Management Training

Managing absence badly can cause resentment, an increased absence problem, complaints / Tribunals and can make employees’ illnesses worse if not handled in a supportive way.

This course covers general absence management where we recommend effective Return to Work interviews to identify potential issues and also support employees back in to the workplace in a structured way. We also clarify when individuals can self certify, when a doctor’s fit note is needed, ‘access to medical records’ requirements and also when and how to engage with external bodies such as Occupational Health or an individual’s GP or Consultant.

Whereas managing absence should generally be a positive and supportive management tool, we also discuss recognising patterns of absence and how to handle such issues e.g. regular absence after weekends or following your football team’s away matches!

Likewise, if an individual has e.g. more than 4 short term absences in a year where there seems to be no underlying cause for such high absence, we discuss using the disciplinary process to reduce such ‘sporadic’ absence. It is perfectly legal to do this and helps the morale of the rest of the team when they see it being tackled, as long as it is handled in the right way.

We also cover supporting people with longer term illnesses and how to manage them so they return at the earliest possible point, engaging with Occupational Health and other medical support where appropriate.

Clearly some people in your company will have disabilities so we cover the requirements regarding supporting them in the best way, including the requirement to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to the workplace. Clearly ‘reasonable’ will change depending on the organisation, so we discuss how it relates to your workplace.

Finally we touch on the cases nobody likes to manage – the dismissals due to capability where a long term absence means you need to dismiss the employee and replace them. Again this is legal, but can be very upsetting for all concerned.

In this session we start with a SWOT and PESTLE analysis of an organisation or department, where the internal Strengths and Weaknesses are identified and married to the external Opportunities and Threats (broken down through looking at the relevant Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors). From this we can go in several directions depending on your preferences and do some ‘Organisational Design’ where the optimum departmental structure is agreed to take advantage of the outputs of the SWOT analysis, or we can look at specific roles and how they can be adapted to the circumstances, it may even be that the analysis leads to an update of the Organisation’s 5 year plan to take advantage of Opportunities, or guard against potential Threats.

Coaching always reminds me of the old adage of ‘give a man a fish, feed him for the day …. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life’. It is so easy to just guide or tell someone what to do, or give them the answer based on your experience i.e. give them a fish, but an excellent manager will coach the individual to the right answer by asking relevant questions so they work out the answer for themselves i.e. you have taught them to fish!

This course covers highly effective coaching and questioning techniques. A very effective option in the course is to practice the learning points in a safe environment by the dreaded ‘role-play’. It’s not right for everyone though so we don’t insist!

*A coaching style is not for everyone, however, and some managers find it very frustrating and too slow to get the right answers in their fast moving world. It may therefore be more appropriate for your team to be trained in Mentoring than Coaching, depending on what you want to achieve and the culture of your organisation. A good mentor will combine effective questions with the benefit of their experience and descriptions of how they have handled a situation in the past so if that is your preference for how your managers communicate with their teams we will alter the course accordingly.

(*note for the purists – we appreciate this may not fit the dictionary definition of Mentoring, but it has proven to be a highly effective management technique).

At 186hr we are great advocates of 360 degree feedback, where you break down the behaviours (or competencies) that make an individual successful in their role, and ask line management, peers and subordinates to anonymously score individuals against these behaviours and to add comments so the individual can understand why they received certain scores.

We would then spend an hour or so with each individual to discuss their feedback and put together a Personal Development Plan based on their key development needs.

This course will either follow your current processes or introduce new ones that are relevant to your company’s size and culture, along with how to get the most from the meetings through questioning techniques and also having evidence to back up any points the individual may disagree with.

Designed to remove the dread that most managers have of these key practices and work towards them being a positive and normal part of everyday management, we find that once managers follow a structured approach it leads to them and their team being more motivated and performing significantly better.

A good induction is worth its weight in gold! We spend so much time and money recruiting the right candidates and then so often leave them to flounder and become disillusioned, leading to high exit rates of new starters.

A structured induction programme designed to facilitate the individual performing to a high level as quickly as possible AND, just as important, understand and adapt to the company’s culture, has been proven to reduce leaver rates in new starters and, clearly, the sooner the individual becomes effective and feels ‘at home’, the better they will perform. We will help you put such a programme together.

In this session we largely concentrate on the grey area in between somebody not hitting target, and the disciplinary / exit process.

Generally, managers are unsure how to manage this important part of the process and so they leave it until an individual’s performance has got so bad that they phone us wanting to dismiss the individual. They then become frustrated when advised they should start with a verbal or written warning and follow a structured disciplinary process over several months in order to avoid an unfair dismissal claim! (the other option of course is to hold a Protected Conversation, see the HR Consultancy section of this website under ‘Difficult Exits’ for more details).

The course is designed to help managers improve performance to the required levels in a positive way rather than dismiss people but clearly, if performance continues below target then following this simple, structured process will give the evidence needed for a safe disciplinary or dismissal if the individual doesn’t improve sufficiently.

Managers are trained on what to include in the initial restructure announcement, the consultation process, and the outcome / decision letter or announcement.

We cover the legal requirements such as timescales, informing the relevant government departments, right of appeal, right to have a Representative present, what needs to be confirmed in writing etc to ensure compliance with the law and the ACAS Code of Conduct.

In addition to legal requirements we also discuss best practice e.g. ensuring regular  communication for both those affected and those who remain, along with dealing with ‘survivor syndrome’ where people judge the organisation by how leavers are treated.

Notes and sample documents will be given for future reference as often it is several months or even years before managers will need to put the skills discussed on this course in to practice.

We can also provide ‘outplacement’ training to those who will be made redundant, including CV writing, interview skills, letter writing skills, using Linkedin effectively, where / how you are most likely to find your next role, effective Networking …..

This course covers the process that should be followed based on the disciplinary policy in your Employee Handbook, along with best practice to ensure disciplinaries are handled fairly, effectively and consistently leading to one of the 2 desired outcomes of: either the individual changes their behaviour and acts as required, or they leave the organisation due to their decision, or yours!

Disciplinary policies should be used to change behaviours and attitudes wherever possible, leading to individuals remaining employed and improving their performance. However, only the individual can change their approach irrespective of how much support you provide and if they are not willing or able to do so then unfortunately the disciplinary process can also be used to remove them from the business and be replaced by someone who acts as you need them to.

The legal requirements of disciplinaries are covered on the course, along with best practice and what to include in the various letters …. But the process is about so much more than letters, it is about changing behaviour and, if done well it often can be a supportive process that helps the individual to achieve future success.  

Again this course will be adapted to your policy, and covers both the legal requirements and best practice. But in a similar way to when Customer Services handle a complaint well and it leads to an improved relationship with a customer, a grievance handled fairly, consistently and well can lead to a more motivated, loyal and high performing employee. We will discuss how to manage the grievance process in such a way to achieve this as opposed to it being the start of a breakdown between individual and employer.

Clearly everyone is motivated, and de-motivated, by different things and it is a very individual thing, one that managers need to try and understand for each person in their team.

On this course we go through the main theories and how they can be used to try and motivate individuals in your team.  So we will introduce them to the theories of Vroom, Herzberg, Maslow, Parent / Adult / Child etc but that is more to add  structure and create discussion than to recommend one particular approach.

The main purpose of the session is to help managers appreciate and understand why individuals may be acting in a particular way at present, and what motivates the individuals in your team to perform to a high level – and accept that all will be different – and how to try and ensure that anything you do to motivate individuals is relevant and meaningful to them.

For example, it is often a shock to find that paying more money generally isn’t a long-term motivator as the impact lasts a month or 2 at best and it is more communication and belonging to a team that leads to longer term motivation.

Similar to the above Business Improvement course, we normally start with a guided SWOT / PESTLE session and then use that to agree on the key roles and structures that will support your department or organisation’s future growth and strategy.

We will touch on the highly acclaimed McKinsey 7S process, and other ways to really get to the bottom of the best way to structure your organisation or department. We will then agree how we can use that structure to ensure you have the right people in the right roles to achieve success.

Three crucial skills for any manager, all of which generally go by the wayside when we are busy, which leads to inefficiency and a vicious circle of long hours and declining results.

The techniques of how to do all 3 disciplines well will be discussed on this course, with handouts for individuals to refresh themselves when they find themselves slipping into bad habits.

Asking the right questions is one of the keys to being a great manager, both in terms of coaching or mentoring team members (see above) to create ownership of issues and actions but also to really get to the heart of an issue so you can tackle the cause not the symptoms.

We will go through various techniques, and when to use the different types of questions to get the information you need but also to close down an individual who talks too much!

Clearly though, communication is so much more than just what you ask or say. Often, how you say it is even more important than the words you use, so we discuss the 3 elements of communication – the words used, the tone of the voice and also body language – and how to use these to improve your communication skills.

Finally, we discuss how listening is so underrated, and we look at techniques to really listen and understand what people are saying to you. We often spend the time when others are talking deciding what we are going to say next rather than concentrating on their answer and building on it as, clearly, our views are far more important and people surely can’t wait to hear what we have to say next ….. or can they?

How often have you sat in a long, drawn out meeting wishing someone would take control, and realising this is 2 hours of your life you are not going to get back? Or, almost as bad, you attend what seems to be an effective meeting but then nobody acts afterwards so all it was, in effect, was an interesting conversation!

This course covers ensuring order is kept in meetings, how to control participation so all get the chance to speak but when the subject goes off piste it is brought back under control, sticking to the agreed timescales, and also ensuring that people commit to actions and those actions are then followed up to make sure they happen – on time and as agreed.

This course covers the 5 stages of the sales process and how to navigate each stage to guide your customer through the process to a successful sale, along with preparation and post-sale support / service.

The course will be adapted to your sector and organisation, and include effective techniques to build rapport, questioning techniques to find out a customer’s needs, offering a solution, overcoming objections and the various ways of closing a sale.

We often like to have a Sales Manager or equivalent in these sessions to give relevant examples and marry together Sales wording with product features etc.