Best Places to Work Management Essentials Training

Best Places to Work Management Essentials Training

“We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA designed a modular and customized management curriculum that allows us to deliver top quality solutions to our managers and leaders.

We consider LSA to be our learning and development partner and our LSA consultants to be an extension of our team.”
Lisa Bruun | SVP Human Resources | Ellie Mae, Inc.

“We consistently receive outstanding feedback about the quality of LSA’s Management Essentials Training Programs. LSA always aligns their solutions to our unique culture to meet our very specific requirements.

Thank you for regularly going above and beyond!”
Anna Meyer | VP Human Resources | Intuit

Even with the growing interest in holacracies, flatter organizations, and self-managed teams, managers still matter — enormously. In fact, as organizational structures flatten and spans of control widen, managers are often being asked to accomplish more with fewer resources while improving performance, engagement, decision making, and information flow.

That makes getting the Best Places to Work Management Essentials right more important than ever.

The challenge is that many managers are struggling. McKinsey research found that:

Nearly 70% of senior executives are only “somewhat” or “not at all satisfied” with the performance of their front-line managers.
81% of managers reported being dissatisfied with their own performance, while spending more than half of their time on non-managerial activities.

Those findings should concern any organization serious about performance.

Managers do not simply manage work — they shape the everyday employee experience. Poor managers undermine performance, engagement, and retention. Great managers create the conditions for people and teams to perform at their peak.

Our organizational alignment research reinforces the business case. Compared with misaligned and lower-performing managers, higher-performing managers are associated with significant improvements in profitability, productivity, employee engagement, customer engagement, and employee retention.

Our people manager assessment center data and Best Places to Work research based on more than 500,000 annual employee engagement surveys consistently show that managers directly influence four critical organizational outcomes:

Employee performance
Employee engagement
Employee retention
Employee relations

Based on Best Places to Work research across more than 70,000 organizations and over 20 years of working with managers and their teams, our highly experiential Best Places to Work Management Essentials approach focuses managers on the behaviors that matter most..

Best Places to Work Management Essentials: Our Proven 5-Step Methodology

Assess the Management Essentials That Matter Most.
Our proprietary people manager assessment center measures the management practices most highly correlated with manager effectiveness based on millions of employee surveys across more than 70,000 organizations.

Assessment results, stakeholder interviews, business priorities, and organizational context determine what managers most need to improve. That means development is targeted at real performance gaps — not generic management theory.
Practice Management Essentials in Realistic Situations
After extensive interviews with key stakeholders and review of the assessment data, participants engage in highly experiential one-to-three-day workshop where managers learn by doing in small learning cohorts led by an experienced facilitator-coach.

Instead of passively consuming content, participants practice critical management situations, receive targeted feedback, coach one another, and identify specific actions they can apply immediately on the job.

Our Proven 5-Step Methodology – cont.

Core Best Places to Work Management Essentials can include:

- Alignment with Goals
  Creating clear alignment between individual priorities, team goals, and organizational strategy.
- Feeling Valued
  Ensuring employees feel valued for their contributions and believe the organization cares about their success.
- Individual Contribution
  Helping employees continuously improve while effectively recognizing and rewarding performance.
- Manager Effectiveness
  Building the credibility, competence, and coaching capabilities required to help employees perform and grow.
- Retention Risk
  Understanding how managerial behaviors influence an employee’s intent to stay and willingness to advocate for the organization.
- Team Effectiveness
  Creating an environment where coworkers can depend on one another to deliver high-quality work as a high performing team.
- Trust in Managers
  Building employee trust through consistent character and competence.

Convert Learning into a Management Action Plan
Knowing what great managers do is not enough. Managers must translate insights into observable changes on the job.

Each participant develops a rigorous Best Places to Work Management Action Plan with specific goals and accountabilities. Action plans are pressure-tested with peers and the facilitator to ensure they are relevant, practical, and measurable.
Reinforce Management Essentials Through Performance Coaching
Management development should be treated as a process — not an event.

Participants engage in individual and team accountability sessions, targeted content deep dives, and coaching to review progress, overcome obstacles, share lessons learned, and strengthen application. When appropriate, managers can also receive individualized performance coaching for up to twelve months.

The objective is simple: turn management knowledge into sustained management behavior.
Resurvey to Measure Progress and Impact
Six to twelve months after the initial workshop, participants can be reassessed against the Best Places to Work management practices most strongly correlated with manager effectiveness for your unique circumstances.

Follow-up data identifies where behaviors have improved, where gaps remain, and where additional coaching or reinforcement can produce the greatest performance impact.

Target Audience
Best Places to Work Management Essentials is designed for first-level people managers and supervisors who need to improve employee performance, engagement, retention, and working relationships.

It is especially relevant for organizations that understand a fundamental truth: You cannot create one of the Best Places to Work without creating managers people want to work for.

The Bottom Line
The difference between an average workplace and a Best Place to Work is rarely created by perks, slogans, or management theory. It is created every day through the quality of the employee-manager relationship. The most effective Best Places to Work Management Essentials programs identify the management behaviors that matter most, provide realistic opportunities to practice them, create accountability for applying them, reinforce them through coaching, and measure whether they actually improve. If you want better performance, engagement, and retention, start by building better managers.

To learn more about improving the performance of your people managers and creating a Best Place to Work, please contact us.

Related Information

Harmonic has worked with LSA for over 8 years. We have found their partnership extremely beneficial.

We recently implemented customized Management Development Programs designed to support our company’s strategic initiative of hiring, building, and retaining key intellectual property and human talent. It has had the greatest impact.

I would recommend LSA to any company that’s looking for a trusted training and development partner to take their leaders and managers to the next level.

Janice Passarello
Director of Human Resources

The customized Managing Virtual Teams program was extremely valuable for our managers and leaders.

LSA’s fundamental knowledge of our company provided an incredible base to build upon while tackling the complications of managing and working with globally distributed teams.

Our teams walked away walked away with highly useful insights, practices, and tools. It was excellent.

Debra Martucci
Vice President, Information Technology

LSA helped to meet the needs of my teams within a very narrow timeframe.

My team walked away with highly useful management development tools and practices.

Thank you for designing and delivering the right solution for our specific needs.

Sandeep Kumar
Director, Software Engineering, EPG

LSA has been a tremendous asset at my current company and my past company.

As an HR leader, I am always looking for ways to find external resources that can provide impactful leadership and management development expertise. LSA consistently does that for me.

The tools and practices are crisp, business relevant, and easy to apply on the job.

Ken Boehm
VP of Human Resources

Here’s a token of my appreciation for ALL your efforts. I’m offering my most sincere thanks, and it extends to all the folks who made our customized management development programs such a great success.

Susan Anderson
Workforce Planning Bureau

In the Next Generation Management Training Programs, I was trained with practical and relevant skills and tools that have made me and my team more productive, motivated, and successful at collaborating with each other and other departments.

Kevin Ashman
Firmware Engineering Supervisor

I appreciate that each management development program is preceded by a thorough training needs assessment of the participants that informs a design to fit the specific parameters and needs of the group.

The highly interactive delivery is provided by recognized experts in their fields. On the spot coaching is provided during the program and each participant receives individual follow-up after the course.

Courses can be delivered in-person or virtually.

Given the nature of Cisco’s business and the way we operate, these remote workshops are a must for anyone who joins our company. Their work is eye opening. Great content and fantastic delivery.

Frank J. Kuypers
Business Development Manager

LSA custom designed a key management development solution for our Client Partner Teams on both coasts that aligned with our business priorities and organizational culture.

I’d recommend LSA to any company looking for a first class training and consulting partner that truly makes a behavior and performance impact.

Laurie Torres
Chief People Officer

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people in the areas of performance coaching, diversity, and inclusion. They were very flexible in meeting our specific needs.

LSA exceeded my expectations from a speed, quality, and value standpoint. I would recommend LSA to anyone looking for a true business partner.

Anita Luckinbill
Director, Human Resources

We have been able to utilize LSA’s extensive expertise to leverage our investment in employee development.

The result has been the cost effective and highly effective delivery of high quality management training programs.

Thank you!

Steve Feller
Vice President, Human Resources

We turned to LSA to customize and deliver a leadership solution to meet our unique needs.

LSA delivered the exact top quality solution that we wanted. I’d recommend LSA Global to any company looking for a best-in-class management training and consulting partner that always focuses on what matters most to your people AND your business.

Kortney Riddle
HR Manager

LSA’s customized Effective Presentation Skills program has helped us elevate our presentation skills to the next level. I personally now have a much greater self-awareness of my presentation skills and can leverage my strengths while working to improve upon other areas.

I definitely recommend LSA Global to anyone for whom presentations are an integral part of their job.

Jim Elliott
Senior Marketing Manager

We gave LSA a very short deadline to customize an important management training program to meet our unique requirements.

Their facilitator was excellent, an expert in the subject matter, and very credible with our teams.

The targeted design provided practical and valuable information and skills that our managers truly needed.

I highly recommend LSA Global, particularly in the area of management training.

Julaine K. Souza
Senior Vice President

LSA custom designed a Management Development program that is absolutely “on target” for our technical managers .

Their facilitator has done a superb job delivering the material in a way that is fast paced, highly interactive, and fun. She presents practical solutions to the critical people situations that our managers face every day.

I regard LSA as an excellent partner that understands our business needs and an important virtual member of our HR department.

Judith Onton
Vice President Human Resources

We recently partnered with LSA Global to offer our Supervisors and Managers a customized and experiential management training program.

Everyone said it was by far the best management training program they had ever attended.

The content was rich and highly interactive, and the case studies were highly relevant to our unique situation.

Each participant walked away much better equipped to lead their teams. Thank you LSA!

Jeff Coon
Director of Human Resources

FAQs

Unlike generic management courses, this research-backed program is built on insights from over 70,000 organizations, 5 million employee surveys, and decades of performance data. The training is highly experiential, customized to your business realities, and focused on improving the four management metrics that matter most — employee performance, engagement, retention, and employee relations.

This program is designed for first-level managers, supervisors, and emerging people leaders who want to strengthen their ability to lead teams, improve accountability, increase employee engagement, and retain top talent. It is especially valuable for organizations seeking to create a high-performance culture and become an employer of choice.

Core modules typically include manager effectiveness, alignment with goals, employee recognition, retention risk, team effectiveness, trust-building, communication, and performance coaching. Each workshop is tailored to address the organization’s unique culture, business strategy, and management challenges.

The training includes action planning, peer coaching, follow-up coaching sessions, and re-survey assessments to reinforce behavior change and measure progress over time. Participants leave with practical tools, measurable goals, and a customized management action plan designed to create lasting impact back at work.

Organizations with highly effective managers consistently outperform competitors in profitability, productivity, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and retention. Stronger managers can help increase profitability by 48%, improve productivity by 22%, and reduce turnover by 19%.