People will always say that their managers at work have an impact on their mental and their physical health, more so than their therapist, their doctor or their trainer. Why? Well, when you spend upwards of eight hours per day directly working with your manager, you need to make sure that you are working with somebody who is going to be beneficial to you and not somebody who’s going to hinder your development. 

If you are the manager, then you will know that everything that you do is going to have a big impact on your employees, and you want to make sure that that impact is always going to be a positive one. From attending coaching skills training to ensuring your people can work flexibly, there are many ways that you can upskill as a manager. In this article, we’re going to tell you exactly how you can do that, and we’re going to talk you through four of the best ways that you can upskill as a manager and make sure that you are creating a safe and happy working environment.

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• Offer your team mental health training. If you look at the figures, you will see that more than 8 million working people are dealing with work related illnesses and most of that comes from stress, depression or anxiety. As a manager, it’s your job to provide a supportive environment for your people to work in and that includes their mental health. You should be able to train up and spot the signs of struggle in your colleagues and your employees, and then from here you can provide the necessary help to ensure that they are being cared for. If you don’t care about how your people are doing outside of work, you really shouldn’t be a manager.
• Keep learning as a leader. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are managing projects alone or you’re managing people alone. You need to ensure that you have strong leadership skills. The way to do this, and the way to maintain your employees morale is to ensure that you are continuing learning yourself. That means upskilling and attending training when necessary and don’t just do it once.
• Run workplace risk assessments. A good manager cares whether or not people are safe in their environment. You have a duty of care to assess the effectiveness of your health and safety controls, and that’s across your organization, not just in the main office where you work. If you have a safety and health accreditation, you could understand the risks in the workplace better and ensure that your colleagues are safe.
• Run workplace first aid each year. Make sure that you and your employees are skilled in first aid. This means running sessions every single year and not missing out. Why? Well, if you don’t have first aid in the workplace and an accident happens, you’re not going to know what to do if you do have first aid in the workplace and an accident happens, at least people will know exactly what they should be doing.