Investing In Developing People Skills
– Will It Pay Off?
 By: Bruce Renton,
Champion Builder
Champions in the Workplace, Calgary
March 2009
Invest in training only if you are positive you are going to get your money’s worth.
When promoting a good performer to a supervisor, front line manager, team lead, foreman or leadhand we assume that person will either have or will pickup the skills to manage people and organize their department. Usually only mid-level managers and executives receive leadership training. There is a simple way to prove this is true: ask a company director, senior manager or business owner. Most will say they have not made this kind of investment.
Universities, colleges and high schools rarely teach people and organizational skills to technical graduates.
Operational bottlenecks caused by supervisors lacking in people skills training include:
- Safety incidents or lost time injuries: above the industry average
- Overworked middle and senior managers doing the work front line managers were hired to do
- Numerous union grievances
- High employee turnover (now disguised as poor productivity because employees are worried about the economy)
- Job turnaround and deadlines not met
- Wide swings in department performance
- Unreasonable overtime
Here are signs of front line leaders who can be the source of operational bottle necks:
- Trying to be everybody’s friend
- Rough around the edges; someone to avoid
- Lack of focus, lacking sense of what is a priority
You can make three decisions:
- Decide if they have the aptitude, personality and desire to do the job. If not redeploy them.
- They have good jobfit, but need people and organizational skills training- so give them training.
- Do nothing and lose money, productivity and allow the competition to surpass you
In today’s economy we recommend that you only invest in your top performers.
Bruce |
