Your managers need to be prepared for this year’s unique challenges. Here’s how small businesses can think about impactful — and cost-effective — manager training.

By Sarah Lynch

There’s an oft quoted adage: employees don’t quit jobs, they quit managers. And this year, having well-equipped managers could be even more crucial.  

Managers play a critical role in the success of companies, solely determining 70 percent of the “variance in team engagement,” according to Gallup. But these valuable players are currently overburdened: 51 percent are now reporting more responsibilities than they can manage, according to a Gartner report in 2023.  

On top of helping attract and retain talent, in this new era of work, managers are expected to take on additional responsibilities, like ensuring employee well-being and enforcing return-to-office mandates, says Brent Cassell, vice president, advisory, in the HR practice at Gartner:  

“You’ve got this perfect storm, where HR’s expectations of managers have increased at a time when employees’ expectations of their managers to be a coach, a mentor, a project manager … have increased.”  

The solution? Many leaders are looking toward trainings: leader and manager development ranked as a top priority for HR leaders in 2023, with 59 percent planning to increase their investment in manager development programs over the next two years, according to another Gartner report.  

But this can be time-intensive and costly for smaller companies—leadership trainings cost anywhere from around $2,000 to upwards of $4,000 in some cases. Fortunately, there are ways to invest in manager training that are both simple and effective. Here’s what you can do: 

Know what you need from managers  

Before rushing into developing or paying for training sessions, company leaders should first consider if they have the right expectations of managers, says Emily Field, partner at McKinsey: “Do we know what makes a great manager in our organization? Do we know the skills and capabilities that we expect?”  

In doing this, company leaders might discover that they have some warped or under-communicated expectations–which could be contributing to manager burnout, with the recent increase in responsibilities. 

“If we want our managers to be really dedicated people developers who coach their teams, but they’re spending a third of their time or more on individual contributor tasks and that’s what they get rewarded for, no surprise that they’re not going to have as much time for people leadership,” Field says.  

Thus, aligning on expectations should be the first step, and that will elucidate where further training would be the most targeted and valuable. “Rethink the design of the role such that it is more focused, scalable, and executable,” Cassell adds. “Make it easier for managers to do the things that we need them to do.”  

Focus on microlearning   

To get the most out of manager training, eschew “splashy classroom trainings” and multi-day long sessions for “bite-sized investments in habit building,” Cassell says. He says this approach can be an “effective, a quicker, and a cheaper alternative to building the habits that managers need to be more effective in their roles,” even if that’s just 30 minutes per week. 

Some experts call this microlearning.  

One (cost-effective) method might be peer learning. “What are the challenges that they’re experiencing today? Who in my organization is doing it particularly well?” Cassell says. In today’s work environment, those challenges might include how to talk to employees about mental health or how to mentor employees in a remote work environment. 

Then, consider: “How do I tee up an opportunity, how do I create a forum, where that manager can speak to his or her peers about those shared challenges and what it is that’s working for them?” Cassell adds. 

The more customized and applicable the training is for your organization, the better, says Jessica Burkland, assistant professor of practice in organizational behavior at Babson College and the owner of a consultancy to help mid-sized businesses create training programs: “I’m going to learn a specific skill … and then I’m going to be able to put it into practice right away as a manager.”  

Track the results  

If you’re investing in manager training, with time and/or money, you want to make sure that it’s sticking the landing. And business leaders can play a key role here in ensuring the fulfillment of these training goals, Burkland says. 

For instance, she says, companies might want to train managers on how to instill a sense of purpose within the employee base: Gallup recently found that connection to the company’s mission and purpose is declining for remote employees. 

In this case, Burkland says the company leader could check in with those employees weeks after the training and ask questions about their understanding of the company’s purpose.  

“If we’re hearing back from the employees, ‘I’m not sure,’ then obviously our managers need more work,” she says. That could mean more training or a stronger goal–or that there is a deeper problem with particular managers. “The leaders probably need to have some reflection themselves and say: what are we missing?”