It takes a lot to really surprise me. The latest statistics from the Employer Skills Survey did though. One revelation was particularly shocking; 13 million staff in the UK received no training whatsoever in 2011. That equates to almost half of the working population. Worrying, don’t you think?

In research of private sector employers, we found that learning and development was a top priority for HR in 2012. Clearly this is at odds with the aforementioned research from 2011 but hopefully this will change this year.

My fear though is that companies focus the lion’s share of training budget on leaders and ‘high potential’ workers. At first glance this may appear to make commercial sense – you invest in those most likely to produce a significant return. It is however missing the bigger picture.

If companies invest equally in developing ALL workers, they may actually benefit more. That’s because the incremental value of getting low performers up to average performers or average performers up to high performers could quite feasibly produce better ROI.

Allied to this, investing in developing people will have a positive impact on things like engagement, motivation and retention. This approach will undoubtedly give companies a much needed competitive advantage.

David Cameron last week warned that the lack of women in board roles is undermining the economic recovery. He pointed to “evidence” that promoting more women to executive roles would boost business performance. What can be done, then, to remedy this and strike a better gender balance in UK boardrooms?

The government has taken a relatively gentle approach to this issue to date. Early in 2011, businesses in the UK were set a voluntary target to increase the number of women on boards by at least 25%.

I mentioned in a post last year that there had been signs of encouragement. In truth, progress looks to have been slow. At last count there was a modest increase of just over 1.5% year on year. This means that women make up just 14% of the boards at FTSE 100 companies. It is clear that the target will not be met at this rate.

The big question really is; should the government take a more hard line stance on this? Other EU countries including Spain, Iceland and Norway have introduced compulsory quotas for businesses.

I’m not sure this is the right solution for UK business though. It seems too simplistic. We need more understanding as to why there is such an imbalance before we can find a solution. The proportion of women working in mid-manager level is far higher. So this is perhaps where we need to focus in order to reform working practices and career progression in search of better balance…

I often hear about employee complaints of not feeling well supported or ‘managed’ by managers. This made me wonder, has the art of management been lost? Did it never really exist? Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

A simplistic answer to why this is a problem, is time. Or lack of time, specifically.

Another reason is that managers aren’t rewarded for managing. There’s nothing in it for them.

In some cases, managers simply don’t know how to manage. Many lack basic people management skills and competencies. This can happen when high potential employees are promoted into managerial positions based purely on technical skills.

The importance of good management goes without saying. As such, companies are acting to develop managers and leadership teams. In an earlier post this year I highlighted that this was a top priority for HR professionals in 2012.

Our latest benchmark data suggests that companies are making progress. Employees are becoming more satisfied with how they are managed. There’s still work to do though.

Much of what makes a good manager is, in truth, pretty straightforward. You need to take the time to listen to and coach your team, to make yourself available to employees, to communicate well and to be supportive. This would at least be a good start…

Is your current employee survey benefitting your company? Some suggest such surveys are just a tick box exercise. That surveys offer little or no real business value. Both assertions may well be true … for some companies, at least. However, this needn’t be the case.

Your employee survey should be designed to fit the company’s unique organisational context and reflect and measure your business strategy. We cover this topic in greater detail in our latest original HR insight paper Mastering questionnaire design in employee surveys.

Relevance is crucial to a meaningful employee survey – and an accurate measure of engagement. A generic set of questions relating to a standard definition of engagement is likely to provide fairly similarly generic data. This restricts your ability to really understand what is driving engagement for your business and implement targeted action plans.

What an engaged employee looks like is different in every company. That means every survey model should be bespoke – an approach advocated by David MacLeod in the Enaging for success report.

A well-aligned survey will give a more valid measure of employee engagement for your business and shows you are progressing on your business strategy from an employee perspective. Such insight and understanding is vital in making informed business decisions and maintaining competitive advantage.