Building Managers and Staff Members Capacity to Communicate About Work Performance

Abstract

Businesses in Canada invest billions of dollars to foster innovation and efficiency and some of these funds support training to improve communications between managers and staff that can enable this process. This paper reports on an evaluation of a professional communications training program delivered to managers at one Canadian business. It finds strengths and some weaknesses in the training program and the institutional support for it. Managers receiving the training felt most empowered by the training but a smaller share of staff noticed a positive effect. More, on-going, and universal training would foster a stronger outcome.

Keywords: conflict resolution, management-staff communications, program evaluation