European Social Fund in England

Developing first line managers

Ingram De Havilland, a Shefford based management training and development consultancy, are working together with representatives of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) on a project which looks at developing and training First Line Managers (FLM's).

With £72,680 of ESF money, the task concentrates on the following:

• Examining the barriers to FLM training,
• Looking at FLM training needs,
• Seeing how SME's evaluate training

Commencing in April 2002, the project is split into 6 x 5-day programmes and 7 x 4-day programmes. Already there has been a huge demand and Ingram De Havilland were granted with a further £21,245, which enabled four more programmes to be delivered.

George Clarke, joint managing director of Ingram De Havilland, said: "The main barrier was releasibility and once we were able to reach a consensus agreement on this, we were able to put a programme together covering the main needs. It was also necessary to run some short workshops to help SME's understand how to evaluate training."

So far, delegates from over 30 SME's have received training and from the feedback provided, it is clear that this has had a positive effect in the workplace.

By the time the project ends in December 2003, over 140 FLM's will have received management training and over 100 will have achieved a National Qualification from the Institute of Leadership and Management.

George continued: "We saw that there was a need for this kind of training and it has been fully justified. The feedback so far, has indicated that as well as improvement in management techniques, it has also increased the delegate's personal confidence. The programmes have been oversubscribed at all times and there is still a waiting list now that the project has nearly reached the end."