Half of UK employees feel their employer doesn’t help them develop good team working skills, suggests a survey of 2,000 people by training consultancy Cedar.
Employees understand their own work contributes to team targets, but one-fifth have never attended a meeting in which team performance was discussed. Four in ten have a manager “who does not assist in resolving conflicts”. This, along with difficult interpersonal relationships within teams, is taking its toll on the team’s overall performance.
A third of respondents dread coming into work because of a bad team environment, while a further third believe a tense atmosphere is affecting their ability to do their job properly.
Half of those surveyed say the biggest timewaster was “sloppy work” from colleagues that needed re-doing.
“Team leaders play a vital role in delivering organisational performance… (it) requires a savvy, influential leadership style to get all members of the team focused on team goals, as well as on awareness of their position as a role model,” said Penny Valk, CEO of Cedar.
We’ve got issues
Business leaders and senior HR practitioners are “united” on the short-term priority of cost management, but not on longer-term people issues, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). A total of 64 per cent of business leaders and 71 per cent of HR professionals agree that cost management is top priority.
What CEOs want
Operational efficiency, consolidation and expansion in emerging markets are CEOs’ top three priorities, says an analysis by Mindjet of 50 randomly selected CEO statements from FTSE100 2012/13 annual reports. Next are: reorganising the business; CSR; risk management; product innovation; delivering shareholder value; sustainable growth, and top-line growth.
AoEC recruits Harder
Martin Harder has joined the Academy of Executive Coaching as a partner in Berlin, where he plans to take its Practitioner diploma in Executive Coaching programme into local businesses.
Young ‘lack insight’
The CIPD has urged the UK government to improve careers advice for young people after research found more than half of employers (53 per cent) said current advice was “inadequate”. Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) said the young people they recruited “lacked insight” into the working world. The research was carried out as part of the CIPD’s submission to the Education Select Committee’s report into career guidance for young people.
Coaching at Work, volume 8, issue 2