There's a lot to learn when you become a supervisor — how best to delegate work, motivate and counsel employees, develop a plan for achieving objectives, and present a briefing, just to name a few skills.

Though training for new supervisors technically is required under Office of Personnel Management regulations, the Merit Systems Protection Board reported in July that the government does not effectively gauge whether supervisory candidates have the right skills, and does not always give sufficient weight to people-management skills.

The board also said many supervisors it surveyed reported their training was inadequate to perform their day-to-day responsibilities well. A week or two of training is not enough, MSPB said.

It's not clear whether or to what extent OPM enforces and oversees the supervisory training regulations because of limited capacity to do so, said Bill Bransford, whose Washington law firm represents federal employees. Without money specifically set aside to cover training under the regulations, "it's easy to slough it off," said Bransford, who also is general counsel and lobbyist for the Senior Executives Association and other federal managers associations and is Federal Times' "Ask the Lawyer" columnist.

Bransford and an informal government managers coalition, made up of representatives from several federal management associations, support legislation that would require supervisory training across the board.

Bills in the Senate and House, S 674 and HR 5522, would require supervisors to receive initial training within one year of being promoted and follow-up training every three years. That is the same timeframe in the current OPM regulations, which were finalized in December to incorporate training requirements in a 2004 law on management succession.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, believes the requirement for training should be codified, said an aide, Bryan Polisuk. Funding for training often is one of the first things agencies cut when budgets are stretched, Akaka said at a hearing on the bill, which in June passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Bransford agreed a statute would be more likely than regulation to be carried out consistently.

But many agencies already exceed the requirements in the OPM regulations, and some already provide what would be required in the pending legislation, associate director Nancy Kichak testified at an April hearing on the bill.

If the bill passes, OPM would determine how the training would be administered and further define the exact nature of it, though some subjects are spelled out in the legislation, including collective bargaining rights and fostering a fair work environment. OPM also would have to ensure training is good quality.

Supervisory training already is required by law at the Defense Department because of last year's authorization bill. Defense is implementing that.

People often get promoted to be supervisors because of technical expertise, MSPB reported. But that doesn't necessarily qualify them to be good supervisors, Bransford said.

"Sometimes these best technicians don't have the best people skills," he said. "If they're not cultivated and developed and at least educated, then sometimes these managers don't always work out. They're not as effective as they could be and should be."

Supervisory skills can be learned on the job, but it takes longer than if training were provided, Bransford said.

New supervisors by default sometimes have to take responsibility for identifying their own training needs, and following through. The problem is, there's a difference between what they think they need to learn and everything they actually need to know, MSPB said. That may be because new supervisors aren't clear on all aspects of their roles.

For now, agencies use a variety of in-house and outside sources to train supervisors. Some have their own training branches. Bransford cited the Federal Aviation Administration's training academy as a good example. MSPB singled out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Leaders' Academy as exemplary.

Most agencies have employee development resources, often including a website such as the U.S. Geological Survey's training.usgs. gov.

Among training options:

• The Graduate School, formerly USDA Graduate School, in Washington offers many courses for supervisors, such as "Success-Oriented Supervision" and "Assertive Supervision," as well as introductory classes and those on specific topics including staffing and placement, and managing attendance and leave. Some are distance-education classes and some are taught in classrooms.

For descriptions, visit the online catalog at www.graduateschool. edu.

• OPM's management development centers in Aurora, Colo., and Shepherdstown, W.Va., offer a two-week "Collaborative Leadership Seminar" for those being considered for supervisory or management positions.

The seminar is worth three hours of graduate-level credit, and covers how to gain consensus when dealing with complex issues and stakeholders who have radically different views. It builds skills such as negotiation and strategic thinking.

The management development centers also have a one-week class on conflict-resolution skills, "Effective Approaches to Handling Difficult People or Circumstances." Students earn two hours of graduate credit.

Another one-week course, on facilitation skills, covers how to make workgroups and teams function smoothly.

A three-day class focuses on "Managing the Flexible Workplace," or getting results when work is performed by a mix of employees in a traditional office, off site and via telework. For more information, visit OPM's leadership development site, www.leadership.opm.gov.

• Some agencies contract with private companies to provide training. Management Concepts based in Vienna, Va., has, for example, a three-day class titled "Effective Supervision" and a two-day course in "Writing Effective Individual Development Plans."

• Professional organizations such as Young Government Leaders seek to fill in gaps in professional development, often at conferences and other events. YGL held a summit in July that included a session called "I'm a Boss? How to Be a Boss for the First Time," presented by Tom Fox, director of the Partnership for Public Service's Center for Government Leadership.

YGL also is planning to expand its scholarships, covering both training courses and conferences and graduate and undergraduate studies, said Shaun Khalfan, YGL vice president.

• Partnership for Public Service also provides training courses and seminars. See www.ourpublic service.org.

• The American Society for Training and Development offers some resources on creating programs for training new supervisors. In addition to a class and a book on the subject, ASTD sells case studies it has published on best practices in supervisory training.