THE ADAGE that someone joins a company, but leaves a manager is still ringing true in corporate Australia, yet there appears to be little progression beyond using balance sheets as the yardstick to measure management's success.
THE ADAGE that someone joins a company, but leaves a manager is still ringing true in corporate Australia, yet there appears to be little progression beyond using balance sheets as the yardstick to measure management’s success.
A recent survey conducted by CareerOne found that 96 per cent of those surveyed believed that a manager’s performance should include their ability to manage staff. A similar number (89 per cent) also believed that managers’ training should incorporate ongoing people management training.
However despite this widespread desire, nearly one in two people surveyed said that they had left a role because of a bad manager. Avril Henry, Executive Director of AH Revelations has found that Generation Y are inspired by good leadership, making them loyal to people as opposed to companies. It is the work of Henry that inspired Kate Southam, editor of careerone.com.au to include the question that found that more than half of those surveyed (56 per cent) had left a job or would be prepared to leave a job to follow a good manager. Southam explained that while Henry recruited for some great employer brands, employees still claimed they didn't “want to work for X company”, they “want to work for X person. Looking at the future, people management skills are going to become increasingly important,” said Southam.
As the skills shortage crisis in Australia deepens, the findings provide a timely reminder as to the importance of reference checking. Properly conducted reference checks are more likely to uncover bad people management skills as well as unsavoury personal habits than a carefully constructed CV, which often only highlight hard skills such as an ability to handle numbers. According to Southam, too many companies, “are doing that old thing of promoting people in accordance to their technical proficiencies and not their ability to motivate, manage, and give feedback both good and bad, all those essential things that keep a team ticking over.”
Despite the worrying survey findings, there is still a predominance in the Australian working community to focus on hard rather than so called soft skills despite a slight shift to the contrary.
“We have 85 open programs or public training courses with a combination of both hard and soft skill courses and there is certainly an increase in demand from our members and clients for the soft skill courses. Hard skill courses still dominate, but there seems to be a trend towards soft skill courses,” said Ross Moyle, manager of membership, communication and publications at the Australian Institute of Management.
Perhaps the most interesting finding was that 63 per cent of those surveyed believed it was a good idea for job applicants to formally reference check a potential new manager before accepting a new job. However, Moyle claims this may not be feasible, “It is an interesting concept whether it could be practically applied is a different matter. I could see it as being desirable from the applicants point of view, but the logistics of trying to do something like that may be difficult because in many respects you could say the employer is calling the shots in the interview.”
After the Australian Institute of Management completed a Management Segmentation Study in 2005, which looked at the needs of managers and their attitudes to the various organisations that can improve management skills, it was found that there was in fact a belief among managers that they need soft skills to be good managers. However, in opposition to the CareerOne findings that ongoing people management training is a must, the Institute found there is a perception among managers that such skills are better learned on the job. While Morley believes in the value of formal training in soft skills, “there is no substitute for learning it on the job”, he said.
