Are school-leavers ready to become great managers? Ask the leader of any UK business, and the answer is likely to be “no”. The question of whether new entrants to the job market are ready to face the challenges of the working world is one that has divided businesses and education providers for years now.

Back in 2008, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation found a staggering 92% of recruiters rated school-leavers as “average” or “below average”, with 56% believing basic literacy and numeracy were not up to scratch. And brand-new research from CMI shows that most still believe schools do not give students the skills they require to succeed.

“Businesses fear that the school system is not producing what they need,” says CMI’s policy and research manager, Patrick Woodman. “While they acknowledge that leavers have strong IT skills, the weakest skill is in communication – which is the top skill they demand.” He adds: “They believe that this is damaging to the economy, and although they recognise that they have a responsibility to train people on the job, the current system isn’t producing workers responsive to this.”

Debate has tended to polarise around the practical and vocational skills versus the hard and fast academic qualifications route. Education foundation Edge recently declared that the jobs market was “littered” with those with academic qualifications, but there were too few people with practical skills. And with a report only last month by the association of graduate recruiters finding 44% of graduates themselves declaring that university has not prepared them for work, it’s no surprise that business has no faith in Generation Y either.

The problem though is that not only will UK Plc need one million new management roles by 2017 (according to UKCES), but also if the poor standard of skills coming into the profession persists, some fear that this new generation will be even less equipped to improve a perception of management that is already not good.

People quit jobs every day because of bad management and the damage caused by so-called “accidental” managers. We live in a world where about 50% of workers believe that they could manage better than their own boss (source: CMI’s Management Manifesto survey 2009). Something has to change – and investing in young people seems a good way to start.

Good for business

Great managers get great results. A McKinsey study of management practice in 100 firms in the UK, US and France has found that a 10% increase in “managerial practices” is associated with a 5% increase in productivity, and alan Foster, operations director at McLaren knows this situation well. He is a self-confessed “grassroots” employee who started life as a toolmaker at Ford 34 years ago, and became a manager over time. Today, though, he needs to recruit 300 staff across all disciplines by 2014. “Our managers are very conscious of where all talent, including the next generation of managers, will come from,” he says. “In my day, my employer gambled on me and supported me doing an MBA, and it’s still crucial that employers act as sponsors. We believe formal education is important, though. We run leadership training through Cambridge College and run CM3 and CM5 general management foundation degrees.”

Foster says McLaren couldn’t have developed without investment with local colleges in identifying future employees. Tomorrow’s workforce is there to be shaped, and he sees closer working between managers and education providers as a way to ensure that young people have the chance to develop skills that are relevant to the business world. Of course, McLaren is not alone in seeing the need for businesses to become more proactive in nurturing talent and sharing best practice. Campus CMI – which launched on 3 March – is designed to unite schools and employers at an earlier age and inspire young people to focus on their management and leadership skills. Zoia Hindocha, standards and qualifications manager at CMI, says: “Employers can get involved by providing work placements, bursaries, mentoring sessions and resources for students – such as company talks.”

The scheme has grown out of a successful two-year CMI pilot, which involved 115 schools and training provider StudyFlex that customised the institute’s learning materials. It is hoped that 1,500 qualifications will be gained by school and college students in the next 12 months, rising to 10,000 a year by 2015.

STEM shortage

As an employer-led venture, many corporates are already backing the scheme, including Cisco, The National Grid and Centrica. In fact, Centrica is providing bursaries and mentoring for students. Greg Evans, director of nuclear at Centrica, is conscious of the business benefits associated with working with young people. “Our interest in the skills and development of young people is at the top of our strategic agenda,” says Evans. “We’ve announced we’re looking for 2,600 new staff this year alone, so engaging with young people is crucial. The energy sector is facing an acute skills shortage, and the benefit to a business like ours of CMI’s scheme is being able to take kids and see them go as far as they can, shifting a general interest in working with us into actual apprenticeships.” According to Evans, a third of the skills base in the energy sector is due to retire in the next 10 years, so building bridges with schools is key: “We want to reach people at the best point in the educational life – early, before they start to think about what their career choices will be.”

Campus CMI is also actively working to address the shortage of managers in the STEM sector (science, technology and engineering) by teaming up with Big Bang, a careers fair for young scientists and engineers (www.thebigbangfair.co.uk). According to event director Jeremy Buckle, part of the problem is that managers tend to become managers “by default, because they’ve been there the longest, rather than because they have a skillset”. He’s not only encouraging young people to think about being managers in the sector from the outset, but also believes the education required to be in the industry itself gives just the transferable skillset the management profession needs. “Engineers need to work with people, develop teams, and organise multiple diverse groups. Managers with a background in STEM subjects tend to be of a higher quality,” he says.

A supporting role

Of course, the challenge of engaging a new generation of effective business leaders does not stop when the school gates close. Young managers need to be coached and developed if they are to overcome feelings of being under pressure and ill-equipped to perform – feelings highlighted in the annual Roffey Park ‘Management Agenda’ report, which came out in January. Jo Hennessy, its director of research says: “Junior managers are much less positive about their ability to perform, particularly in tasks such as tackling underperformance: 55% said they found the policies they have to follow inappropriate.” She says confidence improves only up the management line, which is why coaching must be the skill in which existing managers invest for younger recruits.

“Management is more than systems and processes,” says Gladeana McMahon, chair of the association for Coaching. “Being in control is different from enthusing and delegating. It’s about being a higher level of thinker, being in the thought-leadership space.” That’s why she supports CMI’s efforts to bring coaching and mentoring to the top of the management agenda. “These skills don’t come naturally,” she says.

Part of the problem, she says, is that bad management gets passed down to the new generation, as the previous generation thinks this is how it should be done. “An external approach has to be part of the process of informing the next crop of managers,” she says. Firms that are starting to gain the results of this, include Thomson Reuters. Its HR director, Stephen Dando, is working on a ‘Talent as our signature’ programme, where management development is the top priority. “If we expect our managers to develop our people, we have to give them the right tools,” he says. So he is launching a partnership with software provider Workday to embed an enterprise-wide management toolkit. “There’s no crisis in management if you give them an integrated view of their people,” he says.

With the right opportunities and mentors, young people can become the effective managers we need them to be. And the great news is that these young would-be managers are ready to take up the challenge. The Diploma Employer Champions’ Network (DECN) shows 70% of school students would work harder if their studies were more closely linked to employment. Moreover, 78% think that work-related study will help them find their ideal job. There might well be a severe shortage of business leaders coming through, but if people are introduced to management and supported from a young age, they will find a profession they can be good at, and, more importantly, stick to.