Managers are facing an ever more critical role in not only ensuring staff make the transition to more home and hybrid ways of working – as a result of the pandemic – but also that workers are engaged in an increasingly fast pace and remote world of work.

Yet CIPD research has revealed that only 40% of line managers receive any people management training, despite ‘management style’ being the second biggest cause of work‐related stress (behind unmanageable workload).

To this end, I want to share three easy and effective ways that employers can help ensure their people managers are equipped with the right skill-set and knowledge to better support their team, and you don’t need a big training budget!

1. Support the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter – this assessment scheme (backed by Mayor Andy Burham) is designed to help businesses raise their employment standards, including people management practices, and connect with other employers and managers to share best practice.
2. Establish a safe environment that encourages managers to speak up – this will help create an open culture where staff are able to share any new ideas for ways of working and be confident in dealing with any problems or issues that arise.
3. Access a wide range of free professional resources – Here at the CIPD (the professional body for HR and people management) we offer free guides and training on everything from how to create a ‘speak-up’ culture, hybrid working, improving wellbeing at work and pay structures and progression.

Free webinars and resources on how to tackle more problematic issues such as workplace conflict, including racism and sexual harassment are also available via the CIPD website.

Behaviours for successful managers

The CIPD have recently conducted research around the behaviours of ‘good managers’ and there are five key areas that all managers must develop in to engage staff, support their health and wellbeing and create an inclusive workplace culture.

These five behaviours are ‘be open, fair and consistent’; ‘handle conflict and problems’; ‘provide knowledge, clarity and guidance’; ‘build and sustain relationships’; and ‘support development.’

We recently collaborated with the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter and ACAS to produce a collaborative guide full of recommendations and useful resources for line managers to improve across these key areas.

Known as ‘Soft skills in hard times: why good people management matters more than ever’, the guide is free to download for all Greater Manchester employers and aims to upskill managers to better support staff and enable them to be themselves at work.

It can take a lot of courage for someone to admit that they are suffering from poor mental health or speak up if they have some sort of conflict at work. Sadly there are very mixed and disappointing results on the ability of organisations to deal compassionately and effectively with such issues too.

This collaborative resource will help line managers prepare for, and tackle, such problems by ensuring they have an open, fair and consistent approach and the ability to have compassionate conversations with their staff.