Insights: Line managers and coaches have a critical role

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The seventh of ten 'insights' is that �Line managers and coaches have a critical role'.

It is, of course, hardly a new insight that managers and coaches play an important part in workplace learning, because it has ever been thus. Having said that, it is encouraging that this report picks up an increasing emphasis in this area.

Psychologically, very few people work for a local authority, a bank, a charity or a retail chain. They work for their direct line manager. If they leave their employer, it is more often than not that they are 'divorcing their manager' - regardless of what they say at the exit interview. If your manager believes it is important for you to beef up on some new development, or to refine your skills in a particular area, then you are motivated to do so. If your manager shows little or no interest in the training you are doing, then probably so will you.

Other reports have come to similar conclusions. Outsourcing specialists KnowledgePool conducted a study with input from more than 10,000 learners and their managers over a three year period. The data was collected from an online survey issued three months after the completion of training, and focuses on the degree to which the transfer of learning has taken place and the effect this has had on performance. The results are summarised in a downloadable white paper, They Think It's All Over. Here is one of the main findings:

"Line manager support to help learners use what they had learnt was a major factor in tackling the lack of performance improvement. The study found that where learners did receive line manager support, 94 per cent went on to apply what they had learnt, and performance improvement invariably followed."

When assessing what made the biggest impact on transfer of learning, Broad and Newstrom looked at three different parties � the learner�s manager, the trainer/facilitator and the learner themselves � at three stages in the process � before the intervention, during and after. They found that the greatest impact was made by the learner�s manager in setting expectations before the intervention; next most important was the trainer�s role before the intervention in getting to know the needs of the learners they would be training; third most important was the manager�s role after the intervention.

	Before	During	After
Learner�s manager	1	8	3
The trainer / facilitator	2	4	9
The learner themselves	7	5	6

Both KnowledgePool and Broad and Newstrom acknowledge the critical role that the manager plays in determining the outcome from a training programme. But while the former has focused on the impact that the manager makes after the intervention, Broad and Newstrom show that what happens before can have even greater impact.

Middle managers do not have an easy life, facing conflicting pressures from above and below. They may not make the big decisions but they are the ones who have to put them into practice. And as organisations get leaner and flatter, they have ever-increasing spans of control and less time to spend with each of their direct reports.  

But middle managers are still the gate-keepers to learning and development. If learning professionals do not properly engage with them, they will find their efforts under-supported if not outright sabotaged. And you don't engage with people through a policy of enforcement, by telling them what to do. As ever, people don't resist change, they resist being changed. The only way to make any learning strategy work is by on-going consultation with middle mangers. They must own the strategy. If they do, they might just get behind it. If they don't, you might as well not bother.

Share this

Classic