University delivering Good Employment Learning Lab for Line Managers

Fully-funded masterclasses, peer learning and coaching available to line managers in:-

– Greater Manchester

– North West Adult Social Care sector

Colleagues in the University’s Business School have been delivering the new Good Employment Learning Lab (GELL), which enables researchers, policy makers and managers to collaborate, understand and address shared problems.

The £1m project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is led by Professor of Enterprise, Julia Rouse, alongside a team of other researchers from the Decent Work & Productivity Research Centre and a range of external partners. It focuses on using evidence from research and practice to develop ideas, trial new forms of training and coaching and evaluate what works best.

GELL is now open to line managers in Greater Manchester or in the North West Adult Social Care sector who can access masterclasses, one-to-one coaching and peer learning free of charge.

Jennie Shorley, Head of Engaged Scholarship, said: “This practical new research project is focused on using evidence from research and practice to develop and test effective ways of supporting line managers to manage people, especially important during this last year of enormous change and upheaval.

We would like to ask colleagues across the University to share details of GELL with their networks to encourage as many eligible line managers as possible to register their interest and benefit from this unique and innovative project.”

The project will develop practical insight into the development of line managers. As it is vital for researchers to work with professional and public bodies, organisations and managers to tackle this challenge, our approach is to establish Learning Labs.

Learning Labs frame ideas for better practice founded on robust theories of change, experiment with interventions that can logically achieve change and evaluate ‘what works.’

At a deeper level, Learning Labs support long-term, trusting and creative relationships and use learning from particular experiments to think about how to address ‘tricky’ problems.

Professor Julia Rouse, Project Director, said: “Line managers are at the front end of the challenge of ensuring that staff are engaged and happy, and that teams are working productively.

The importance and difficulty of this work has intensified in the COVID-19 pandemic. Many receive little support with the often tricky task of managing people. We ask ‘what works’ to develop line managers as people managers.”

The project is delivering 3 Good Employment Learning Labs:-

1. The Greater Manchester Good Employment Learning Lab

2. The Adult Social Care Good Employment Lab

3. An Engaged Scholarship Learning Lab

The first management challenge on values-based recruitment and secure and agile working is towards the end of delivery, and recruitment for the next challenge is now starting.

For our next management challenge, our sessions for both labs will be on the following themes:-

Voice and Creativity: Are you a line manager who wants to encourage contributions from your teams, and boost creative thinking? These sessions will help line managers to create psychologically safe working environments which encourage participation from staff at all levels. We will consider ways in which we can encourage team members to share their ideas, and help managers to lead their teams in developing ideas and solving problems in creative and innovative ways.

Conflict: Are you a line manager who wants to better recognise and resolve conflict in your team? These sessions will help line managers to understand the nature and impact of workplace conflict, the wider legal context in which conflict resolution occurs, conflict resolution processes, and developing awareness of their own and others’ conflict styles.

Our next 2 hour fully-funded online masterclasses, peer learning and individual coaching sessions begin from July.

Find out more and please encourage line managers to sign up via our dedicated webpage.

“The session was fantastic. Firstly, it was really good to hear that others are having similar challenges. Equally, I don’t think I appreciated how much of a long-term cultural change we are going through in relation to the workplace and [how] management skills really need to change to accommodate that.”

Programme participant