Strong leadership is vital, ConstructionSkills tells businesses

When times are tough and margins are tight, good leadership and management skills are vital to build businesses.

Management and leadership teams who are focused on the key business issues of business improvement, people issues, health and safety, and sustainability will thrive in these turbulent times and be strongly positioned to take advantage of the eventual upturn in the market.

When the economy improves there will be a greater emphasis on technical, professional and management jobs.  The construction industry currently has a lower percentage of higher skilled roles and more effort is necessary to encourage people to train for professional, technical and management roles.

The recession is the perfect time to plan, and ConstructionSkills is playing a proactive role in supporting the development of managers and supervisors.  Research shows that before and during the economic downturn, construction companies are not developing their skills in these areas.

Only 22% of construction companies surveyed last year had arranged training in the last two years to develop managerial or supervisory skills. And only 18% of construction companies’ owners and managers have had any managerial training.

ConstructionSkills and its training division, the National Construction College, have a range of management and leadership courses designed to help businesses keep the skills of their managers and supervisors up to date.

The updated Management and Supervisory Development Programme offers ongoing support and funding to help businesses deliver better performance through higher quality work, delivered correctly first time round, with less wastage of materials and less accidents on site.

ConstructionSkills also offers a comprehensive range of publications on management and leadership which individuals and companies may find useful to further their own and their employees’ professional development.

To find out more about the management and leadership courses and other training courses on offer at National Construction College please call 0344 994 4433 or visit www.nationalconstructioncollege.co.uk