-job. This central truism of learning emphasises the importance of supporting learners in applying their knowledge directly to their work immediately, experiencing the new processes in action first-hand to cement the learning, making it part of the individual’s learning journey.

Great leaders recognise and develop the strengths in others (Michael Catton)4

The Learning Insights Report 20143 commented:

“Shorter, bite-size learning, which is frequently linked to supporting 70:20:10 approaches and a resources not courses approach is very much linked to providing learning that is practical and can be applied on-the- job to improve performance.”

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A Learning Bar publication www.learningbar.co.uk Researched and produced in partnership with Boost Performance www.boost-performance.co.uk

The Learning Journey

The learning journey approach recognises the organisations goals and those of the individuals within. For most a basic level of awareness isn’t enough as we want to be a ‘Master’ and that takes time. From starting the initial learning, to putting this into practice and so on – a bit like learning to drive, up to the point where you pass your test and beyond.

A well-constructed learning journey is a planned series of resources, interventions, challenges and support mechanisms that take ‘the learner’ (which can be the individual or the organisation) from where they are now, over a period, to where they want to be to become a ‘Master’.

Why bother with Learning Journeys?Whatever you call your journey – corporate objectives, personal goals etc. they provide organisations and individuals with a shared purpose and goals to create a more powerful force that is sustainable and enables gradual improvement.

If a planned series of activities are joined together into a transformational learning journey then without doubt that will contribute towards a deeper level of transformation that’s highly customised around key themes specific to the organisation and the individual – it’s a positive and continuous cycle.

Evidence from DDI research (Be Better Than Average: a study on the state of frontline leadership)5 makes a strong case for the importance of this approach: “DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast found that organisations that have highly effective development programs use 32% more methods of development. But it is not just about the quantity; it’s about the quality. And the quality comes from a focus on more than just formal learning; it comes from a true focus”.

Whilst individuals have a responsibility to take ownership of their development, Line Managers can also play a key role in providing direction and helping their teams to reach their potential

Why are Line Managers integral to the Learning Journey?As the shelf-life of skills is shrinking, individuals need to remain relevant in today’s workplace, they need to constantly learn and develop but despite the demand for constant learning, most corporate learning infrastructures fail to deliver what employees need for several reasons, the main ones being – lack of time and shrinking attention spans, due to multitasking and constant connectivity. Employees want information in short, sharp bursts, they want to learn in a way that suits them.

Line Managers can often feel that L&D are passing over their responsibilities when it comes to employee development, this is not the case, it’s about what’s proven to be successful, it’s about what works best for the organisation and the individual.

In most cases employees have a Line Manager they work with day-in-day-out, it’s the Line Manager that has the most direct contact, so it’s the most logical and effective solution for them to facilitate and influence the development of their employees, which is supported by the 70:20:10 framework for high performance development.

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However, most Line Managers do not receive the adequate training and development needed to support them with this responsibility. The business and L&D specifically need to better support Line Managers by equipping them with the tools and training needed to be the best they can be and therefore enabling them to better develop and grow their teams.

Skilled managers have never been more critical to the success of organisations, the manager-employee partnership is the new building block of learning and development. It’s good managers that attract candidates, drive performance, engagement and retention, and play a key role in maximising the employees’ contribution. Line Managers have a big impact on staff turnover and retention. The number one reason employees quit their jobs is because of a poor-quality relationship with their line manager. No one wants to work for a boss who doesn’t take an interest in their development, doesn’t help them deepen their skills and learn new ones, and doesn’t validate their contributions. Upon leaving, an employee would never be honest about their Line Manager being the reason for them leaving, the organisation therefore remains in the dark about how much damage ineffective managers are responsible for.

Successful companies don’t recruit leaders. They grow their own

Facilitating employee learning and development is now a non-negotiable competency for Line Managers. Google’s famous people analytics team examined data from thousands of employee surveys and performance reviews to find out which behaviours characterise its most effective managers – Coaching came out top, as well as career development6. Research by Gallup yielded similar results. Work groups in which employees report that their Line Manager cares about them as a person, talks to them about their career progression, encourages their development, and provides opportunities to learn and grow – this results in lower staff turnover, higher sales growth and better productivity.

Supported employees benefit businesses

Employers recognise the value in having a skilled workforce, but all too often treat training as something of an afterthought. Failing to spend time or money on employee development is a major false economy as investing in the future is a must for long-term competitiveness. Knowledge and skills development is vital for healthy organisations. We live in an information age where organisations are routinely valued not just on their physical but on their intellectual capital as well. Training and development is one of the chief methods of maintaining and improving intellectual capital, so the quality of an organisation’s training affects its value. Untrained or poorly trained employees cost significantly more to support than well-trained employees that produce high returns, it also significantly impacts employee retention.

A recent Deloitte report7 cited Development as one of the most important factors that millennials consider when choosing which company to work for and also whether or not to stay with a company. CFO: What happens if we train them and they leave? CEO: What happens if we don’t and they stay?

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Supported employees benefit organisations in many ways, some of which include:

1. Improved performance and productivity - the application of new skills can help employees do their jobs more effectively. The better they understand their role and how to achieve positive outcomes, the more productive and confident they are in improving efficiencies within processes. They become more organised, productive and flexible, and are better able to meet the needs of internal and external customers. They also enhance the company’s ability to adopt and use advances in technology and increase productivity – all of which improve company turnover and potential market share.

2. Addressing weaknesses – all employees, even the best ones, have weaknesses. Training can strengthen those skills that need to be improved whilst giving employees consistent skills and knowledge, making them aware of the expectations and procedures within to increase efficiencies

3. Improved employee satisfaction and morale – employees think about career development, training has an important role to play in getting them to where they want to be and makes them feel they have a long-term future, this impacts morale, commitment and performance levels whilst enhancing the company’s competitive position. Plus, recruitment costs go down due to staff retention and the organisation has a pool of readily available and adequate replacements for personnel who may leave or move up

4. Competitiveness - equipping staff with the skills they need to embrace new techniques and procedures helps set or keep pace with competitors, it can also encourage creativity

5. Development of future leaders – employers have a responsibility to prepare for the future by developing potential managers and executives. Supporting employee development, from entry-level right through the organisation, is the beginning of this process

6. Enhances company reputation and profile – having a strong and successful training strategy helps to develop your employer brand. Training also makes a company more attractive to potential new recruits who seek to improve their skills and the opportunities associated with these. Plus, customers are more confident in the competence and knowledge of staff which in turn supports business growth

From entry-level to executiveMore employees are focused on their opportunities for learning and development to ensure they have a sustainable career. The vast majority of learning takes place on the job—through new challenges and developmental projects, developmental feedback, conversations and mentoring, making line managers their most important developers. Employees want to work with people they respect and can learn from, they see their Line Manager as the single most important individual within the organisation.

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What can organisations do to support their employees Learning Journey?

By making learning a part of the culture with a Learning Journey approach that’s embedded and connected to the workflow, day job and Line Manager, the employee will have the key mechanisms in place to feel supported, valued, motivated and engaged. Getting your key decision makers involved and behind development initiatives will set the example that’s to be embedded and cascaded throughout to make it ‘the way we do things around here’.

By focusing on the following and with adequate Line Manager support the organisation can:

1. Understand the learner by examining levels of employee engagement and the impact this has upon the organisation, employees and the customer

2. Gain regular feedback from employees for both them and their Line Manager to understand where they are up to with their learning journey

3. Keep it interesting and fresh to ensure employees are and remain engaged through a variety of opportunities and interactions

4. Contextualise training to give meaning to it and show how important it is in meeting individual, team and achieving organisational goals. Get them to invest. show your employees how vital their efforts are within that bigger picture

5. Make training relevant to the individual and their job

6. Identify the strengths of employees to support personalised and adaptive training whereby employees can organically work on their strengths to maximise them. By focusing on the areas that interest them the most, they’ll be much more inclined to take responsibility for their personal development on a continuous basis

7. Emphasise the long-term career prospects as most employees have a genuine interest in the continued success of an organisation as well as their own personal development and how this benefits them personally

8. Highlight the experts within the organisation to encourage a knowledge sharing culture, that way people know who they can go to for specific guidance/knowledge

9. Ignite managers’ passion to coach their employees by supporting and equipping them to do the best possible job

10. Deal with the short shelf-life of learning and development needs to make it more continuous and part of an ongoing campaign

11. Teach employees to own their career development. Individuals should own, self-direct, and control their learning. The development and growth of your talent is vital to your ongoing success, ability to innovate, and overall productivity

12. Provide flexible learning options. Consider adopting on-demand and mobile solutions that make learning opportunities more readily accessible

13. Serve the learning needs of more virtual teams by exploring more remote and virtual learning solutions

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14. Build trust in organisational leadership. People crave transparency, openness, and honesty from their leaders. “Lead by example.” If managers want employees to engage in learning and development, then they need to show that they are actively pursuing their own personal learning journeys as well

15. Vary the approach and medium used by rethinking the tools and activities you offer to ensure you are catering for different preferences and expectations of employees

How can the organisation embrace a learning culture?

Embrace a learning culture effectively by allowing learners to learn in the most effective way through:

• Developing training teams, so they re-think their learning approach and build their capability

• Developing Line Managers, so they can develop themselves and others in a way that embeds learning

• Developing individuals, to they understand the importance of owning their own development and learn to develop a growth mind-set.

To embrace a learning culture HR must influence Line Managers by demonstrating a better understanding of the pressures that face them. Advice to the CIPD in 2007 from the founder of the 70:20:10 Learning Model, Charles Jennings8 which is still relevant today:

1. Embrace the four elements of the trust model across all stakeholders: (Reference: Trust Equation, Charles Green9).

• Credibility: ‘He knows his stuff’

• Reliability: ‘He always delivers on time’

• Intimacy: ‘We know a bit about each other’

• Self-Orientation: ‘I want to know more about you’

2. If the HR/L&D Team offer the Line Manager practical solutions that fit within the Line Managers current team activities trust is embraced and the Line Manager takes on the responsibility and related actions

3. Line Managers need to understand - that they have accountability for developing their people. And they need to work very closely with L &D - as in any trust relationship, both sides must work at it

A CIPD survey concluded nearly 75% of all Line Managers are not giving the time, care and attention required to support team development10

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Developing Line Managers

We know Line Managers are integral to the development of their team, and team members often look to their Line Managers for guidance about how much they should focus on development. We also know that Line Managers initiate over half of the conversations about the effectiveness of training.

Make a clear case for supporting learnersTo develop employees/learners through their individual learning journey the Line Manager needs to support and monitor this in a way that helps the individual take control of their own learning. In turn, the Line Manager can impact the Learning Journey if they have been provided with the skills required to develop their teams and understand why they should take on the responsibility.

How can we show Line Managers what ‘Great’ looks like?Many organisations promote people based on their technical knowledge and achievements, rather than their people skills. Many Line Managers don’t know what ‘great’ looks like when they’re trying to support their team’s development, so by showing them what ‘great’ looks like, they can begin to understand where they are now and where they need to get to become a ‘Master’ in supporting their team’s development.

A survey of 80,000 managers conducted by Gallup11 showed there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalise on it.

Mediocre managers play draughts, while great managers play chess. The difference? In drafts, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements for them to move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. More importantly, you won’t win if you don’t think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan.

Great managers don’t try to change a person’s style, they acknowledge employees differ in how they think, how they build relationships, how altruistic they are, how patient they can be, how much of an expert they need to be, how prepared they need to feel, what drives them, what challenges them, and what their goals are.

The best managers ask, “How can we harness employee strengths, interests and passions to create greater value for the organisation?” Systematically linking organisational performance and individual development goals in the search for learning opportunities and better ways to work is a hallmark of organisations where sustainable careers flourish. And this is not a question manager’s try to answer by themselves; instead, they discuss it regularly with their team members.

A great manager also spends a good deal of time watching each person’s reactions to events, listening, and taking mental notes about what each individual is drawn to and what each person struggles with. There’s no substitute for this kind of observation.

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Tips & Tools

CoachingAs a team manager, you are responsible for supporting the development of your team, coaching and guiding them to be the best they can be.

Coaching not only enables individuals to build their capability but knowing that they are being developed and invested in improves motivation, which in turn improves employee satisfaction and attrition…so it’s good for the individual, good for the Line Manager and good for the business!

1-to-1 sessions During manager-employee 1-2-1 sessions, time should be set aside to focus on personal development and get a better understanding of the current situation. 1) what the learner’s development objectives are? 2) how the learner is performing against those objectives? 3) what the learner needs from their Line Manager to help them achieve those objectives?

Team meetingsMost Line Managers have team meetings. If they add a 10-minute ‘Development’ slot to this meeting agenda they can judge where they are up to with their own learning objectives, as well as the level of awareness across the team for their individual objectives – the Line Manager will get an immediate picture of the team’s status to help provide appropriate encouragement and support to stay on-track.

Know your teamTo manage an individual well there are three things you must know about them: 1. strengths – make the most of these2. triggers that activate those strengths3. how they learn

Taken from the book ‘The One Thing You Need to Know: ... About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success’, By Marcus Buckingham12, here are some great discussion questions for managers to ask individuals on their team:

1. Main question: What’s the best day you’ve had at work in the last three months? Supporting questions: What did you do and why? Why did you enjoy it?

2. Main question: What’s the worst day you’ve had at work in the last three months? Supporting questions: What were you doing and why? What was it that bothered you the most?

Becoming a great developer of employees requires managers to expand their focus from “How can I get excellent performance out of my team members?” to “How can I get excellent performance out of my team members while helping them grow?” Savvy managers know that doing well on the second part of the last question helps to answer the first.

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In addition to helping employees develop and pursue meaningful learning goals, regular career conversations also help to mark progress, they also serve as a reminder of the organisation’s commitment to employee learning, which in turn strengthens employee commitment.

To understand an employee’s unique abilities the Line Manager must:

1. Identify and capitalise on each person’s uniqueness - no employee, however talented, is perfectly well-rounded. Take advantage of their natural abilities and build on them

2. Capitalise on uniqueness to make each person more accountable

3. Capitalise on what is unique about each person to build a stronger sense of team, because it creates interdependency. It helps people appreciate one another’s’ particular skills and learn that their co-workers can fill in where they are lacking. In short, it makes people need one another

4. When you capitalise on what is unique about each person, you introduce a healthy degree of disruption into your world. You shuffle existing hierarchies that challenge to make the organisation become more inquisitive, more intelligent, more vital to be better equipped for the future

Steps a Line Manager can take to stimulate learning and development within a team:

• Share detailed information with your team about current operations across the company. Be transparent about the company’s challenges and direction, including such things as changing customer expectations, new vendor relationships, early-stage strategic plans, and top leaders’ thinking regarding the potential impact of industry trends and economic conditions. Invite their questions, thinking and suggestions on these issues as well

• Support the development of internal social networks that span functions and divisions to give employees broader understanding of the organisation and help them spot opportunities to learn and to add value

• Instead of a once-annual conversation about career goals at the time of the annual performance review, have frequent short conversations throughout the year regarding employees’ career goals and interests, which may not be self-evident. Regular career conversations help individuals to refine their goals. With better understanding of their learning goals, you and your employees are in a better position to spot developmental opportunities

• When planning your team’s work, ask employees to identify both how they can contribute and what they would like to learn. This gives employees the primary responsibility for clarifying what they want to learn and for proposing ways to incorporate on-the-job learning. It also helps to avoid having employees volunteer to perform only the tasks that they are already highly skilled at.

• Ask employees to report back periodically to you and fellow team members on what they have been learning and how they are using new skills and knowledge.

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How to trigger good performance

A person’s strengths aren’t always on display. Sometimes they require precise triggering to turn them on. Squeeze the right trigger, and a person will push himself harder and persevere in the face of resistance. Squeeze the wrong one, and the person may well shut down. One employee’s trigger might be tied to the time of day (he is a night owl and his strengths only kick in after 3pm). Another employee’s trigger might be tied to time with you, the boss (even though he’s worked with you for more than five years, he still needs you to check in with him every day, or he feels he’s being ignored). Another worker’s trigger might be just the opposite—independence (she’s only worked for you for six months, but if you check in with her even once a week, she feels micromanaged).

The most powerful trigger by far is recognition, not money. Most managers are aware that employees respond well to recognition. Great managers refine and extend this insight. They realise that each employee plays to a slightly different audience. To excel as a manager, you must be able to match the employee to the audience he/she values most.

Tailoring praise to fit the person is mostly a manager’s responsibility, but organisations can take a cue from this, too. There’s no reason why a large company can’t take this individualised approach to recognition and apply it to every employee. HSBC bank has done a great job of this - each year it presents its top individual consumer-lending performers with its Dream Awards. Each winner receives a unique prize. During the year, the managers ask employees to identify what they would like to receive should they win. The prize value is capped and cannot be redeemed for cash, but beyond those two restrictions, each employee is free to pick the prize. At the end of the year, the company holds a Dream Awards gala, during which it shows a video about the winning employee and why they selected their particular prize. You can imagine the impact these personalised prizes have.

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References for further reading

1. Developing managers to manage sustainable employee engagement, health and well-being. Research insight, November 2014. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/developing-managers_2014_tcm18-10434.pdf

2. Successful Organizations Need Leaders At All Levels, Roger Trapp, March 2014. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2014/03/23/organizations-need-leaders-at-all-levels/#58042ed93ab1

3. Learning Insights Report 2014. http://www.kineo.com/resources/papers-and-guides/learning-insights-report-2014

4. Mike Catton, Passionate about productivity and performance. http://www.mikecatton.co.nz/team-building/71-teamstyles.html

5. Be Better Than Average: A study on the state of frontline leadership. Written by Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D. Aviel Selkovits Debbie McGrath, 2012. http://www.ddiworld.com/ddi/media/trend-research/bebetterthanaverage_tr_ddi.pdf

6. If You’re Not Helping People Develop, You’re Not Management Material by Monique Valcour, JANUARY 23, 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/01/if-youre-not-helping-people-develop-youre-not-management-material

7. The 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey Apprehensive millennials: seeking stability and opportunities in an uncertain world. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx-deloitte-millennial-survey-2017-executive-summary.pdf

8. CIPD Annual Survey Report 2007. http://www2.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/EB18FA28-BD40-4D47-81B9-660034D280C1/0/learndevsr.pdf

9. Trusted Advisor Associates LLC. http://trustedadvisor.com/why-trust-matters/understanding-trust/understanding-the-trust-equation

10. Identify how your organisation measures up. Gabby Smith, 6 April 2017. https://www.makingbusinessmatter.co.uk/blog/identify-organisation-measures/

11. What Great Managers Do by Marcus Buckingham, March 2005. https://hbr.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do

12. The One Thing You Need to Know: ... About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success by Marcus Buckingham, October 2006

https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/developing-managers_2014_tcm18-10434.pdf

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2014/03/23/organizations-need-leaders-at-all-levels/#58042ed93ab1

http://www.ddiworld.com/ddi/media/trend-research/bebetterthanaverage_tr_ddi.pdf

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx-deloitte-millennial-survey-2017-executive-summary.pdf

http://www2.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/EB18FA28-BD40-4D47-81B9-660034D280C1/0/learndevsr.pdf

https://www.makingbusinessmatter.co.uk/blog/identify-organisation-measures/

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About Learning Bar

We believe in developing people through multiple touch points to create bespoke and connected learning journeys that stand a better chance of being embedded within the organisation.

We focus on developing and up-skilling in-house Training Teams and Line Managers to equip them to better develop people with learning solutions that are tailored and aligned to the needs of the organisation, strategies and values by applying our unique 6-step approach.

Examples of how we help our customers: Developing Training Teams• Developing your L&D Brand experience• Building your Learning & Development team capability for now and the

future• Accreditation of L&D team and/or programmes in conjunction with The

Learning and Performance Institute (LPI)

Developing Line Managers• Developing and coaching your team• Creating a high performing team• Leading with your values Developing Individuals• Owning your own development• Delivering a great Customer Experience• Selling through service

Contact Learning BarCall: 02038 838 386Email: [email protected]

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Contact Learning BarCall: 02038 838 386Email: [email protected]

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Why the Line Manager is integral to the Learning …...Why bother with Learning Journeys? Whatever...

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