Human Resources Q & A
By Tim Rutledge
February 9, 2009
The question:
Do you have any suggestions for new supervisors who need to quickly bone up on management?
Tim's Response:
You know what I like about this question? The person posing it recognizes that people who are new to supervision/management are entering a work discipline unlike anything they’ve ever done. That means that they need to learn about things that they previously didn’t have to know, and also learn how to do things that previous workplace roles didn’t require of them.
There’s lots and lots of information out there on the subject of management. There are books, digital books, articles, monographs, courses, DVDs, speeches and CDs. For someone who is new to the field, it can be daunting to know just where to start.
If you want to run the gamut from Management 101 to Management 499, I’ve got just the ticket.
Not very many people know about www.managementhelp.org. It deserves to be better known because it’s a free library chock full of information about anything and everything related to management, human resource management included. Here are some sample topic areas:
- Benefits and Compensation
- Customer Satisfaction
- Finances (nonprofit)
- Fundraising (nonprofit)
- Staffing
- Volunteers
These are but six topics of the seventy-five (!) that you can access. Did I mention that it’s free? What makes the site particularly useful is that it has sections devoted to the not-for-profit sector. Drop in on the site and browse around. You’ll be amazed at the depth and variety. You may not need any other information source on management.
If you’ve been following this column for a while, you’ve read that anyone who supervises the work of other people needs to create and sustain engaging employment experiences for them. And now there’s a networking site dedicated to employee engagement called (appropriately enough) the Employee Engagement Network. It’s run by a gentleman in Winnipeg, and it has attracted members from all over the world. There’s no fee, and you can join groups such as "Employee Engagement Writers," for people like me who write about engagement, and "Canada," for people like us.
You can post comments, start a blog, and invite friends to join. As I write this, there are 795 members. This doesn’t sound like much when compared to Facebook or Twitter, but it’s more specialized. Right now, there’s a debate going on among members about the difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction. This site is still fairly new, but I can see it becoming a major attraction for anyone who manages other people.
For management training, the Canadian Management Centre has locations in major cities across Canada and offers a wide variety of courses. They have everything from communication skills to information technology to leadership. They’re on the pricey side, and the quality of the instruction is naturally going to vary, but they’re definitely worth checking into.
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Tim Rutledge, Ph.D., is a veteran human resources consultant and publisher of Mattanie Press. You can contact
him at tim_rutledge@sympatico.ca or visit www.gettingengaged.ca.
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