Managers are the beating heart of any organization. Good managers keep the system healthy and work flowing as it should. Less skillful managers often block productivity and sour relationships. How do you help your managers develop into the types of leaders your organization needs? Without highly effective skills management software, it can be hard to help them do their best work. But with Bridge, you’ll have everything you need to keep development on track and ensure every manager can help their reports build the skills they need to thrive.
Read on for three expert tips on using Bridge to help your managers develop into highly effective leaders.
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1) Help Managers Build the Skills They Need to Become Coaches or Mentors
Empowering your managers to be coaches or mentors can help employees reach their full potential. No one wants to be micromanaged or policed by a supervisor. The collaborative approach of a coach or a mentor, however, can motivate employees to go the extra mile.
And the research proves it. According to the Bridge-sponsored ‘Future of Coaching and Mentoring 2024’ report, 58% of organizations say they plan on implementing coaching and mentoring programs because these initiatives create positive organizational cultures. 55% also value these kinds of programs for improving employee engagement and retention.
How can you help your managers develop coaching and mentoring skills that lead to positive outcomes? No one wakes up one day with all the skills they need to lead reports—the key to success is a structured approach that systematically helps managers develop. And Bridge LMS does the heavy lifting for you. Our industry-leading learning platform can help your managers reach new heights of success by honing their coaching and mentoring skills, including:
- Empathy
Bridge Drivers, our card-based game that promotes manager-employee engagement and conversations, can help your managers discover what their reports really want. Rather than asking “How hard can you work for our organization?” Bridge Drivers helps reports uncover intrinsic motivations with questions about their own goals, strengths, and career development. And it’s free to play!
- Communication
Bridge makes it easy for managers to tell their reports what they’re doing well and how they can improve. Collecting stop-start-continue feedback from peers or supervisors is a breeze. Managers can also request skills feedback and look at a sliding scale of proficiency to determine where reports are lacking. Having visibility over reports’ overall performance empowers managers to lead conversations on where and how improvements can be made.
- Coordination
All the empathy and communication skills in the world are no good if a manager can’t drive outcomes. They need tools to bring structure and momentum to reports’ learning and performance targets. Bridge’s Development Plans is the answer. It allows managers and reports to select three skills to improve at a time and provides a clear pathway to mastery.
DOWNLOAD A FREE GUIDE ON MANAGER EMPOWERMENT | ‘How to Empower Your Managers to Be Coaches’
2) Measure Skills Development to Ensure Managers and Reports Progress
What gets measured gets managed. According to the ‘Future of Coaching and Mentoring 2024’ report, organizations with highly successful coaching and mentoring programs are almost twice as likely to use engagement and performance metrics to measure the effectiveness of their initiatives.
Empowering your managers to help reports thrive means giving your leaders visibility over progress. They need to see what works and what doesn't. With Bridge, complete visibility over an employee's skills journey couldn't be easier. Intuitive visuals on the Bridge dashboard help managers understand how much reports have progressed and which skills gaps they still need to close. They can also view who’s behind on progress, completion rates, enrollment statuses, and more—helping them add structure to their report's progress.
Behind the scenes, admins can view how often managers are having one-to-ones. Generating and sharing reports couldn't be simpler. This makes it easy for you to see where your managers need more help and guidance from their mentors.
3) Boost Training Uptake and Efficacy With a Well-Structured Program
Your approach to training programs can make or break the success of managers and reports alike. When programs are well-structured, leaders will have an easier time driving progress and learners will be more likely to see success. We’d suggest the following steps:
1) Evaluate Your Current Skills Landscape
If you're in the dark about your current situation, you can't plot a clear way forward! Tap into Bridge’s database of over 30,000 job titles—and their corresponding skills—to see what your learners should be aiming for.
2) Give Managers and Employees a Blueprint for Success
Real progress happens after consistent and continual effort. Help managers give employees a blueprint to identify the skills they need to build. Be sure to make use of Bridge’s Development Plans to set milestones that can be steadily reached instead of expecting managers to decide on vague goals.
3) Empower Managers to Recommend the Right Learning at the Right Time
To see success, managers must recommend relevant content when their reports are ready to develop. Bridge makes this process easy with a little help from artificial intelligence. AI learning recommendations help managers and reports identify the skills they need and recommend learning content that will get them where they need to be.
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How Managers Feel About Bridge
We’ve helped customers across the world empower managers to unlock skills development. The financial service provider, Movement Mortgage, is one example. The organization’s leaders wanted to boost retention and ensure their employees feel valued.
“Investing in people is of paramount importance to us,” Bronson Pasko, Training Director explains.
Bridge stepped in to help Movement Mortgage bring this value to life. Our all-in-one platform is perfect for helping employees thrive—thanks in part to how it empowers managers.
Team Lead, Jad Hernandez, describes Bridge as “welcoming”.
“I enjoy using Bridge and it makes [things] easier for me as a manager because I know that people don't dread using it—it's an enjoyable experience for them to actually use,” he says.
Amanda Roccia, National Underwriting Manager, agrees.
“Giving somebody the power to not only educate themselves but feel confident in their job is extremely important to me and I'm not always readily available [to assist]. A lot of people learn in different ways and avenues, and so if they're able to access information themselves and be able to do it at their pace and on their time, I think that it's tremendous,” she explains.
Bronson Pasko agrees that giving leaders and learners everything they need to develop their skills is crucially important.
“When we talk about investing in our people, we realize that that is the key to retention—being able to make sure that they have the tools that they need to be able to unlock the talent that they have,” he concludes.
SEE HOW WE HELPED MOVEMENT MORTGAGE | ‘Creating a Culture of Learning and Performance’
Unlock Managers’ Full Potential and See Skills Blossom With Bridge’s LMS
Bridge is an all-in-one solution for manager empowerment and employee upskilling. It's packed with everything you need to give leaders full visibility over your skills landscape and the control they need to close skills gaps.
Claim your demo today to see what we can do for your managers.
