Train the Trainer- Manager Training for New Managers in 2024

An insight into the modalities of training your manager, its importance, & an overview of the relevant skillset for new managers.

February 21, 2024
Press the button to generate random icebreaker questions.
There are 300 more icebreaker questions at the bottom of the article
How would you describe your job to a five year old?
What season would you be?
What is a weird food you have tried? Would you eat it again?
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Would you go in the mother-ship with aliens if they landed on Earth tomorrow?
What is your favorite season?
Do prefer working from home or the office?
What is your earliest memory of this job?
What is the best thing you have bought so far this year?
What is the earliest book you remember?
If you had to move to another country, which one would you choose?
You are the best criminal mastermind in the world. What crime would you commit if you knew you would get away with it?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
What was the last thing you ate?
What person from history would you add to Mount Rushmore?
What is a weird fact you know?
What is your favorite part of working from home?
Were the Spice Girls a good team?
Imagine you can instantly learn any language. Which would you choose?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Which fictional team is the best team of all time?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What do you usually eat for a quick lunch?
What simple food will you never eat?
Show us the weirdest thing you have in the room with you right now.
Would you rather stay at a hotel or an AirBNB?
What is your favorite movie genre to watch?
Are you more productive in the morning or at night?
Who is someone in your community that makes a difference?
Who was your most unique pet?
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
What is a good way to give back to the community?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
Is Hugh Grant funny?
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?
Would you want to have an imaginary friend today? Did you have one as a child?
What actor or actress would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
What is the best super power?
What is your New Years resolution?
You can only eat one food again for the rest of your life. What is it?
What is the best work holiday?
What is the first gift you remember receiving?
Would you rather join Metallica or Backstreet Boys?
What is the best example of a community you have seen?
What is an easy way to do something nice for someone?
Show us your phone background and tell the story behind why you picked this image.
What was your first job?
Pick any band to play at your funeral.
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Which superpower would you give to your arch enemy?
What is the most obscure superpower you would want?
What emoji best describes how you are feeling right now?
If you could live in any country, which country would you pick?
Would you rather live in a city or a town?
What is your favorite holiday?
What is something you accomplished as part of a team?
What is your standard office lunch?
What is your most used phone app?
What is your favorite season?
Have you ever won something as a team?
Imagine you are a professional baseball player. What is your introduction song?
Beach holiday or ski trip?
Have you ever been to a funny comedy show?
Would you rather live at the North Pole or the South Pole?
What is your favorite song to sing?
If you could live in any state, which state would you pick?
Imagine you could teleport anywhere. Where would you go right now?
What is the most unusual job you have heard of?
What was the last thing you ate?
You can visit any fictional time or place. Which would you pick?
What do your family and friends think you do all day?
What movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?
Show us your most-used emoji.
What was the most unique style or fashion trend you ever embraced?
What movie defined your generation?
You are stranded on a remote desert island. Are you alone or with your worst enemy?
What is your favorite knock-knock joke?
Have you ever told someone Santa is not real?
Do you know how to speak more than one language?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how much of a team player are you?
What is your #1 recommendation in this city?
What is your favorite holiday?
What bucket list item do you most want to check off in the next six months?
What is your favorite mythical creature?
What was the first way you made money?
If you could be great at any Olympic sport, which would it be?
Which song could you listen to over and over again?
When did you start liking/hating mushrooms?
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Do you take your PTO all at one time, or another way?
Which show do you remember most from your childhood?
Which beverage goes best with pizza?
Would you want to have a personal assistant follow you around everywhere and do what you asked of them?
Have you ever met your idol?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Would you rather live 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future?
What is your hobby?
When you are alone in the car, what volume is the music at?
Imagine you no longer have to work. How would you spend a Tuesday?
What is your favorite type of sandwich?

Managers are at the center of crucial business decisions. Their position necessitates upholding the company's ethics and steering teams through challenges and drawbacks. As a result, managers largely determine employee satisfaction and, by extension, the organization's retention rate.

With this responsibility, no one goes into a managerial position without trepidation. So, by improving the manager's skills and fostering a positive learning environment, you'll also be building the company in the long run.

Although training doesn't guarantee success, it reduces the time needed for the manager to gain competence. And this can reduce the cost of a turnover if the new hire does not work out. So, providing managers with practical management training ensures that each team performs optimally.

In this article, we'll discuss the essentials of manager training, the necessary skills every new manager should have, and the importance of management training. Let's get right into it.

What Kind Of Training Do Managers Need?

A manager in training requires training programs that ensure competence in today's business world.

The business world has a new outlook where employee satisfaction and productivity have become top priorities. Managers are crucial in maintaining team morale and commitment to minimize turnover.

Hence, management training programs should focus on capacity development, soft skills acquisition, innovation, and performance evaluation.

Here are seven important topics to cover to ensure effective new manager training programs:

  1. Leadership
  2. Compliance
  3. Conflict Resolution
  4. Project Management
  5. Performance Management
  6. Client Relationship Management
  7. Onboarding

  1. Leadership

Effective leadership is the core tenet of any management training. New managers need exposure to the rudiments of effective leadership to manage the team and align them toward the company’s goal. 

Leadership training programs for managers build and improve their ability to develop strategic plans to impact the overall growth and success of the organization positively. It promotes innovation and enhances the creation of a supportive working environment, ensuring the loyalty of both employees and clients.

  1. Compliance

Just as every industry has its standards, every company has unique rules and regulations that employees must follow. 

Since employees look up to managers for instructions and guidance, managers are expected to be up-to-date with these codes of conduct to enable them to inform employees and avoid conflicts.

  1. Conflict Resolution

The hallmark of being a great manager is the art of conflict resolution, and it is often a learned skill. Without proper training, new managers may experience difficulties managing conflicts.

Conflict resolution training enhances the ability of managers to solve conflicts as they present, prevent further escalation, and rebuild employee-company relationships.

  1. Project Management

Essentially, projects function as vehicles that drive the fulfillment of a company's goals. And they serve as means of optimizing efficiency in the workplace.

Therefore, it’s a relevant skill for managers, as they can learn to coordinate all aspects of project execution.

Inculcating project management in new manager training helps to instill critical analytical skills, relevant technical skills, methodologies, and frameworks for dealing with complex projects in a fast-changing business world.

  1. Performance Management

Performance management is another crucial skill in a business world where morale boost and commitment maintenance amongst employees is challenging. The performance level is a function of the viability of strategies developed by managers in sustaining employees' commitment.

The level of performance exerted by employees determines the extent of success attained by the organization; performance directly equates to productivity.

Performance management training for your managers provides an avenue for managers to learn the art of goal setting, performance evaluation, and feedback communication. It also teaches the habit of rewarding top performers and motivating low-performance employees.

Assembly is the perfect tool for mediating this aspect of new manager training. It equips new managers with the ability to carry out regular performance evaluations. Try it today.

  1. Client Relationship Management

In addition to managing employees and supervising projects, managers should be able to communicate with clients and get favorable results for the company. Therefore, training will only have a positive impact. 

It’ll help the company avoid revenue loss issues, timely client-company conversations, and litigations due to improper handling of client-company relationships. 

  1. Onboarding

Comprehensive training for managers is only complete with conducting onboarding management training seminars. Onboarding training helps to boost retention rate and new hire productivity.

Every company has a system in place that guides the onboarding process. And managers in training should be informed of these guidelines. This will assist them in selecting only applicants that are best suited for the company.

What Kind Of Skills Should New Managers Be Trained For?

For optimal performance, managers need training on the relevant skills that optimize their roles. 

While specific skills may differ based on function and industry differences, some skills are generally essential. Here are six skills that every manager needs to have training in: 

  1. Communication Skills

Employees thrive in a culture where their opinions are acknowledged. And managers become good communicators by becoming active listeners. 

To effectively lead, managers must pass across their message in the most precise terms. This way, they can provide appropriate feedback.

Managers are expected to inspire and motivate employees through efficient communication. A good manager is a good communicator well versed in different communication styles.

  1. Task Delegation Skills

The effectiveness of task delegation determines the success of every manager. It's an essential skill, as it is necessary for the smooth running of business operations.

Effective task delegation borders on managers understanding the strengths and weaknesses of team members, knowing when task delegation is required, and being able to trust in the ability of employees to complete assigned tasks.

  1. Decision-making Skills

Employees look up to managers to solve problems. This leaves managers with the critical task of decision-making. The decisions made by managers have far-reaching consequences on the company's overall performance.

Good decision-making entails carefully evaluating the available information and assessing different solutions. And, since accurate data influences good decisions, managers in training should be encouraged to use numbers to back up their plans.

  1. Time Management Skills

Managers should be timekeepers. Management training programs should instill the virtues of time management.

Improving a manager’s time management skills increases efficiency and productivity within the team. It also reduces the incidence of burnout among employees. (It's typically inappropriate for managers to allow meetings to extend past the allotted duration.) As a result, tasks get completed faster, and employees aren't overwhelmed.

  1. Emotional Intelligence

The days when managers were stoic, bossy, and inaccessible are gone. 21st-century managers should be accessible, express and comprehend emotions, and provide employees with the necessary moral and emotional support.

Empathy helps to build trust and loyalty between managers and employees. It is the secret to remaining calm in the face of immense pressure.

Emotionally intelligent managers nudge underperforming employees towards improved performance by being empathic rather than venting frustration. They acknowledge existing limitations, relate better and deliver better results.

  1. Digital Competence

We now live in a digital revolution where technology drives the workplace. 

Managers who are competent in digital tools are more productive, work smarter and often faster, and require less supervision. With an increasing number of employees choosing to work remotely, they must be able also to manage employees virtually.

A good knowledge of data privacy and cyber security is an excellent nice-to-have, as it’ll safeguard against the mishandling of sensitive information.

Why Is Training Important For Managers?

Every manager, irrespective of their competence levels, will always benefit from management training and development.

Management training programs equip managers with the necessary problem-solving skills. They enable the creation of a workplace environment that breeds employee satisfaction and alignment with the company's objective.

The top three benefits of training managers include:

  1. Seamless change management
  2. Better role understanding
  3. Self-evaluation opportunity

Seamless Change Management Process

In every organization, change is a constant factor. It varies from new leadership, new business policies, acquisitions, or hirings.

Irrespective of its form, well-trained managers can steer the course successfully by implementing necessary actions to guide the transition process.

Opportunity For Self-evaluation

A management training program provides an avenue for managers to self-evaluate and review progress and techniques to improve their jobs.

A Better Understanding Of Their Role

Training programs help managers better understand their primary assignment: to oversee and guide employees' actions toward achieving the company's objectives. 

When managers don’t clearly understand their roles, the friction that may arise typically creates a non-conducive working environment for other employees. 

How Can Managers Improve?

According to a recent survey by Gallup, organizations with skilled managers experienced a significant boost in revenue generation and had higher employee engagement ratings.

Managers improve by doing the following: 

Conduct Regular Check-Ins

One of the duties of a manager is to carry out performance evaluations. And they require check-ins too. 

Regular check-ins provide a means for giving feedback and getting. With the feedback managers get, they can also provide input and draw action plans to advance progress.

Regular check-ins offer the benefits of improved productivity, deeper team ties, and trust. According to Harvard Business Review, employees working in companies with a culture of trust experience less burnout and are more productive.

The effectiveness of check-ins lies majorly in the scheduling quality. Assembly ensures you get it right. Book a Free Demo today.

Avoid Micromanagement

Employees should have the liberty to take the initiative and undertake tasks with less monitoring. The management would need to trust employees- including managers, to complete assigned duties and offer assistance only when necessary. That’s an excellent way to help them improve.

Organizations can avoid micromanagement by building confidence through proper task delegation and understanding of employees. Getting employees involved in the decision-making process and promoting discussions bordering on personal and professional differences are ways of building employee confidence.

Celebrate Milestones

This goes a long way in motivating employees and improving their commitment and efforts. The rule is not to wait for the big wins but begin by celebrating the little ones. Additionally, celebrate top-performing employees. 

People are naturally inclined to perform better when their efforts are acknowledged. Publicly expressing appreciation and providing incentives also motivates the employees.

Building Your Training Management System

Management training is an investment that pays off by maximizing the efficiency and output of their subordinates. 

Managers are the wheels on which organizations run, and management training is the fuel that keeps it running. Therefore, companies looking to achieve maximum success should prioritize management training and development.

Manager training programs should aim to build competency in developing skills that enable managers to lead and train employees successfully. And the best approach is to set up a training management system that allows training to be continuous, readily available on demand via management training courses.

Browse our Free Employee Recognition Guide

Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.

Explore Guide
Employee recognition guide