Staff Development

To find out more about any of the below courses, and to book, search for it on course bookings here.

To help support your development we run a range of courses and workshops. These cover a range of skills and are run based on demand.

These are open to all staff across the University and all the highly interactive sessions will be held online.

New for 2021 we are launching 5 distinct sets of course covering everything from understanding yourself better to practical skills to become more efficient. While each workshop can be taken as a stand-alone course it can form a useful route map for your development to be able to work your way through a whole set.

The Fundamentals Zone

These workshops cover the fundamental skills you might be called upon to use as part of your role. They all have very practical applications and will give you key tools and techniques to improve your productivity at work.

These include:

• Communicating and Understanding Change
• Delegating Effectively
• An Introduction to Presenting
• Minute Taking
• Managing Effective Meetings
• Time Management Techniques
• An Introduction to Emotional Intelligence
• Effective Decision-Making Techniques

Confidence Zone

These workshops will help you to unlock your inner confidence and allow you to better know your strengths and explore areas of development. They will also allow those with greater self-confidence to become allies and support those who may not be as confident.

These include:

• Confidence 101
• Assertiveness 101
• #IamRemarkable
• Self-Awareness

Wellbeing Zone

These workshops will allow you to become better equipped to create a safe and open working environment for both yourself and others around you. Each of these sessions will give theoretical insight as well as practical steps to improve your wellbeing at work and beyond.

These include:

• Creating a Psychologically Safe Environment
• Dealing with Workplace Stress  
• Building Resilience
• Understanding Conflict

Supporting our People  Zone

These workshops cover some of the key challenges that a manager or supervisor may face. In the sessions we explore the benefits of understanding behaviour related to conduct issues to enable a supportive approach to challenges around performance. Giving you the confidence to create a positive working environment for the whole team.

These include:

• Difficult Conversations
• Managing Performance
• Effectively dealing with Conflict – Manager/Supervisor specific session
• Leading and Managing through Change – Manager Specific session (dates TBC)

Coaching and Mentoring Zone

These sessions are designed to support existing coach’s and mentors as well as equipping others that join with some of skills to use coaching and mentoring techniques in your day to day role. We will cover some of the key theories and models and look at how these can be applied to your situation.

These include:

• Mentor Training
• Coaching Conversations

To enable staff to learn at a time that suits them we have partnered with Skill Boosters to make available a range of eLearning sessions to supplement our existing live courses and workshops. These are free to access for all staff and have been divided into three main categories: Working Effectively, Leading & Managing, and Inclusion, Equality & Diversity.

To see all the full range of courses click here to visit our dedicated page.

We offer a range of Leadership and Management Programmes to suit those at different stages in their careers. From Leading and Managing 101, to our accredted programmes we are here to help support you through your leadership journey.

We currently offer:

Leading and Managing 101

We are pleased to launch a new 3-part course, Leading and Managing 101, this replaces the ever-popular Essential Supervisory Skills and supports staff who have just started to, or are aspiring to, line manage or supervise other staff.

To find out more about this course or to book click here.

ILM Courses

The University of Aberdeen has been an ILM accredited centre since 2012, allowing us to offer University specific programmes in Leadership and Management Development coupled with the formal qualification from the ILM.

We offer:

• Moving into Management: ILM Level 3 Award in Leadership and Management
• ILM Project Management Course
• Middle Management Course: ILM Level 5 Certificate in Leadership and Management

For full details of all the ILM courses on offer please refer to our Leadership Course Booklet here.

Mentoring is about one person, usually more experienced, helping another to make continuous improvements in skills, knowledge, work or thinking, outside the normal line management relationship.

It is an excellent developmental opportunity that affords many benefits for the mentee: helping individuals to integrate; to deal with change; to acquire increased understanding and knowledge of the organisation and its culture; to acquire new skills and to grow in confidence; to help them take responsibility for their own development, and to become self-sufficient in resolving issues.

If you do decide to become a mentor, it would be helpful to ensure your StaffNet profile is up to date. Guidance on this can be found here.

We have produced an interactive guide which gives more information about the scheme and how it differs from coaching, buddying, counselling and probation mentoring.

• If you feel you are ready to sign up as either a mentor or mentee then you can do so here.
• If you are a new mentor and would like to book on to the mentor training, click here.

Mentoring Support for Parents/Carers

We now have a number of Mentors trained to support Parents and Carers. You can register to request a Mentor or to become a Mentor if you have experience in this area through the link below.

https://sumac.ac.uk/account/university-of-aberdeen/university-of-aberdeen-mentoring-scheme

The Staff Development Team are here to support new members of staff and their line managers in ensuring a smooth induction process. The central process is:

• All new staff are emailed and should look over the Online Induction Pack prior the them starting and use this as a reference point as they begin their careers with us.
   
• The line manager and new member of staff should complete the Induction Checklist within the first month and return this to staff development to support the local induction.
   
• All new staff will be emailed an invite to the bi-annual New Staff Networking Event to help them embed in to the wider University community.

If you have any queries then please get in touch with us.

Birkman is a psychometric tool that allows individuals and teams to better understand their personality The Birkman methods measures several aspects of personality including us at our best, what our expectations of others is and what happens under stress.

They represent a unique aspect regarding one’s approach, style, and areas of motivation. Both Clare and Max are Birkman Certified Professionals and can administer the questionnaire and a feedback session for both individual development as well as for in-depth team development.

If you would like to learn more about how Birkman can help you or your team then please get in touch with us.

For more information click here.

Both Clare and Max in the Staff Development Team are accredited practitioners in Belbin Team Roles and can help you to unlock the full potential of your team.

We can work with you to put together a bespoke workshop to give you these insights along with individual and team Belbin reports.

To find out more please get in touch by email or phone to see how understanding Belbin can help increase the productivity and satisfaction of your team.

For more information click here

The University of Aberdeen in partnership with St Andrews University have a pool of qualified coaches available help to you reach your professional goals. If you are interested in being matched with a coach, then please register here and a member of the Staff Development Team will be in touch.

A full list of available coaches across both Aberdeen and St Andrews is available here.

We also offer the ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Coaching to allow staff to become a qualified coach and join the coaching pool. If you would be interested in learning more about this course please get in contact with Clare Trembleau.

While we try and run a range of programmes and courses to suit the majority of needs across the University sometimes there may be a requirement for something more bespoke.

If you feel you or your team have a particular need that is not captured in our Staff Development Interactive Guide here, then please get in touch with us to discuss your needs further.

To find out more about the team and how we can support you please see our Staff Development Interactive Guide here

Tel: +44 (0) 1224 27 3963

Email: staffdevelopment@abdn.ac.uk