I’ll get straight to the point.  Why should companies invest more in management training?  Here are 10 simple reasons.

1) An employee’s relationship with his or her direct manager is the most important single factor in employee engagement.

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2) Engaged employees are happier and more productive.  Disengaged employees are frustrated and more disruptive.

3) Because there’s no widely agreed-on skillset for management (good managers come in all shapes and sizes), there’s an assumption everyone knows how to do it.  This is akin to someone who’s never driven before being given keys to a car and told: “Drive.”  (Many many years ago, this is how I first learned to manage.  I blundered my way through it.  Trial and error.  It wasn’t pretty.)

4)  The basics of sound management – clear objective setting, structured performance evaluation systems, honest and open feedback and communication, etc. – aren’t rocket science.  In fact, they’re way easier than rocket science.  Which is why companies ought to get them right.

5) Your young managers of today will become your leaders of tomorrow.  (And if your company is just going out and hiring leaders instead of developing your own, you have to ask: Why?)

6) Many companies invest heavily in training at the top (leadership development, executive retreats, etc.) but less at the bottom or the middle, where it may well be more needed.

7) Management is often uneven throughout an organization.  You have your outstanding ones, your okay ones, and your downright incompetent ones who can do a lot of damage.   In this biz, as in so many, consistency is a good thing.

8)  Respected well-trained managers boost morale, and improved morale boosts retention.   And as you of course know, it’s wicked expensive to hire and fire.

9) Litigation protection.  To amplify on point 8, it’s even more wickedly expensive to deal with employee lawsuits… plus the resulting bad PR.

10) Let’s return to number 1.  The point’s too important not to emphasize.  In the big picture, an employee’s relationship with his or her direct manager is the most important single factor in employee engagement.  It all starts with this day-to-day, in-the-trenches relationship – this is the thread from which the cloth is made.  If your managers are doing their job (assuming of course you offer products or services that people want and need), you’ll have a productive work force.  If they’re not doing their job, look out below…

The author, Victor Lipman is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Reprint from original article in Forbes 9/10/2012

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