-By Maggie Bayless

The experience that employees have with their direct manager has the biggest impact on their job satisfaction, performance and longevity.

As we’ve developed training through the years here at Zingerman’s, the focus was initially on front-line staff and particularly on new hires. But as we’ve grown, more and more is expected of our managers — they supervise more people, oversee larger budgets and operate in a more complex organization. We’re currently in the process of reviewing our existing management training, as we do every few years, and making sure we have the resources our managers need to increase their skills and knowledge to meet their increased responsibilities.

Although I’d like to tell you that there was a grand master plan, our manager-focused training has developed rather organically. As we identified a need that was shared by many or most managers, we moved from one-on-one coaching to developing a class that addressed that topic (e.g., “Interviewing and Hiring” or “The Art of Giving Great Performance Reviews”). But in the last year, our HR director, Pat McGraw, and I have been taking a more holistic look at the skills managers need to be effective, identifying the need for new content and modifying/adding classes as appropriate.

I thought that sharing the framework and thought process that we’re going through might help you organize and prioritize the training needs of managers in your organization — and perhaps identify opportunities to bolster the educational resources that you offer. Of course, effective managers need operational, administrative and financial knowledge and skills, and we do offer training in those areas, but here I am focusing on people management skills. Why are people management skills so important? As shown by the research that The Gallup Organization published in Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman’s “First Break All the Rules,” the experience that employees have with their direct manager has the biggest impact on their job satisfaction, performance and longevity.

The Employment Life Cycle
To evaluate where we stand, we’ve been looking at a manager’s role in relation to the various stages that every employee moves through as he/she joins, contributes to and ultimately leaves our organization. In each stage, the manager’s input is critical:
• Stage One: Hiring the right people
• Stage Two: Helping staff succeed
• Stage Three: Assisting departing staff

As we look at each stage in this framework, we’re identifying expectations of managers in each stage — which then translate into learning objectives for our training.

Stage One: Hiring the Right People
Hiring the right people starts with defining the job to be filled. What are the key performance expectations? Are there personal characteristics that have been shown to be a good fit for this position? Are there specific skills and/or knowledge that candidates are expected to have coming into the job? Have they done this kind of work in a similar work setting? We want managers in our organization to always start with a Job Profile that addresses those questions.

The Job Profile provides the information needed to develop interview questions that focus on identifying whether candidates have the skills, knowledge and personal characteristics that we’re looking for — while steering clear of any questions that run afoul of the law. We’ve recently revised our manager training to include tips on developing those questions, ideas for how to integrate role-plays into the interview process, and opportunities to practice interviewing with a fellow manager or someone from HR — so that we provide training in all aspects of the hiring process.

Stage Two: Helping Staff Succeed
Training is one of the most important elements in staff success, and managers play a key role as trainers and as resources for institutional knowledge. Because training is in itself a skill, we need to provide our managers with tools and techniques to help them be better trainers. So, we have a train-the-trainer class that focuses primarily on effective on-shift training, as well as guidelines for developing training passports and internal staff classes, following our Bottom-Line Training approach.

After an employee completes orientation, the manager’s responsibility shifts more toward providing clear direction on a day-to-day basis, along with performance feedback. To be most effective, a manager needs to be adept at articulating expectations as well as providing both informal coaching and formal performance appraisals. Coaching — given in the moment, most often verbally — identifies both what employees are doing well and where improvement is needed. Ideally, coaching is happening day in and day out, so that small issues are addressed before they become problems. But managers need tools and techniques for addressing performance problems as well. And managers need to follow our formal performance review process (60 days, six months, annually) to create a written record of an employee’s tenure with the organization.

Stage Three: Assisting Departing Staff
Whether employees leave Zingerman’s of their own accord or if they are asked to leave because of performance issues, we want them to leave with their dignity intact and, ideally, with no burned bridges. Handling those departures gracefully can be a challenge for any manager — especially when someone leaves with little or no notice — but it’s a critical component of a manager’s job. Our guiding principles include building long-term relationships, so we want to stay connected to our former employees — as customers who shop with us, as alumni who attend anniversary celebrations and possibly again as employees at some point in the future.

At the end of the day, employees have the potential to be huge promoters, or equally vocal detractors, of our organization. The experience they have while working with us — and in particular the direction and support that they receive from their manager — will determine which role they take. Training that helps managers (including those of us who are owners) get better at assisting staff throughout the employment life cycle is definitely a good bottom-line investment.

Maggie Bayless is the managing partner of ZingTrain, which is the consulting arm of Zingerman’s, the specialty food retailer in Ann Arbor, Mich. If you have specific topics you would like to see addressed, please send your suggestions to Maggie at mbayless@zingermans.com. You can read all of her columns at www.gourmetretailer.com/stafftraining