Management Qualifications – bucking the trend!

In times of economic depression, such as the one we are experiencing now, it is an unfortunate reality that most organisations, public & private, cut-back on their management training. A number of reasons are given for this, such as lack of resources (finance) and time as being prohibitive in engaging in training. This is surely THE right time to be safeguarding the organisation’s future by investing in the appropriate management training to ensure that they are best equipped to deal with today’s, and tomorrow’s, business needs. At a time when most organisations are streamlining (cost-cutting) their operation in some form or other then clearly they should be looking to prepare people to deal with managing these changes and therefore provide staff with the right training and skills to help the organisation survive and grow.

Clearly some, albeit too few, have already taken this message on board but the numbers, generally, who have not are quite appalling:

Managers are significantly under-qualified compared to other professional occupations: 41 per cent of managers hold below a level 2 qualification. Just 38.5 per cent of managers and senior officials are qualified at level 4 and above, compared to 80.9 per cent of those from other professional occupations
It is estimated that the proportion of managers with management- related qualifications will not get much above 20 per cent in the longer term at the current rate of achievement.
Around 70 per cent of employers agreed that in terms of driving productivity up, management qualifications are highly valued.

(Source: CMI “The Value of Management Qualifications” September 2007)

This last figure is therefore surprising, and begs the question: “So what’s holding employers up?”

On the question of cost, the UK ranked number 6 in the 7 EU countries surveyed in Euros per manager on average per year spent on management training at 1625 Euros - Germany being at no1, with Romania just behind us in last place!

(Source, CMI “Developing Managers: A European Perspective”, 2004)

Whilst no more recent statistics have been published, it is my contention that, if anything, the figures are even worse now in the light of the current recession.

Whilst the on-going debate about the level of competence of university graduates in employment must be addressed as an issue, it must surely fall upon managers in the workplace to deal with their own professional development to help us get UK PLC back to where it belongs.

John Sentinella

Business Development Manager at the Knowledge Hub

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Management Qualifications – bucking the trend!