Finance Training for Non-Financial Managers and Professionals

Businesses are increasingly expecting management and professional staff to have a good understanding of finance. People are expected to understand how to be profitable. You will be increasingly expected to understand your departmental financial targets, budgetary constraints and handle meetings with accountants.

I am a Manager or Professional, but I lack financial knowledge

There is no shame in lacking financial knowledge, as your expertise will be in the business area that you are already involved in. Nevertheless, you should gain financial knowledge and understanding in order to handle any financial issues.

“Accountancy qualifications take years, I need a fast route”

What do I need to know?

That cannot be accurately answered as everyone’s needs and background knowledge is different. However, the typical Finance for Non-Financial Managers Course will cover the majority of what you need. You will covers all components of the Financial Accounts; Profit and Loss, Balance Sheets and Cash Flow. This is an important basis of the training, but the important part that will be covered in how to interpret and analyse financial statements. You will also cover budgets and how you measure your performance. These are hugely important skills, but only require people to have an overview understanding of finance.

People in your position have no need to go on a training course for Accountants, because you don’t need to know how to produce financial documents.

Example of how understanding Financial Information can help me?
 
Here is one example; a factory will show Sales Revenue and direct manufacturing costs next to one another. Below these items is the Gross Profit from the manufacture and sale of the product. An Operations Manager becomes concerned that Gross Profit is going down, so looking at this detail he can see that the cause is increasing direct costs. This will indicate to the business managers whether they need to have a price increase, in order to increase revenue. If the cost is increasing and the sales revenues are not, this may indicate to the manager that it will be necessary to increase the price and maintain his profit level.

This is one simple example, but there are countless others. The key is your knowledge will help you make informed business decisions and understand financial dialogues with accountants.

How long will the training course take?

These finance for non-financial managers courses are generally intense and will aim to be completed in 2-3 days. They are designed for people who need to be able to function with finance but not for people looking for careers in the subject. Nevertheless, the course is interesting and many managers decide to take follow up investments and financial markets training, so they can understand how to manage the company or their personal investments.

What is Management Training and why is it needed to succeed?

Soft skills are very important to any successful professional, especially as you get more senior. The more senior that you become, the more people you will encounter and in different types of relationships. You will have direct reports that you will need to manage, coach and delegate effectively to, whilst managing relationships with clients, other managers and more senior management. Your success will often be measured on the strength of your personal relationships, so it is important that you have good interpersonal skills.

The importance of soft skills and management training is so great that most large corporations will deliver a series of management training courses to their staff. Some use in-house trainers and others use private specialists.

All staff should be aware of the importance of this type of training. Anyone who wants to progress will need to develop this skills sets o don’t think that it does not apply to you if you aren’t yet management. Non-managerial staff should focus on the team-working aspects, influencing others, negotiating and more. The coaching of direct reports and delegation skills may not be so relevant.

 

Management Theories

In the 60s and 70s, management training courses started to become more popular, as companies became more aware of people skills rather than just technical skills. Managers were taught traditional theories such as; Theory X and Y, Maslow and Herzberg. These schools of thought were very top down and more autocratic. However, over the years the theories have developed.

More democratic schools of thought overtook the autocratic approach. The emphasis shifted to consulting with employees and developing their sense of self worth and inclusion.

This shift meant that the method of training changed from formal classroom training in theories, which was very traditional. The shift was towards interactive and experiential classes, where participants would use practical exercises to increase their learning and there was little classroom learning at all.

 

 

What is good training?

Management Training Courses need to be highly interactive and practical in order to consolidate and new skills with real-life scenarios. Ideally, the course should feel like a memorable experience, where participants can leave the class clearly identifying any new skills that they have learned. Classes that are not engaging are unlikely to have a lasting effect.

Management Training Course