New Director Training Course at-a Financial Services Business - A Case Study

BackgroundXYZ financial servicesCompany supplies a number of financial and life insurance services to their clients, who range between individuals to Fortune 1000 companies through the northeast United States. They have been in business for 1-5 years and through that time have grown to 75 workers. They're beginning to expand the services they offer to add stock broker services and also aspire to expand their business-to address the central and mid-west United States next 5 - 8-years. This strategy of extended services and protection of place is expected to increase their need for employees to support the company from their present level of 75 to 150 - 200 employees. In addition, they will need certainly to develop a new section to handle the stock broker services.Current Training at XYZ Financial Services CompanyTraining at XYZ Financial Services Company continues to be largely ad-hoc, with individual employees registering for a number of open enrollment typ-e courses offered through local education companies or through night classes at the local senior high school or university. In lots of cases the employee may have paid for training independently if it had been an individual interest; however, in certain cases the business has paid for training if the director of the employee has particularly requested the training. For instance, if an employee is responsible for writing letters to customers, the organization might offer to cover for training to enhance writing skills for that individual. Nevertheless, if a worker is thinking about enhancing his/her speech skills, but makes no formal presentations on behalf of the company, the company would not pay for that training.The company knows that to be able to develop and prosper, and retain employees that are valuable to the company, they need to have more formal training programs, planned to career paths, in position for their employees.The Human-resources department was tasked with developing more formal training programs for the employees. The first plan they concentrated on was a New Manager Training Program as the objective will be to promote some of the existing employees into management functions and retain new employees for the more junior, staff level roles.Research on Creating a New Manager Training ProgramOver the past few years when employees were promoted to a manager role from an individual factor role, they weren't supplied any formal education and were rather 'cast into the role.' In-the words of one of the relatively new professionals - 'Learning was done on-the travel and it was especially difficult if you were now managing individuals who were your friends previously.'A survey was done of all individuals who were offered to a management role within the last 3 years to know what education would have been of importance to them to guarantee their success. The next issues were asked:Did once you were made a boss you consider any courses on your own? If so, please record the courses you took.

Which of the following abilities can you feel might have been helpful to have proper training on prior new manager: as to starting your role 
Interviewing skills 
Basic management skills - including leading others, assigning, communication, and so forth. 
Conflict management 
Negotiation 
Transitioning from peer-to boss 
Performance management and training 
Coaching the others 
Other (please list )What challenges did you face as a new manager?What challenges do you continue to face today?Would you want to consider mentoring new administrators if a formal mentoring program was put in place?What other data do you think could be helpful for us to know as we prepare a new manager instruction program?Some interesting findings from-the survey included:Uncertainty on the best way to be a 'barrier' between their immediate reports and their manager 
When choices should be made rapidly and if they should be made along with their team of direct studies 
How-to not undertake everything them-selves and learn to trust and effortlessly delegate the others to get work done 
Uncertainty o-n dealing with individuals who are negative and intimidatingAll 10 individuals who received the questionnaire answered. The responses were quite beneficial to the HR department in having a training course for new supervisors. These were all issues and problems that HR believed might be addressed in training and also through adding a formal mentoring program.It was decided that the new system would be rolled out with the 5 people who were promoted into a management position prior to them actually starting in-the new position. The 1-0 individuals who responded to the study were asked to participate in any or all of-the sessions, as they preferred. All 1-0 attended sessions together with the 5 new professionals and took benefit of it pro-gram in its entirety. This was a fantastic profit to the 5 new professionals while the 10 individuals who already had been in the work could discuss how they treated particular situations and offer their assistance for the new managers.XYZ Financial Services New Manager Training ProgramThe new manager training system was an overall total of three weeks (15 days) in length. Before the plan starting, the new administrators got the Myers-Briggs Typ-e Indicator analysis to know them-selves and how they communicate with others. The outcome were reviewed throughout the kick-off of the program.The first class the folks took was called 'New Managers 101.' The course was a 3-day course and focused on the following topics:Transitioning into a new boss position 
Observing your team 
Interviewing and selection skills 
HR fundamentals including work law 
Time-management 
Budget management 
Effective delegatingAdditional programs were one to two days long and concentrated on:Performance Management and Coaching (2 days) 
Project Management Basics (1 day) 
Team Leadership (2-days) 
Managing Conflict (2 days) 
Presentation Skills (2 days) 
Communication (2-days) 
Problem Solving (1 day )The course involved role playing, scenario studies/scenarios, discussion, and individual and group exercises. Studying projects were given for homework. Activity planning was done after each course to map out how the person was likely to apply their new skills when they were within their new role.The program involved a formal mentoring program. The 5 new administrators were assigned advisors. Their mentors were persons who were promoted into management roles (from someone contributor role) and have been managing for at least 3 - 5 years. The mentors served the mentees with their action programs initially and answered questions about how exactly they'd use their abilities to the job.After the ProgramOnce the program ended, the mentoring program 'formally' kicked off and mentors achieved with the brand new managers officially at least one time per week for just two hours to answer questions, fix issues, brainstorm, etc. Furthermore, after 8 weeks face to face, the group of 5 new supervisors got together to review their action plan progress and to simply take 101 to an additional course:Management - Part 2, (2 days) which focused on: 
How you can understand and influence the habits of others 
Addressing behavior problems 
Speaking assertively 
Motivating othersA review was done of the their immediate reports, their managers, and new managers after 4 months face to face to gauge progress and performance. Listed below are the key points from the study results:5 new professionals (who took it pro-gram )Were comfortable in their ability to handle persons who were once their colleagues 
Were confident with the power to create a cohesive team and address issues that arise, occasionally making a choice alone to make sure the group is moving in the right course 
Could work with their direct reports to develop personal and group goals and professional development strategies and objectives 
Access to mentors provided them with someone they can talk with and a sounding board for tough decisions they had to makeTheir managers (VP stage within the business )New managers required less 'hand-holding' then prior new managers according to skills and understanding brought into the role through-the training curriculum 
Saw development in action programs developed by new professionals 
Were tracking well toward objectives set for new managers centered on increased income, building clientele, improve processes/efficiencies, launch of new products/servicesDirect accounts (persons who reported to the new managers )Believed the manager made great choices general for the party and felt comfortable likely to the manager with concerns/issues 
Felt boss cared about them and worked with them to produce their abilities 
Overall improved satisfaction with work and direction their department/group was headingSummaryBased on the effects of the surveys and based on follow-up discussions with the tutors of the new managers, the HR department talked with the executive staff about the achievement of the plan. The program was incorporated as part of the standard education programs in-place at XYZ Financial Services Company and all new managers (whether hired from external or internal to-the business) could be put through the program prior to starting their new role.As new managers were hired or promoted and went through the program, over a three year tracking time, research showed:Retention of employees increased to 85-77 retention from 55% retention when a new supervisor took over a party 
efficiencies and New processes increased time-to market on new services and products by 25% 
Departments/business devices worked more collaboratively and shared information more regularly thereby improving productivity 
Longevity of management staff improved