NLT explores the benefits of CMI management Training with Yorkshire Business Insider

Sarah Temperton, Chief Executive of NLT Training Services, was recently interviewed about CMI-accredited management training courses by Nicholas Fearn from Yorkshire Business Insider magazine.

NLT offers a range of Chartered Management Institute (CMI)-accredited leadership and management courses. Sarah described one of the key benefits of CMI.

She was interviewed alongside Dr Sam Giove, the director of Sheffield Business School at Sheffield Hallam University. Together. they explored the different management and leadership training courses that can help you to be the best manager you can be.

Here’s what Sarah had to say about the CMI courses:

• How can a qualification improve your skills in your day job, and what ideas can participants take away and implement? Feel free to talk about your own experiences.

The post pandemic work environment has brought into sharp focus the increased need for leadership and management training in workplaces.

The disruption, constant change, uncertainty in the workplace and hybrid working have affected employees; some feel anxious, others disconnected, resistant to change, and work in silos; all of which lowers employee engagement and trust. Therefore, workplace managers and leaders need to be more effective, or, at the very least, widen their interpersonal skillset. Leadership and management qualifications enable people to both reskill and upskill. Developing new skills through a recognised and accredited programme enable people to not only develop their role and position with their existing employer but also develop more effective relationships with colleagues.

CMI qualifications are licenced for approximately three years.  This means they are constantly reviewed in line with current working knowledge and methods.  When someone undertakes an accredited qualification, like CMI, they are learning current techniques and knowledge of current working practices.

Delegates often find that leadership and management courses really open their eyes to the role of management and gives them a new appreciation for management.

Level 5, designed for middle managers, for instance, is a mix of gaining new knowledge, and reaffirming what candidates may already know.

The courses are most effective when undertaken alongside a day job, enabling people to use real life work experiences and evidence them within the assignments they are writing.  In this instance, the course aims to enhance existing skills and prepare the learner for the next step in management.

Having a recognised qualification also make the candidate much more attractive to businesses when looking for future employment or just looking to progress in the company they are employed in.

• What are the key differences between the two main awarding bodies, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM)?

 CMI and ILM are two recognised awarding bodies offering the same qualifications.  The main difference is how the candidate learns.  CMI, which is offered by NLT Training Services, offers a fuller range of resources within their website for individuals who sign up to their qualifications.  This is part and parcel of their registration and they become a temporary member of the Institute.

As the CMI is a Chartered body, it offers something that no other awarding body offers – Chartered Management Status.

If someone has a CMI qualification in leadership and management at Level 5 or above, they can then apply for Chartered Management Status without doing more qualifications.

However, they need to have had at least three years of management experience which must be assessed.  If they meet the criteria, they are awarded Chartered Status.  This will make them much more attractive to businesses when looking for future employment or just looking to progress in the company they are employed in.

• Is online learning as effective as in-person learning?

NLT offers remote learning for its CMI course. Remote learning is slightly different to online learning.  The candidate has a dedicated assessor assigned to them who supports and guides them through the assignments and to sense check and assess the final written work before it is submitted to CMI for moderation.

Learners are given log on to an e-portfolio system to upload all written work for assessment by the assessor. The assessor acts as mentor throughout the candidate’s learning journey, there to talk about approaches to core management challenges and problem solving. We find the support offered through remote learning can help a candidate remain on track with their goals, particularly when they are studying part time and fitting the course around their job and personal life.

• What sort of costs and time commitment would you typically expect from a course? 

 The cost for full CMI course starts at £590 for Level 3, rising to £1950 for Strategic Leadership and Management at Level 7

We encourage learners to work on the course every week and to schedule time for this at the start of their learning journey.  This way they will keep the work fresh in their mind and they won’t lose track of what they need to do.

One of the learners dedicated a day a week to his course so he could focus on it without any distraction in the workplace. This meant he completed a Level 5 CMI course in half the time it usually takes. We hear success stories like this all the time when a learner designates time regularly to complete the course.

For people who are nervous about the financial and time investment, we offer CMI Bitesize. It is specifically designed to help managers in making the decision about whether to invest in their career.

Bitesize offers people the opportunity to sample a short online course ahead of making the decision to undertake the full Level 5 Diploma award.

Priced at £125, each Bitesize module takes around three months to complete compared to an average of 18 months (370 hours) for the CMI Level 5 Diploma.

• And how do you distinguish training from a Masters in Business Administration (MBA)? 

With CMI, the training is relative to the workplace knowledge of systems and job skills that are part and parcel of the role they are in. It’s very much on-the-job training.  The knowledge they learn can be directly applied to the role they are in, making them much more efficient in the workplace.  It also feels much more bespoke to the learner.

Similar to an MBA, CMI course content is focused on enhancing an individuals’ competencies, including leadership, critical thinking, project planning, etc.

There is a selection of units within each level of the CMI qualification structure and each unit relates to a job task.  This makes them particularly easy to understand if you are working in that job role.  Very often graduates will complete a leadership and management qualification as it is relative to work rather than a theory or example-based MBA.

It’s a different way of learning and can be done much quicker if the right amount of time is applied to it.

 

You can read the full article in April’s edition of Yorkshire Business Insider magazine here