by Gemma Towersey
What does the future hold for work? No one really knows, but we do know it’s a changin’ – and we can ready ourselves for more change.
In its Future of Jobs Report 2025, the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that technological changes, increased digital access and AI and information processing in particular, will have the biggest impact on businesses by 2030. Advancements will create new roles and rapidly make other roles redundant; specialist skills in AI and big data, cyber security and technological literacy will be in high demand.
Economic forces and geopolitical trends will shake up the availability and nature of jobs, business models and location of operations. In higher income countries, there’s an aging and declining working age population to manage and in lower income countries, the opposite. In 2025, the WEF cites analytical thinking followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence as the skills most in demand. These are the skills that will see us through the turmoil of the next few years.
What does this mean for managers?
It’s a tough gig. Managers must keep businesses delivering on their goals by supporting their teams to perform, whatever the external and internal situation.
As we all know, effective managers don’t just have excellent technical skills; they’re great at the ‘human stuff’. If you have a manager who listens and empathises with you when you’re having a tough time, who encourages you to give something new a bash, and who asks questions that help you see a different way of completing a task, you’re more likely to do a better job and, dare I say it, enjoy work a little bit more.
In this context, the role of the manager is critical
But over half of those who participated in our Building Better Managers research survey said they received no support from their organization when transitioning into the role.
This is a shame, because new managers who did receive support (formal courses or training opportunities) at the offset were “significantly better at coaching, goal setting, identifying opportunities for their people to develop, active listening, and establishing trust”.
So L&D, this is where you can really make a difference. You can support managers as they support their teams to deliver on the business’ goals.
That starts with understanding where you are
Most L&D teams don’t have a reliable way to know what their managers are good at. You’re in the dark, without a torch. You could keep scrabbling about, perhaps trying a generic training programme to upskill your managers.
Or you could take an evidence approach by targeting those skills we know make a difference.
Our Building Better Managers research identified 12 essential skills that all managers need to be effective in today’s workplaces. These are grouped under four capabilities: emotional intelligence, setting expectations, motivating people and developing people.
We were delighted (everybody loves validation) to see the World Economic Forum’s key resilience, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence skills all overlapping with our framework! By measuring how your managers perform against each of these skills, you can give them clear guidance on where to focus, more purposeful learning experiences, and avoid the more common situation where managers feel overwhelmed or unsure about what to concentrate on.
Step 2 is giving your managers an opportunity to build those skills
Despite a general shift towards remote and hybrid working, face to face learning is still popular. According to Hemsley Fraser’s ‘Learning & Development Impact Survey 2025’, it’s the top learning approach in the UK and the US and its use has been increasing.
The report goes on to explain why. “…when L&D is expected to not only grow skills but boost engagement and experiences, coming together, when structured effectively, can simply make people feel good. It becomes a strategic tool with benefits beyond training only.”
Being a manager is about interacting with others. Having the chance to practice with other humans in person will make the process of learning and developing these complex skills much easier.
Let’s take empathy as an example
To empathise you need to be able to recognise what others are feeling through non-verbal and verbal cues. This is much harder to do when you’re both staring at each other’s face in a box on a laptop. You might not even have the benefit of both sight and sound if it’s a just phone call or your webcam fails, again.
For learners, scaffolded in-person learning experiences are a chance to practice creating psychological safety and trust, foundational for everything else that a manager might do in collaboration with their team.
These in-person cohorts are safe spaces for managers to share their worries, concerns, stories and situations. Often relationships built in the learning environment transform into valuable, supportive post-programme groups.
What are the next steps?
There are plenty of situations where digital learning experiences are effective in building skills, but if you’re under pressure to deliver fast, visible results, our Jump Start solution is for you.
It starts with the Manager Skills Assessment (MSA) to pinpoint specific capability gaps, then uses targeted, facilitated workshops to drive behavioural change in the areas that matter most. Learning Measurement helps you capture and communicate tangible progress — giving stakeholders proof of change and momentum. This isn’t training for training’s sake. It’s practical, diagnostic-driven, and focused on real-world leadership challenges — not generic skills lists.
Talk to our team today to find out more.
