Feature


Competing priorities t alays makes life easier hen we work with line managers who have time for learning and consider it a priority for achieving team results oever e cant rely on their commitment or even understanding t best, it is probably safe to assume the maority of managers consider learning to be a necessary evil kay  might be referring mostly to compliance training here, but you kno hat  mean t orst some may believe that it is a total waste of time, effort and resources and that L interventions are ust getting in the ay of real business issues What is important to line managers?  managers day-to-day life involves planning to deliver to deadline or target, implementing company strategy, controlling resources and troubleshooting


of a great eperience If we are to work with managers more


proactively ithin the process, e need to identify here our priorities overlap  focussing on mutual obectives for mutual gain ill deliver the maimum return on our efforts in this area.


So how do we start to address the issue of line management engagement? Here are 4 strategies that work for high-performing learning teams:


F ocussing on mu tu al ob j ec tiv es f or mu tu al


g ain w ill deliver the maximum return


works and learns together. Yet in 2022, three out of the top


five barriers to progress reported by todays learning professionals point to the managers as the culprits! 42% say that line managers do not make time for learning, 5 say leaders have traditional epectations of L&D that are tough to change and  say employees ust dont have time to share uring my first benchmarking


research proect over 0 years ago, a staggering 90% of the learners were able to apply skills learnt from digital learning on the ob  staggering 55 claimed that their managers were the inuencing factor of engaging ith the learning! 1 Yet most of our L&D effort is spent on engaging users and senior board members, and rarely targets strategies that support line managers directly


on a daily basis n their vocabulary, phrases such as deadline, target, customer satisfaction, and cost control are commonplace (along with a few others that probably cannot be printed


When we are implementing a new L&D initiative, what is important to us? There is an increasing focus for L&D professionals on aligning learning to business priorities esign and delivery methods are also a critical consideration, combining instructional design and technology to deliver the most compelling and accessible learning eperience ithin the budget available ere increasingly spending time on effective implementation involving marketing and communications programmes and working with local champions. We measure engagement, completion and hours spent on learning as indicators


1. Go to Gemba! – there is no substitute for time spent on the ground Building credibility and respect hilst challenging preconceived ideas takes time and persistent visibility  most of hich needs to be face to face t is unrealistic to assume that uality time can be spent ith all line managers but regularly attending their team meetings, communicating business results and taking time out to understand the current business issues ith inuential managers all has an impact More specifically, many managers are uick to point out hen they have not seen you in over a year and in my eperience ill happily use that as an ecuse not to get involved


2. Listen up – There are no short cuts to good communication


The questions we ask, how we listen and respond, the vocabulary that e use, all these need to be thought through carefully hats in it for me ill be the main uestion that most busy managers ill ask and e need to have an anser that makes sense to them. nderstanding manager motivation is also important  across the board, league tables beteen departments had a significant impact on manager involvement as they appealed to the competitive streak ithin managers  no-one likes to be at the bottom Be ary of other motivational


techniques, such as games and competitions such as in  hen your department completes its listening skills course since gimmicks like these are ust as likely to fall on deaf ears with this audience.


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1 httpsmindtoolsbusinesscomresourcesblogannual-benchmark-report-0-keeping-pace-rapid-digitalization


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