Developing management and leadership skills

Issue: Winter 2008

n order for the logistics sector to remain competitive and productive, management and leadership skills are critical areas that need to be addressed. Logistics is a demanding sector and one that is crucial to the UK economy. Therefore, it is vital that businesses ensure that individuals employed now, and their future workforce, develop in line with those ever changing industry demands.

By Shane Corbyn

According to the Annual Population Survey 2006, the logistics sector has far fewer people qualified to Level 4 (the equivalent to degree level) than those in all industry sectors in the UK; at 17% this is just under half the amount. This clearly demonstrates a gap in skills development for the sector, which is underlined by a need for increased skills in management and leadership.

Skills for Logistics (SfL), the Sector Skills Council for the freight logistics industries has identified through industry research that there is a skills shortfall at some management levels. Through the research, three clear issues have been identified:

• That there are limited and inconsistent progression opportunities for people from operatives into management.
• That the sector has limited success in attracting graduates into logistics.
• That the industry suffers from skills gaps amongst junior and middle managers.

SfL’s Professional Development Stairway demonstrates career progression for the logistics sector. In line with this, and led by the requirements of industry, SfL has been creating new qualifications and reviewing existing ones to ensure that the skills required to progress from operative to management level are available. These include craft skills such as customer services, communications and interpersonal skills. The development of these skills will help existing employees and managers of the future. It will also improve the individual’s performance, which will in turn have an impact on the business’ bottom line.

Too often, when people become junior managers they are then given generic ‘management training’ that addresses the core skills (the practical skills that help people to do a specific job) but neglects the craft skills associated with managing a logistics operation. Once again, this balance needs to be addressed for managers that have progressed within the organisation and graduates who plan to be the managers of the future.

There is a need for this more focused management development to be particularly directed at smaller and medium-sized firms (SMEs) through publicly available programmes. SMEs face a difficult and uncertain future if they cannot develop a longer-term vision of where they are going and a more positive approach to professional development. Without leadership from the top, there is little chance that lower level and more specific skills needs can be identified and met.

To help meet this need for focused management skills, SfL has developed Stairway Live – a webbased interactive skills development tool, based around the Professional Development Stairway, which can help the logistics sector to identify leadership and management skills gaps. The Stairway Live also can advise on appropriate qualifications and funding to develop the business leaders of the future.

Stairway Live provides information on performance improvement and enables teams, branches and companies to benchmark their skills against others. It supports recruitment, retention and training as well as career development planning. It enables companies to measure performance improvement and helps to demonstrate a clear return on investment when it comes to developing the skills of the workforce.

Through Stairway Live, logistics employers will have access to:

• A database of sector-specific and bespoke Standards for operating in the industry
• Qualifications information with details of training and skills development opportunities available specifically to the logistics sector.
• Information on training courses, relevant qualifications and advice on fundable training programmes.
• A ‘Jobs Manager’ section that provides information on sector job profiles and the mapping of jobs to the standards, qualifications and learning provision.

Sector Approved Profiles The basis for Stairway Live is a number of Sector Approved Profiles that link to national occupational standards. These profiles are used to form job templates and the content represents real jobs in the industry. The result is the creation of a comprehensive job library relating to key steps on the Professional Development Stairway.

The Sector Approved Profile provides information to employers, employees, and individuals on the role and requirements of the job and defines the job ready skills, attitudes, behaviours and competences that are required to carry out the job to the highest standard.

Stairway Live focuses on sector specific job roles, qualifications and learning programmes that reflect employer demand. The profiles offer managers access to a job library of sector-related roles for use within their own organisations. The employer can use the job library and templates to amend the job profiles to meet specific needs; identify the core skills, behaviours and attitudes required to undertake various occupational roles; can be used as a basis for developing and monitoring performance standards; and to benchmark performance of individuals, teams, depots and whole organisations, providing meaningful comparisons based on skills performance.

For the employee, Stairway Live offers a sector specific career development planning tool and the opportunity to self assess his / her ability against the requirements of their job, which the employer can then assess and endorse. Working together the individual and their manager can identify specific skills gaps from which job-based, skills focused Training Needs Analysis can occur. Stairway Live provides links to internal or external learning resources to help develop the skills required for the individual to carry out their job and to progress up the Professional Development Stairway.

Sector involvement The development of Stairway Live has been with full consultation with industry. It can help businesses to identify continuous professional development opportunities across all levels of the workforce including leadership and management.

● Shane Corbyn is Head of Demand Chain Development at Skills for Logistics. If you want to find out more about Stairway Live contact Shane via e-mail: shane.corbyn@skillsforlogistics.org

For further information on Leadership and Management contact Neli Dlamini via e-mail: neli.dlamini@skillsforlogistics.org

For information regarding the work of Skills for Logistics, call: 01908 313360, Fax: 01908 313006, E-mail: info@skillsforlogistics.org or visit: www.skillsforlogistics.org

Published: 22/12/2008