Year in, year out, leaders of Maltese industry, lecturers from the University of Leicester and students in the field of management join the Foundation for Human Resources Development for its academic annual HR seminar. The subject this year was entitled “Creating People Advantage” and was held on 27. The aim of such seminars is to look at the latest research in the field of management in relation to human resource management. This year the seminar was particularly interesting as Joe Gerada, the CEO of the Foundation presented the finding of a survey conducted locally in conjunction with the Boston Consulting Group and the World Federation for People Management.
Joe Gerada, a Fellow Chartered Member of (CIPD), introduced the subject by stating that the success of any enterprise depends on its employees walking that extra mile when the going gets tough. However, the engagement of employees took a nosedive during the recession and now companies are trying to find ways of motivating their staff and regain their commitment. He said statistics worldwide show that middle managers were the worst hit and most of the effort had to be directed at this stratum of management to recoup lost ground.
Why the middle managers issue?
Mr. Gerada said that an impressive 84 Maltese organisations participated through FHRD. He said the quality of leadership and the importance of engaging employees in the business had moved in order of importance from the 2008 survey to the one under review for 2010. However, in spite of the increased importance, companies registered low current capability to upgrade their competencies in these areas. In Malta, the data showed that the country is faring better than the rest of the world, as the information shows a higher degree of current capability with regard to leadership and talent management.
Mr Gerada presented a model on how to enrich the roles of middle managers, increase their span of authority and responsibilities and granting them leverage to motivate their team members and capitalize on the knowledge of the market. He spoke about moving from a paradigm of following instruction with no influence to innovating and be the key to business transformation.
The speakers on the panel that discussed this model came from wide ranging sectors both in the public and private as well as the co-op sector. There seemed to be consensus that middle managers suffer frustration because they see the need to implement the strategy of the organisation but they also see the problems and staff difficulties at the bottom of everything. They are under constant pressure to serve clients well but also to cut costs while the expectations of employees for better conditions of work is a variable that they manage every day. It was established that middle managers are the pivot of any organisation as they make the system work; they are the major communicators in the organisation and possess valuable information about the market and the clients. The panel agreed that this tier of management is often overlooked and taken for granted, and that organizational sustainability depended on a motivated and highly competent middle management that bridged the bigger picture of senior management with the operational exigencies at the front of house. They had to translate the abstract values of the organisation into concrete tools for competition. Particular reference was made to the presentation that leaders do not only need to be competent but also have the character with the right intent and integrity that inspire others to follow them.
Annika Galea, who attended her first official event as president of FHRD, went beyond the need of providing middle managers with power at the decision making process. “Sometimes it happens that one employee deserves a promotion to middle management level because his or her behaviour at work is technically ideal. However, leadership is not only about technical competence but also about managing people that does not come easy not even to the best trained. Middle managers have to be genuine to communicators with senior managers as well as credible when dealing with employees,” stated Ms Galea.
Another speaker during this seminar was Dr Mary Crow; lecturer in HR practices at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at the University of Leicester and a Chartered Member of (CIPD). During her presentation “Leading a Learning Organisation”, Dr Crow quoted the renowned author on business management Henry Mintzberg – “key managerial processes are enormously complex and mysterious”. “Sometimes even a miracle,” joked Dr Crow. Regarding the ability of managing, Dr Crow said that the CLMS along with FHRD offer training programmes on management based on the Anglo-Saxon life-long learning work related approach. “It is not only to provide skills and to fill gaps. There are both individual and organisational learning that need to take place and this needs to be balanced”, Dr Crow stressed. Moreover, she said that learning was a process that transcends the place of work, into the personal life and the community where the employee lives. She said that learning, in the years to come, would need to be managed in this emerging scenario. She concluded her presentation by drawing a metaphor about what leading in the 21st century should be. “Leading is like leading a jazz-band – where a group of talented players improvise together and let each other shine in the spotlight for some time. Leadership flows from one player to the next.”
Mr Gerada concluded by presenting a new line of leadership and management courses that FHRD is offering local organisations. He said these programmes are skills based and practical that enable the participant to gain the competence of working well as opposed to acquiring only head knowledge.
More information about these and other courses are available on FHRD’s website, www.fhrd.org.
Ms Soriano is a Spanish journalist at the Foundation for Human Resources Development.