24 | Broadcast | 23 August 2019 broadcastnow.co.uk
Gain the skills to be a better boss
ScreenSkills is off ering training in key areas such as crewing up, running a team and
dealing with harassment to tackle the industry’s lack of experienced managers
E
xploring howto be a better boss
may not have been mission critical
in the TV industry of the past. For
most people, leadership was learned – like
everything else – on the job.
Today, the industry is less sanguine.
Almost half (44%) of all employers surveyed
by ScreenSkills, the skills body for the
UK’s screen-based creative industries, are
concerned about a lack of leadership and
management skills.
In response, the ScreenSkills High-end TV
Skills Council is using the High-end TV Skills
Fund to offer leadership and management
training, both to individual productions and
freelance heads of department (HoDs).
It covers crewing up, team management
and managing performance, and dealing with
bullying, harassment and personality styles.
The course also gets attendees to examine
their unconscious bias and how it might
affect their handling of people and situations.
Frith Tiplady, founder and executive
producer of Moonage Pictures, chairs the
working group that came up with the idea,
partly inspired by her own experience of
feedback from crews who wanted better
management from HoDs.“There were things that could be better
dealt with on the ground in production, such
as bullying and careers advice, that were
ending up on my desk,” she says. “Essentially,
the idea of the training was to encourage
heads of department to think of themselves as
employers and more engaged with the broad
range of challenges needed to run a team.”
Christine Healy, head of production at
New Pictures and chair of the High-end TV
Skills Council, says the need arose from the
UK production boom, which has fuelled
bigger projects with bigger teams but without
management training to support it.
“People are in charge because they’re just
really talented at what they do,” she says.
“We’re promoting leadership and management
training so people can at least identify whatis expected of them. We empower people to
ask questions and we give them a few tools
that enable them to manage, so that they can
see what the issues are before they become
problems. We’re trying to give people a
grounding in basic HR.”
That is not only right but necessary when
the industry is fi nally recognising issues
such as mental health and stress, says Healy.
“These things might not have affected the
running of a production before, but they do
now because people are on productions for
longer. Managers need to keep an eye on
the welfare of their teams.”
Amanda Wilkie Sweeney, head of
production for drama at Sky, is encouraging
its commissioners to take the training and
has created a version of the course – tailored
to emphasise respect in the workplace – that
is mandatory for shows produced by Sky
Studios. “Ensuring a respectful working
environment is something Sky feels very
strongly about. We are committed to ensuring
everyone who works on our shows shares
our values,” she says.
Freelance line producer and trainer Addie
Orfi la has developed the half-day training
course, which is administered by DV Talent.
“A lot of people come to the course sceptical,
but feedback shows that people fi nd it benefi cial
and it gives them a great toolkit in learning
what to do and what not to do around, forexample, bullying and harassment, and
how to have honest conversations about
appropriate behaviour,” she says.
Orfi la says the training also highlights
that there is no single approach to team
management. “What’s been gobsmacking
across the board is, from the top down, how
few people have had any formal training in
managing a team,” she adds.
The training, which launched last year,
has been recommissioned because of the
strength of concern over the leadership and
management issue. Kaye Elliott, ScreenSkills’
director of high-end TV, says: “The need was
obvious and the results have been really
positive. The High-end TV Skills Council is
pleased to have been able to make such a
worthwhile intervention.”
How To Be A Better Boss, a panel chaired
by Pat Younge in partnership with ScreenSkills,
will take place at the Edinburgh Television
Festival on Thursday 22 August. ■Traitors: director Dearbhla Walsh on the
set of the C4 drama with Emma AppletonWhat’s been gobsmacking across
the board is, from the top down,
how few people have had any
formal training in managing a team
ADDIE ORFILA
FREELANCE LINE PRODUCER AND TRAINERPROMOTIONAL FEATURE
For information on signing your
production up for training, go to
screenskills.com/highendTVTRAITORS @ TWENTY TWENTY TV