£2m leadership and management boost for West Midlands’ firms
The drive to create the West Midlands’ business leaders of tomorrow has gathered pace, with the launch of a new £2m programme aimed at helping local companies become more competitive.
Funded by Advantage West Midlands and delivered by Business Link in the West Midlands, the Leadership and Management (L&M) project will work with more than 1,000 senior managers over the next three years by bringing in quality assured specialists to boost the skills and expertise of leaders and managers. It is an ambitious move, but one that will ensure the region has the necessary skills and competencies to help bridge the £10bn productivity gap by 2010.
“This is a very exciting project, open to companies employing 50 people or more and with 50% of the costs subsidised,” explained Bally Bhogal, the Regional Leadership and Management Programme Manager.
“Its development follows a successful pilot project, taking on board extensive feedback from participating companies and the business community. The focus is on encouraging companies to boost the skills of their managers in the pursuit of greater efficiencies and bottom line business benefits.
She added: “A dedicated leadership & management professional will work with members of the senior management team for up to six days . They will help identify the key performance indicators for boosting business, team and/or individual performance and the skills they need to achieve this.
“By working through an agreed implementation plan, employers will also be guided to the right training from some of the best providers in the UK.”
All of the development activity will be delivered in the workplace and will cover areas such as business strategy, change management, communication, action planning and building long-term profitability.
The idea is for a number of managers to work together on the learning opportunities and then cascade them down to other members of staff so that best practice can be shared and embedded across the business.
“All of the L&M Professionals have been carefully selected to ensure the best and widest cross-section of expertise,” added Bally.
“We don’t want this to be just a one off for companies. During the initial support it is likely that individuals will identify other areas where they could benefit from more training. We want to make sure they get access to one-on-one development support during or after the life of the project.
“With this in mind, employers can pay just £1000 per participant which Business Link will match fund so that twice as much expertise and training is possible – a real win-win situation.”
In the West Midlands there are approximately 350,000 leaders and managers, who have a direct influence over GVA of around £77 billion annually.
Over the next ten years this figure is expected to grow by 170,000, as employers recruit to fill projected growth in management vacancies. However, companies are already concerned that they will struggle to fill these posts because of the lack of good leadership and management skills currently available in the labour market.
“Results from the pilot showed that a number of companies are expecting an 18% improvement in Gross Value Added as a direct result of their work with the scheme and, better still, are investing further in developing the skills of other managers within their companies,” pointed out David Lampitt, Learning and Skills Policy Manager at Advantage West Midlands.
“This shows that companies can achieve a significant return on investment by developing leadership and management skills and 80% even admitted to channeling additional fund into more training.”
Business Link will have over 20 dedicated professionals working on the L&M service and it is anticipated that over 1,000 managers across 300 companies will take part in the three year programme.