Skilled
managers have never been more critical to the success of firms than they are
today. Not because employees can’t function without direction, but because
managers play a vital role in talent management. Gone are the comprehensive
career management systems and expectations of long-term employment that once
functioned as the glue in the employer-employee contract. In their place, the
manager-employee dyad is the new building block of learning and development in
firms.
Good
managers attract candidates, drive performance, engagement and retention, and
play a key role in maximizing employees’ contribution to the firm. Poor
managers, by contrast, are a drag on all of the above. They cost your firm a
ton of money in turnover costs and missed opportunities for employee
contribution, and they do more damage than you realize.
Job
seekers from entry-level to executive are more concerned with opportunities for learning and
development than any other
aspect of a prospective job. This makes perfect sense, since continuous
learning is a key strategy for crafting a sustainable
career. The vast majority (some sources say as much as 90%) of learning and
development takes place not in formal training programs, but rather on the
job—through new challenges and developmental assignments, developmental
feedback, conversations and mentoring. Thus, employees’ direct managers are
often their most important developers. Consequently, job candidates’ top
criterion is to work with people they respect and can learn from. From the
candidate’s viewpoint, his or her prospective boss is the single most important
individual in the firm.
Managers
also have a big impact on turnover and retention. The number one reason
employees quit their jobs is because of a poor quality relationship with their
direct 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. This isn’t what departing employees tell
HR during their exit interviews, of course. After all, who wants to burn a
bridge to a previous employer? Instead, they say they’re leaving because of a
better opportunity elsewhere. And so what happens is that organizations remain
in the dark regarding how much damage their inept managers are
doing.
Regardless
of what else you expect from your managers, facilitating employee learning and
development should be a non-negotiable competency. Google’s famous people
analytics team examined data from thousands of employee surveys and performance
reviews to find out which behaviors characterize its most effective
managers. Coaching topped a list that also included helping
with career development. Research by Gallup has yielded similar results. Work groups in
which employees report that their supervisor (or someone else at work) cares
about them as a person, talks to them about their career progress, encourages
their development, and provides opportunities to learn and grow have lower
turnover, higher sales growth, better productivity, and better customer loyalty
than work groups in which employees report that these developmental elements are
scarce.
Remember
the Peter Principle? The phrase refers to a process in which employees receive
promotions as a reward for being competent in their current jobs, and they
continue to rise through an organization’s ranks until they reach a level at
which they are incompetent. The predictable consequence of this pattern is that
over time, an organization becomes heavily staffed by managers who are bad at
their jobs. Your organization cannot afford to let this
happen.
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.
The
best managers ask, “How can we harness employee strengths, interests and
passions to create greater value for the firm?” Systematically linking
organizational performance and individual development goals in the search for
learning opportunities and better ways to work is a hallmark of organizations
where sustainable careers flourish. And this is not a question managers try to
answer by themselves; instead, they discuss it regularly with their team
members.
Here
are several steps you can take to stimulate learning and
development:
·
Share
detailed information with your team about current operations across the firm.
Be transparent about the firm’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 in
order to give employees broader understanding of the organization 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 employees 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.
Keep
in mind that in addition to helping employees develop and pursue meaningful
learning goals, regular career conversations also help to mark progress in
development. And they serve as a reminder of the organization’s commitment to
employee learning, which in turn strengthens employee
commitment.
More
blog posts by Monique Valcour
More
on: Employee retention, Giving feedback, Managing people
Monique Valcour is a professor of management at EDHEC
Business School in France. Her research, teaching, and consulting focuses on
helping companies and individuals craft high-performance, meaningful jobs,
careers, workplaces, and lives. Follow her on Twitter @moniquevalcour.
