186 | How Integrating Practical HR Training into Manager Development Helped Managers Succeed (with Amy Critchley)

You've probably heard the expression that people don't leave companies, they leave managers.

And although that isn't going to be true 100% of the time, there is no doubt that managers play a hugely important role in helping their organisations and the people in them to succeed.

In fact, the importance of good managers is a theme that has cropped up again and again on HR Coffee Time this year.

And I know that understanding managers are important is one thing, but knowing how to actually develop them and set them up for success in their roles can feel a lot harder.

Managers are expected to handle so much, from one-to-ones and development conversations to absence, performance issues, and disciplinaries, and they're often trying to do that without ever having been properly taught how to do any of this And if you work in HR, you'll

probably know how difficult it can be to make sure that managers really understand the HR policies, the processes, and the employment law that they need to know without overwhelming them or delivering training and support that they quickly forget or maybe even find a bit boring.

So this episode of HR Coffee Time is here to help, and my hope is that by the end of it, you'll have some fresh ideas for how to develop your managers, build their confidence, and help them understand and apply the HR knowledge that they need in their roles.

The summit is all about learning from real workplace success stories.

You get to hear from HR and business leaders about challenges they faced in their organisations, what they decided to do about them, and how they put their ideas into practice, as well as what happened as a result and what they learned along the way.

You can find out more about the summit at summit.workforcesuccessstories.com.

And for this special episode, I'm joined by Amy Critchley, Head of People at Indigo Networks.

She is sharing the story of how she created a management development program from scratch, and in our conversation, Amy takes us behind the scenes of the program that she created after she joined an organization that hadn't had a dedicated HR or people team before.

She explains how she identified what it was that managers would find helpful to learn.

She shares how she designed the program, making sure that she was combining practical HR knowledge with wider management development and how she made subjects like absence, investigations, disciplinaries, and employment law engaging instead of being dry or overwhelming for everyone.

You also get to hear some fantastic ideas from her for making training more interactive, the extra support that she put in place to help learning stick for everyone, and how the program helped managers feel more confident and changed the way that they worked with the people team.

I hope you're going to enjoy learning from Amy and meeting her as much as I did.

Let's go ahead and meet her now.

Welcome to the show, Amy.

It's so fabulous to have you here today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Fay.

It's really f- exciting to be on the other side of these sessions because when I'm driving into work, when I'm doing the hybrid model and driving in on the motorway, I need some company, so I'm always listening to your podcast, so it's really good to be on the other side.

Oh, that's so lovely to hear.

I'm the same as you.

I love listening to podcasts while I'm driving, although I don't listen to my own podcast 'cause that would be really weird.

I suppose I listen to it sometimes just to make sure there haven't been any glitches that I haven't, uh, haven't been aware of.

But welcome, welcome, and I'm so excited to hear all your answers to the questions I'm going to be asking you today.

I know that everyone listening or watching is going to hugely appreciate hearing from you.

So I better dive in with the first question, hadn't I?

Which is, how did you identify the need for manager training in your organisation?

Well, um, I'm sure this is a question for many, many people within our profession.

For me, I was lucky enough to, to begin almost with a, an open slate.

I came into the business that had been operating for about five years, and it was a very small team, and they didn't have a dedicated people team, HR team, and very quickly identified there was no policies, there was very little management support, and also there was no prior training occurring.

So I was thinking, "How on earth are these managers meant to know what they should be doing correctly or what potentially could be steering them down the wrong route?" So as part of my, you know, short-term, medium, long-term strategy, I wanted to hit the nail on the head a few times to make sure that I've got policies in place, procedures in place, tools in place.

But how could I do that?

I needed to be in a position that I bring all of that together in potentially quite an engaging management programme.

Oh, gosh, yes.

Well, I think for anyone listening, it's going to be so reassuring if they've ever been in that situation of joining an organisation where they've never had any of that HR or people support before, and perhaps even more likely, I'm sure there are going to be loads of people where there may never have been manager training before, or it's something that they know they can really improve on.

So the next question that I'd love to ask you about is if we could hear a little bit more about the training.

So how did you decide on what the content was going to be that you were going to include?

Because when it comes to manager training, there is so much that you could have covered that I think that can make it feel really overwhelming for people.

So I think it's going to be so helpful for anyone listening or watching just to hear your experience of how you knew what to include content-wise, and so they know where they can start too.

Yeah.

Um, like you said, I was in a position where I was looking at all the content, and even I was going, "How on earth am I gonna get all of this across to my line managers?"

But ultimately, what I decided to do is I need to tell them what policies are coming in and give them the top line information from the policies.

You know, what processes have we brought in that's gonna support them down the line, you know, the, the tools that we have then created.

And then as a result of that, I took the contents where I realised if we didn't do something, that potentially could be an issue down the line.

So… or it could be a, a potential risk to the business, you know, in, in the future.

So the content that I created was then quite heavily influenced by tho- those elements there, and I would talk about things.

Let's say, for example, I would pick four topics for a day's workshop, and it would include things such as an investigation meeting, a disciplinary meetings, you know, sickness and absence.

But also, not just the scary stuff that I think the managers are afraid of, also those fundamental like nurturing elements such as managing one-to-ones, recognising our team members, training and development I wanted to be in a position that I gave them this information to make sure that those small little issues didn't bubble up.

I wanted them to also realise that the people team were going to be there as a support function for them.

We were not just gonna be the place where there's an issue, HR will go and deal with that.

That's not how we wanted to be perceived, and that was a mindset that I wanted our managers to move away from, that they don't see the HR team as the resolution to the conflicts that they've got.

They needed to be nurturing.

They needed to really understand their team members, and they've got to support their team members to prevent any issues from escalating.

So the content that I would create would start to give them those tools to prevent those issues from being bigger.

I love how you're enmeshing manager training with knowledge of everything that people need to know about HR because I think sometimes or oftentimes, manager training is put in place, and it's developed, and it's just about good management practice without necessarily showing how it actually links in with HR and the law and policies, et cetera.

Whereas what can then happen is that people think, "Oh my goodness, we need to make sure everyone understands- Yeah … what the HR or people function does, that everyone understands about employment law, so we'll just deliver a bit of separate training about that." And I think, well,

I don't know because obviously I haven't done the training, and I've not been there, but I suspect that's one of the reasons it's been so successful is that you have done it as a holistic thing where everything's very much combined rather than being two separate things.

But having said that, as soon as you started talking about some of the content, I can just imagine people listening or watching thinking, "Oh no, how do I deliver this in an engaging way?

How do you talk about Things like handling disciplinaries in an engaging way, like all of this stuff, HR policies, et cetera.

So my next question is, how did you design the format?

Because I know you have designed and delivered it in a way that got great engagement and that meant people have really enjoyed the training rather than feeling it's something that they have to do and aren't necessarily going to do anything with afterwards.

So how did you go about designing the formats?

I think I'm quite lucky with the experience that I've had in my, I would say m-my personal career.

A lot of what I brought to the table was brain-friendly content.

You know, it's about thinking about your audience and creating an environment that is supportive to their learning style as well.

For example, I would have toys on the table for those individuals that are kinesthetic learners.

For, for those of us who can't see today, for example, I got my little Pac-Man squishy toy, you know, for them to be able to fiddle with something, and potentially I would bring Play-Doh into the session, so make it fun.

For example, if we wanted to talk about the most sickest time we've ever been, make them make something out of Play-Doh as a, a fun element there.

I would also use music as a, a reflection point, you know, an opportunity for people to sit back and think about what they've just kind of looked at in their content.

Bring in YouTube clips, so there's not always just me kind of standing up and having the conversation, because then that also supports our auditory learners.

I also then create workbooks that is a takeaway from the sessions as a quick, helpful guide, and make sure that my PowerPoints are not overbearing, and that's gonna be catering for our visual learners.

And one of the key things that I recall one of my managers saying to me before I was creating this content, and she knew I was in the process of doing this, she took me to one side and she said, "I hate play roles. I don't mind coming onto the training session, but I hate play roles." So I've heard that before, and I always made a very conscious effort to make sure that wasn't going to be part of it.

But what I did do instead was have discussion topics that they would talk amongst their tables about those things.

I would have one-to-one conversations where I'd get them to pair up and decide what they would need to do.

I would get the whole group involved in one question, and that just created a, a good opportunity for our managers, and this was 14 of them at the time, have that opportunity to discuss elements, things that they then felt comfortable.

And I wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be information that was just coming from me, it was information that was also coming from them.

You know, that it's gonna be long-lasting and consistent, and then they can take away and utilise, you know, utilise it moving forward.

Oh, it's so great to hear about it.

You're making me want to come on the training.

It sounds fantastic, and I feel for anyone listening or watching, they can be sort of jotting down the little checklist of all different things they can do to make their training as engaging as possible.

It is certainly not a case, it would seem, Amy, that you've not just been there with a giant PowerPoint deck and lecturing people on what they need to know.

There's so much interaction in there, and I know that kind of interaction can really help the learning stick.

So thank you for talking us through how you have structured and gone about designing the format.

I know that you also did some other things as well.

There's some real wraparound care that you've put around it, so it's not just actually those workshops where the learning and the support is happening.

Would you be happy to talk us through what some of the rest of the support looks like too?

Absolutely.

So yes, I had the contents for the workshops, and ultimately there were four workshop that I had been designing.

And like we mentioned r- you know, earlier on, there was a lot of content that needed to be discussed.

So as part of that wraparound element, what I then wanted to do was utilise some of the other tools that we have, and that was e-learning.

So I then created modules just using Teams, edited it on the s- on, you know, Microsoft Office, and was in a position that I could talk about the probation process.

I could talk about our onboarding process.

I could talk about our leavers process.

Film that, you know, in my own environment, edit it, but then upload that onto our learning system, our learning platform, and that would be part of the learning that our line managers would do towards that workshop.

So I would only probably talk about that snippet for one or two points because I knew that they'd done those e-learning sessions before joining the workshop And then after the workshop, I then literally had a drop-in clinic where if there was anybody who had a little bit of reflection time after those, wanted to come and talk to me on a one-to-one basis, that was available for them.

So again, I just opened it up to the management team and said, "Come and meet me. I'll be sitting in this room, and let's have a conversation." And I had a few managers take me up on that, which was really heartwarming to see.

It's so great to hear about those extra elements that can really help.

Well, I love the sound of all of it, but such a great idea to have those drop-in clinics, because I suppose that isn't also something that just has to be in place immediately after everyone's done a workshop.

Is it something that-- Have you kept the drop-in clinics going as a forever thing, or have you done-- just done it around that training?

I have restructured it most recently into people partnering.

So what I now do is I invite heads of departments and line managers to meet with me for about an hour, half an hour just to talk about anything and everything relating to if they want some coaching, if they potentially have an employee relations matter they wanna talk to me about, um, a policy that they wanna discuss.

You know, they've got that dedicated time with me, and it also gives me, as the head of people, an opportunity to kind of see things that could be coming, so future recruitment opportunities.

Um, there could be an issue where employee relations will st- probably start to get bigger.

So having that people partnering session on a monthly basis has been massively beneficial to understand what else is happening within the business.

And I loved one of your podcasts where you spoke about getting to know the business more, understanding what the industry is about.

This is the first time I've ever been in this industry.

My background is leisure and hospitality.

But by having these people partnering sessions, it's helping me build my knowledge on what's happening within the business So that I can also support them with future training sessions, future engagement sessions, you know, and what potential risks could be coming up.

Oh, gosh.

Well, now I feel like I need to ask you if you'll do a whole other episode with me on how to structure really good people partnering or HR business partnering sessions, because I know that is something that lots of people have questions about.

But I'm gonna have to be super disciplined and make sure I don't take us off on a complete tangent with that and bring us back to the manager training.

But thank you for sharing that with us because it's such a helpful insight for us all, the fact that we don't have to look at training or learning and development as a sort of one and done thing.

Actually, it can all feed into this ongoing brilliant support that you can offer as an HR or people function.

Agreed.

But bringing myself back on track- … and making sure that I've asked you all the questions I wanted to, that I think people will be really interested in hearing about.

My next question is, how do you know that the training was a success?

Because I know personally that's something I'm always really interested in.

Like, how do you measure how successful these things have been without necessarily just relying on a survey at the end of the training or, you know, a feedback form?

I know that it has been a success, but can you share with us what's the evidence for that?

How do you know that it worked?

I think in order for me to make sure that it's going to work in the first instance, I have to be in a position that I got the buy-in from our executive team.

So even before I commenced with the content, I proposed to them, "This is what I was planning to do, and this is potentially what it's going to look like. If I do deliver this within the business, I need the commitment, you as an executive, that you will release your line managers to come along and join on these sessions."

And they were very up for it.

They were brought into it, and they were very, very supportive of, of it.

So that for me was tick box number one, success point number one.

The next s- kind of like successful elements that I was observing was actually in the training sessions.

So I would see managers start to open up each day that we would have a workshop.

Now, these workshops weren't back to back.

They were over a, you know, f- a four-month period.

But you can see as they were settling down in the morning, they were a little bit hesitant, didn't wanna talk.

You would open up with something that was talking about how they're feeling as a state, you know, are they being miserable?

What one thing could make it a little bit better?

What one thing do they wanna come away from this session to be a, you know, a great manager?

And throughout the sessions, you would see there was a lot of fun, laughter, and actually line managers building that peer-to-peer relationship with each other, and they were giving support to each other.

And what I also was observing, and that for me was a great success When they are questioning, when they are inquisitive and wanting to know more.

Because of that level of interaction, I knew that they were learning from each other and learning from, from the content.

And as a result of those, you know, that session, the programme that I put together, I saw a big difference on the before and after.

So before, I could see that the managers were not wanting to approach me because they were scared.

Let's, let's put it that way.

They were scared of H-HR.

At the end of the sessions, you could see, ah, it's a fellow peer, it's the people team.

I can go and have a conversation with them and feel comfortable that there's not gonna be any reprimand as a, as a result of it.

We're going to be there as a, a guidance and advisory team to support them in any situation that they have.

And then I would say as well that the workshops, in order for them to be successful, I have to adapt them, like each time.

I've got it in my head the content that I wanna talk about.

I'll talk about that content, but there may be things that come up during that month.

So for example, we did an, an employee survey, and I thought, "This is a fantastic opportunity. I wanna bring the results of that survey into the session so that we can openly discuss it and see how can we make that better for our team." So for me, it was the successes of that huge engagement with the managers.

They were talking to each other that they hadn't had the opportunity to before.

And also, most recently, we brought in an external trainer, and this trainer said to me, "I've never met such a group that are very open and are committed to kind of just happily challenge each other and talk each other through things."

So when-- I would like to say that that's probably because of the programme that gave them that foundation to know they can talk to each other in a safe place

There is so much to be said for managing to establish that real peer trust and support, isn't there?

Because again, we talked about managers on the podcast a few times recently, actually.

This topic of management has come up quite a few times because, of course, strong managers are just such an important element to organizations succeeding.

And I think there can be a danger that when you work in HR, you feel this huge weight of responsibility that you have to get something perfect designed that you or someone else in the team's going to deliver.

But actually, there is so much that the managers can be doing amongst themselves to support each other, and there's just such power really in that support.

It's partly, I know it's completely different topic, but with my Inspiring HR Leadership Program, one of the reasons I decided to set that up was so that the HR professionals on it have each other for peer support, and they're

able to build those relationships rather than feeling like, you know, "I'm the only person they can come to for help with anything," and that they've got each other to turn to long after it.

I wouldn't be at all surprised, Amy, of hearing you talk about what you've been doing at work, that if eventually people do start to move on and perhaps go into different roles, that they may still stay in touch with each other, even if they're still not in that organization.

Wouldn't that be a lovely thing to have happen?

They're all still supporting each other outside of it as well.

It's, it's fantastic.

And you know, for, for me, I've always had the opportunity where I can see line managers, whether they're beginning in their very first leadership role, team leader element, grow as part of their career.

And over my, my span of my career, I've seen team leaders beginning their, the management of their people, and now they're managing, you know, great, fantastic attractions and businesses.

And I have to put my, uh, hand over my heart and go, "Aw, that's my little team members that I've supported along, along the way." And that's where I'm hoping for our managers, you know, that I'm working with at the moment, they will, will take such an informed view of what the people team are doing, that we're there to support them and not just be the place where you come to as a conflict

Yeah.

Actually, in talking about conflict, I know a lot of the topics that you cover within the training that you put together probably fall under this broad umbrella of difficult conversations.

And with difficult conversations, I know there can be a danger that training's put in place, but that people don't actually have the confidence to move forward with the advice or with what they could do or with the difficult conversation, or perhaps the learning just doesn't quite stick.

So I know that in addition to the engaging things that you've woven into your workshop design, there are other techniques you used as well to help really make that learning stick and help build that confidence.

Would you be happy to share maybe what one or two of those were with us?

I, I'm sure everyone would love to hear about them.

Absolutely.

So what I like to do as part of those workshops is almost have a hit-at-home situation.

So what do I mean by that?

It's giving them a worst-case scenario, something that's gonna be thought-provoking, something that's potentially gone in the news quite recently, and I will ask them, "What are your thoughts on that?

You know, how do you think you could have managed that situation differently?

What could we have done to have prevented that situation if that was something that happened within our business?" And that, I think, is r- a really powerful way for them to start to be open to understanding The way to prevent difficult conversations is to begin having those thought processes where they need to really invest in their team.

They've gotta think about how can I have one-to-one, effective one-to-one sessions with my team?

Not just on an annual basis, that's it, I've done it for once a year.

A weekly basis, you know, seeing how they are doing, checking in with them to, again, like I've said, you know, earlier on, nip things in the bud.

It's opening up their thought process to go, "This is the ultimate worst-case scenario, but these are the steps we could have done to have prevented the, to getting that worst-case scenario," and it begins with one-to-ones.

So I, as part of my, um, workshop and also as part of other elements throughout, you know, what I'm doing at the moment with the team, is making sure, are you talking to your team?

You know, are you offering support?

Are you offering guidance?

But also, you know, it's giving them that flexibility that they can also come up with the, the ideas themselves.

So during the sessions, it won't be a case that it's just me giving them the answers.

It's a case that they are learning from each other and potentially understanding the opinions of other people within that room.

And then who knows?

They could probably f- feel comfortable talking to that person about a situation that they could sort out before coming to the people team

Oh, I love that message of it's all about giving them the awareness or helping them come to the awareness that the conversations need to, and relationships need to have, um, been building from the very, very beginning.

I feel like you could be writing a, a book.

As we're go- as we're going through this, there's so much great advice that we could lay out.

It really is amazing how powerful sharing worst case scenarios and case studies can be to help us unlock thinking, because they help also show real examples of what has gone wrong or situations, and it's so much better, I think, than just learning, "Oh, you should do this because it's a good idea."

You're giving me flashbacks of when I was studying for my CIPD Level 7, gosh, many years ago now.

And I would say one of the best lecturers that I had was the employment law lecturer.

Mm-hmm.

And I found employment law the thing I was probably least good at remembering everything.

Me too . Oh, Go- Oh, really?

Oh, it's good to know it's not just me.

And, um, he would start each of his lectures just by reading out an example, a case study or a tribunal, um, hearing that had happened, and then ask us to discuss it and what we thought about it.

And it was such a great way of bringing it to life, because I can still remember my dreaded employment law book that I was trying to read and learn all this stuff, and it would just sort of go in one ear and out the other.

I found it so dry and so hard to remember.

But as soon as he started talking about these real things that had happened, it really brought it to life.

And I managed to scrape through the exam.

I think it might have been my lowest grade out of the

whole course, but without his teaching, oh my gosh, I think I'd probably have had to try it a couple of times.

So, um, yeah, it sounds like what you're doing is very similar to what he was doing, and well, I know firsthand how well that actually worked.

But moving us along slightly now, before I s- keep on grilling you about the content, you're so generous sharing all of these tips with us, Amy.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about is how you think this training program changed the perception of HR or people within the business.

I know you have touched on this a few times, but I wanted to make sure I had asked you this explicitly.

I would say definitely from my observation and how I've seen the managers change their perception of HR, I no longer get that, "I'm coming to you because it's an HR situation. You know, HR will deal with that."

I don't hear that anymore.

It's helped because the managers can see the benefit of the people team versus when there was no people team previously.

And I think because managers have just been so open with me and feel confident they can just come and approach me, that they don't see me as that ivory tower sitting HR plaque, you know, do not disturb.

That they can just come up to me in a, in an open office and have the conversation, and then we'll go for a walk and talk situation, and they feel far more comfortable.

They're not getting scared, or, "Amy wants to have a conversation with you." It's a case of, "Amy just wants to catch up with you to see how you're doing.

I'm checking in with you."

It's such a positive message for people to hear and so reassuring and hopefully gives some people hope if they feel like their HR function, their people function isn't really understood, or they are regarded differently, or

they're only consulted when things have hit disaster levels and they haven't been involved, you know, earlier on when they should have been, or that the manager capability isn't that strong.

I think everything you've shared is just such a positive, reassuring, hopeful message for anyone who's feeling like that.

So a big thank you, Amy, for- Oh, thank you … everything you've shared.

Oh, gosh, you're so welcome.

I have one final, final question for you before I say goodbye, which is a question I try to ask all my guests who come on this show, which is, do you have a book recommendation or a different resource that you'd like to share with us?

I know I've said to you that I feel like you could write a book about all of this, but just in case you don't one day, is there something else that you could recommend to us?

A-

absolutely.

So I touched on it, um, very earlier on about f- brain-friendly training, and I managed to find my book, which has been a great resource, so The Trainer's Toolkit, and it's the brain frien-- Bringing Brain-Friendly Learning to Life by Kimberly Herr and Larry Reynolds.

And it's got so many great things in there about keeping it real, you know, honoring uniqueness in the room, making it rich and multisensory, and also just managing the state of the room.

So it's brilliant because it's got nice little pictures as you go in there as well and great content.

Ooh, that sounds like a fantastic recommendation.

Oh gosh, we have too many good books recommended on this show.

I can never get through them all, but it's great to have another one.

So that really does mean that all I have left to say before we say goodbye is thank you, thank you, thank you.

It has been a joy getting to spend this time with you, and I really hope we'll get to catch up again soon.

Absolutely, and if anybody out there is listening to this, give it a go.

There's no harm in trying something.

If it doesn't work, you've learnt from it.

Try it again.

What a fabulously positive

message to end on.

Thank you, Amy.

Thank you, Fay.

I really hope you enjoyed meeting Amy and hearing the story behind the Management Development Programme that she created, that clearly had a brilliant impact.

There were so many things I took away from speaking to her and learning from her.

I loved her approach of bringing practical HR knowledge into the programme, alongside all of the other things that managers need to know to lead and support their teams really well.

I also liked her reminder that training doesn't have to mean standing in front of a room with a huge PowerPoint presentation behind you and then talking at everyone.

Instead, from discussion exercises and real-life scenarios, to e-learning workbooks and follow-up drop-in sessions, Amy shared so many ideas for making learning more engaging and helping it stick.

I also thought it was interesting to hear about the wider impact that the programme had as well.

It didn't just build the managers' knowledge and their confidence, both things are great as they are, but it also helped strengthen the relationships between the managers themselves and changed the way that they saw and worked with the people team.

And perhaps Amy gave us the perfect encouragement to finish when she said, "Give it a go.

There's no harm in trying something.

If it doesn't work, you've learned from it.

Try it again." Thanks so much, Amy.

I'm gonna be keeping that in mind.

If today's conversation has got you thinking about how you can develop and support the managers in your own organisation, I have another episode of HR Coffee Time that I'd love to recommend you listen to next.

It's episode 129, Five Essential Techniques to Become a Great Manager, with James Rose.

It's only available in audio because I recorded it before I started releasing HR Coffee Time as a video on YouTube as well.

So you can find it by searching for HR Coffee Time in your usual podcast app, and I will also pop a link to the episode in the show notes and the YouTube description for you as well.

Before I say goodbye, if you found today's episode helpful and you think someone else might find it helpful too, please do share it with them.

And if you share it on LinkedIn, please do tag me into your post so I can see it and I can say thank you.

I hugely appreciate your support.

Word of mouth and personal recommendations play such a massive role in helping people learn about the podcast, and I would really love to be able to help as many HR and people professionals as I can with this free show.

Thank you so much for your support.

Goodbye for now.

I'm really looking forward to being back again in two weeks' time with the next episode for you