Line managers need more support to create a true culture of learning within organisations, the TUC has warned.
Frances O’Grady, deputy general secretary at the union umbrella body, said the UK’s workforce would only achieve higher skills if staff were confident in their boss’s ability to manage.
“Workers have a right to be managed well,” she said in a speech at a skills conference in December.
“It’s all very well getting buy-in for change at the top of an organisation, but that counts for nothing unless those on the front line are tooled up to deliver it.
“People’s relationships with their own line managers are critical to how they feel about the job as a whole.”
O’Grady also called for clarity on the government’s Train to Gain scheme, which offers tailored training packages to businesses.
She said: “The distribution of training and development opportunities is very far from fair.
“More than a fifth of workers in the public sector are not even qualified to Level 2. All of which underlines not just the need to get clarity on Train to Gain – but more widely, to carve out progression and career pathways for the lowest-skilled all the way up to the top.”
