Everyone remembers the managers they’ve worked with throughout their careers—the good and the bad. These leaders carry a ton of responsibility in shaping the employee experience. Gallup reports that managers cause up to a 70% variance in employee engagement rates. Similarly, our own Nectar study revealed that 40% of employees rank managers as the group that has the most impact on them recognition-wise.
As managers are pivotal to employee and company success, you'd expect them to be trained thoroughly and regularly. But sometimes, this step can be missed due to lack of time, money, or will. Our guide explores the importance of manager training, what it should include, and some tricks to maximize your management training programs.
Manager training is a structured learning and development program that helps new or existing managers grow the skills they need to lead employees in the workplace. Manager training isn't a checkbox exercise—it should never feel complete. While some training programs might offer one-off courses on a particular topic, it's wise to update management skills regularly by taking a refresher course or using a microlearning program.
Management training typically encompasses some of the following key topics to support managers in feeling confident in their roles. This has the secondary effect of their direct reports feeling comfortable under their care:
Practical, on-the-job experience is invaluable for developing managerial skills, but relying solely on it can lead to significant gaps in knowledge and effectiveness. A "learn as you go" approach misses the following benefits of structured manager training courses:
Managers can make or break the employee experience. Every person of working age can remember a manager they've loved working with—someone who was their greatest cheerleader, mentored them, and set them up for career success.
For this reason, 33% of employees surveyed by Nectar say managers have the most impact on their engagement.
Of course, managerial influence can also include leaders who have negatively affected their employees. Tales of bad managers flood LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other online review sites, so managers must be trained to engage and motivate their staff to prevent disengagement from setting in and snowballing.
Linking closely to engagement, fewer people quit when the manager-employee relationship is working well. People who enjoy working with a specific manager are less likely to want to "escape." Nectar's recent employee retention and turnover study revealed the following interesting facts:
Although most employees feel positive about their manager, those who don't are likely to terminate their employment, which can be costly for the company. Leadership training programs can strengthen relationships and keep turnover low.
Well-trained managers are a bridge between senior leadership and junior staff; they promote and embody the company's culture, values, and mission to their teams. Gallup research reveals that employees who “strongly agree that leaders help them see how changes made today will affect their organization in the future” are 7.5x likelier to feel connected to their company culture.
Training is essential. It ensures that managers can interpret the company's goals, lead by example, and inspire their direct reports to promote them. Regular training also keeps managers updated on any culture changes or internal communication messaging, strengthening alignment across the entire organization.
You may be happy with today’s leadership, but what does it look like tomorrow? Recruiting external candidates for key management or specialist roles is expensive, so nurturing your internal talent pool is a cost-effective alternative.
Training as part of a succession planning strategy equips managers to step into more senior positions when the time is right. But it also enables them to pinpoint and develop future leaders from the talented employees within their teams.
Every company should design a manager training program based on their organizational structure and unique pain points. Use the following tips and tricks to shape your L&D strategy.
Successful managers are those who are open to learning leadership best practices and strategies they can immediately apply within their teams. Whether hiring managers internally or externally, ask interview questions that identify their attitude towards frequent training and personal development, such as:
Manager training should never be one-size-fits-all. Your managers will typically have a preferred learning style, with the following four recognized by psychologists:
To accommodate all the learners requiring managerial training, offer a variety of training formats that appeal to everyone. For example, Ana Alipat, Recruitment Team Lead at Dayjob Recruitment, offers practical workshops to enhance communication for kinesthetic learners. She shares:
“These programs are interactive, incorporating real-life scenarios and role-playing to help managers practice and refine these skills. We ensure the training is not just theoretical but truly applicable, with regular feedback sessions to track progress and address challenges. This hands-on approach has helped our managers grow not just in their roles but also as influential leaders within the company.”
Ongoing training keeps managers fresh, inspired, and better equipped to manage their teams. The obvious problem is finding time to slip regular learning into the working day.
Microlearning is a continuous development approach that requires managers to set aside only 10 to 15 minutes of the day to watch a quick video, read an email, or complete a quiz as part of their training. Based on the findings of psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve, regularly consuming bite-sized chunks of information helps learners retain knowledge over time.
To offer something similar in your organization:
When employees are struggling with their mental health, their manager should be their first port of call to deliver support. Sadly, some workers don’t feel comfortable approaching their boss about this topic, while some who initiate a discussion don’t receive the support they need.
As an example, Nicholas Whitaker, Co-Founder of Changing Work took to LinkedIn to recount an occasion where his manager fell short.
Nicholas experienced daily panic attacks, 3 am work scaries, trouble focusing on or completing tasks, and some physical health symptoms before leaving his role. He also struggled with his employer gaslighting him, received a “Needs Improvement” performance review, and required twice-weekly therapy, medication, and a year of coaching to recover.
Clearly, his manager had entirely failed to show compassion and any help toward his mental health, which is why Nicholas advocates for managers to show empathy and proactive support in similar situations. We spoke to Nicholas directly, who suggested some top ways managers can be trained to address their employees' mental health concerns thoughtfully and systematically:
Traditionally, managers have been in the same location as their workforce, able to oversee their projects, answer their questions, and discuss performance management issues face to face. However, as working models have adapted, manager training must also accommodate flexible work arrangements.
Unfortunately, Gallup research finds that 70% of managers haven’t had any formal training in how to lead a hybrid team. If that’s your situation, incorporate training that demonstrates how to handle:
As companies commit to diversity initiatives, managers must understand what diversity means and how it can aid in achieving business goals. This is a huge topic employers will want to get right, so it's essential to take expert advice on how to roll out meaningful diversity training to your managers.
To give you a headstart, we spoke to Jes Osrow, co-founder of HR company Rise Journey, who recommends zooming into specific diversity training topics relevant to your organization.
“Avoid overarching and broad training, think niche and specific. Often organizations will do unconscious bias training and call it a day, but when focusing on managers they are dealing with different people-work related interactions and experiences.
Manager training needs real management scenarios. The best way is to dig into historical issues and do some variation without calling out people or specific incidents. Hands-on exercises coupled with management-specific tips and best practices go a lot farther."
To ensure the training resonates with your manager learners, Jes recommends tailoring the content and thinking closely about what diversity looks like in your organization:
“Managers and employees often get stuck on the word ‘diversity’ and begin to glaze over a bit. What does diversity mean for that manager? For their team? Department? Region? Once a person can connect the idea of diversity to tangible elements of their lives and work, it becomes real rather than a pie-in-the-sky idea that gets bounced around HR departments.
A company could be very diverse ethnically/racially but not as diverse when it comes to other demographics (religion, education, age, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) Having training that focuses more on those other areas of 'diversity' and how they may improve the company could be more productive and informative."
An effective manager recognizes their employees as humans and can read between the lines to understand what’s going on with them and the best solution to any problem they’re experiencing. Nina Paczka, Community Manager at MyPerfectResume, explains:
“A good manager understands that the team is a group of individuals who differ in character, attitude, ambition and face different private and professional challenges. Empathy, and therefore implementing an individualized approach to each employee and their unique challenges, is a powerful tool that connects on a deeper level. To nurture empathy, focus on developing your emotional intelligence, active listening, and perspective-taking.”
Empathy and interpersonal skills training should include:
Managers inspire confidence when they make strong and clear decisions that provide direction for employees. Imagine what this decision-making looks like in action:
Example: A product development team encounters a software bug that is causing significant delays to the project’s timeline.
Manager A steps into the situation with confidence and clarity. They analyze the problem, consult with key team members, and quickly allocate resources to fix the bug. Communication is top-notch. Everyone feels reassured and motivated, knowing they'll quickly get out of the weeds.
Manager B faces the same software bug but takes a more hesitant approach. They hold multiple meetings, all involving the same cocktail of blame, vague suggestions, and an overall lack of direction. Manager B's indecisiveness creates confusion among team members, and the project is ultimately delayed, causing a dip in employee morale.
But how can companies offer training to be more like Manager A than B? Ben Donovan, Founder of Brand Builder University, told us:
“Our training includes content around decision-making frameworks and problem-solving workshops. In these sessions, managers are presented with common workplace scenarios and guided through the process of making timely, effective decisions.”
No one wants to work under the reign of a hypocritical manager. If leaders preach one thing but do the opposite, they'll lose the respect of their employees and watch team morale tank. Well-developed managers understand the importance of modeling the behavior they expect from their employees.
Matthew Sanjari, Founder and Business Coach at PRIME Consulting, explains how to offer training to encourage this critical practice:
“I've come to learn that people don't need another motto to latch onto but a model to follow!
A great way to incorporate this into training is to make sure that we are practicing what we are preaching, and to build time into our training to actually not just teach on values, but to embody them for ourselves.”
Of course, modeling desired behaviors requires managers to reflect on their own behavior and attitudes, too. Lorraine Bossé-Smith, Chief Solutions Officer at Concept One LLC, describes how to accomplish this by being self-aware:
“When self-aware, leaders are willing to admit areas of weakness and seek development. Unfortunately, too many leaders allow their egos to dictate their behavior and believe they don't have to change because "they are in charge."
This approach is toxic! Great programs to develop all leaders involve first learning about oneself and then about others. I am a huge fan of DiSC because it is observable behavior, not what someone is thinking and feeling. DiSC immediately gives insights into the leader and then helps them understand their teams better.”
Interested in trying this out? DiSC is an acronym describing four different leadership styles:
Unexpected layoffs, new competition, economic downturns—these are just a few of the situations that can arise in business at any time. An effective leader doesn’t let these disruptions throw them off course. They’re agile enough to pivot and adapt quickly when needed.
Michael Alexis, CEO of Virtual Team Building, reveals how to set managers up with the skills to be adaptable in a constantly changing business environment:
“By incorporating adaptability into manager training programs, organizations can ensure that their people leaders are well-equipped to handle whatever comes their way in the dynamic world of business management. Manager training can provide scenarios for role-playing exercises where leaders have to think on their feet and make quick decisions in response to unexpected circumstances.”
Another must-have skill for managers is the ability to handle difficult conversations with empathy and diplomacy. These may include diffusing a heated disagreement between team members, raising a sensitive topic with an employee, or delivering difficult, constructive feedback.
Karolina Górska, Senior HR Coordinator for digital marketing agency Delante, believes that learning to navigate hard conversations should be a fundamental part of every manager's training. She told us:
“I have to confess—I do not believe in traditional, “corporate” kinds of training. Running through slide decks and getting some general advice is like gaining academic knowledge: while you need some basics, your life experience matters much more.
If possible, I try to provide trained managers with real-life situations by inviting the entire team for communication training. Thanks to interactive group tasks, a manager can put the new information to the test right away. At the same time, it’s a secure setting that is ideal for experimentation. In difficult situations, it is far simpler to fall back on a tried-and-true strategy than to assume an entirely new role.”
The final step in developing effective managers is recognizing that leadership development isn't a one-and-done activity. Employers should create a proactive strategy for refreshing their manager's training periodically. This might include:
Recognition is an important component of managerial success, working in two main ways:
Nectar offers a suite of recognition tools designed to applaud and motivate managers and the individuals who work with them. Our platform includes:
Ready to use recognition to create better managers? Book a free Nectar demo today.
