Company Announcement - In an economy where only 3.6% of entrepreneurial businesses succeed, it is essential to ensure that everything is being done to facilitate prosperity. Owners place managers in positions of power, requiring them to lead the workforce effectively, but regardless of their everyday proficiency in a management position, good management ability is required to ensure success.

While adequately trained but under-developed managers may present opportunities for growth; experts in their field are often promoted to management positions on the strength of their technical/product expertise, hindering growth. Technical expertise does not equate to being a good manager, even when managing a technical team. Managers need to be equipped with actual management skills. For this reason, management skills training is essential.

In order to be successful as a manager, certain skills are required. These include being an effective leader, being able to motivate the workforce to mobilise itself to reach the organisation’s goals and the ability to delegate tasks effectively. The ability to motivate employees involves leading through experience and competence, not through superiority due to the manager’s title. Effective training will underpin this competence and enable the workforce to trust its manager. These are people skills that can be taught and honed through appropriate training.

Although a plethora of management courses, workshops and programmes exists, it is important to evaluate the real-world application offered by the potential programmes. For real return on investment, in-depth assessment of the options available is required. This will involve ascertaining the level of the facilitators, whether the material is in line with best practices, whether the delivery methodology is innovative and whether the institute provides experienced staff with the ability to analyse needs. This is essential in ensuring that skills gaps are effectively identified and fulfilled.

Every business relies on management to build, sustain, maintain and improve the organisation and its staff. Management training should be utilised to forge a strong foundation for current and potential managers while teaching them how to build morale, engage with others and communicate effectively with their teams.