Kansas State University

Enrollment open for K-State Supervisory Foundations

Submitted by Human Resources - Learning and Development

Human Resources is accepting enrollment for a virtual offering of K-State Supervisory Foundations, a comprehensive supervisory program for all K-State supervisors of university support staff and unclassified professionals. Pillar I: Establishing Your Supervisory Foundation provides essential supervisor information and best practices to promote effective supervision in a higher education environment. 

Pillar I: Establishing Your Supervisory Foundations programming includes a partnership with Human Resources, a variety of academic units and key leaders at K-State. Pillar I topics include:

• Understanding Your Role as a K-State Supervisor — This session is suitable for all academic, professional and support staff with management and/or leadership roles across the university. Participants will understand the importance of a leader who encourages and guides employees, advances teamwork, inspires trust and optimizes results.

• Effectively Utilizing K-State Policies and University Handbook — This session provides an interactive opportunity for supervisors to apply K-State employment policies and the University Handbook.

• Mindful Communication for Supervisors — This session will provide participants insight into their own communication styles and anxieties. Participation will help supervisors understand how verbal and nonverbal communication can help to create more mindful, effective messages to employees.

• Understanding Legal and Ethical Responsibilities of Supervisors — This session is designed to introduce participants to legal concepts by providing an overview of key laws and policies impacting the workplace. Participants will learn how to spot legal issues and how to best utilize resources to assist with potential legal and ethical concerns.

• Collaborative Communication for Supervisors — This session focuses on communication and decision-making, highlighting ways that communication can facilitate of hinder collaborative decision-making practices in the workplace.

• Building Your Conflict Management Toolkit — Enhance your confidence in managing conflict in your department/unit by building your toolkit geared towards your supervisory role in responding to challenging situations that naturally occur within the workplace.

• Advancing Awareness: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging — This interactive and informative session will empower participants to learn how and why bias occurs, how unconscious bias can impact the workplace and relationships and how to address bias.

• Performance Management: Supervisory Best Practices — This highly interactive session will highlight the strategic best practices necessary for efficiently completing an unclassified staff annual performance review, as well as, introduce concepts of positive discipline and its application on the job. Positive discipline is a systematic approach to correcting job-related deficiencies and/or inappropriate behaviors. It emphasizes the supervisor's role as coach and places the responsibility for improvement on the employee.

• The Strategic Leader — In this session, participants will gain a deeper understanding of their own leadership styles and have an introduction to the leadership styles of others through completing the CliftonStrengths Assessment. Participants will then explore strategies to increase engagement and motivate their colleagues. Through case-studies, participants will explore how to speak to loss and manage change at the unit and organizational level.

Registration for the virtual spring sessions is now open. Participants may take as many Supervisory Foundations sessions or as few sessions as schedules permit. In the virtual format, topics above may be presented in two sessions rather than one session. Attendance at both sessions will be required to receive credit for the topic. Pillar I programming is mandated by Kansas State University for all USS supervisory personnel who must complete the program within the first six months of the original appointment in order to be granted permanent status. Programming is offered in the spring, summer and fall, and acknowledgment of completion will be made once all training requirements are fulfilled.

Specific questions can be directed to Megan Eakin in Human Resources at learning-develop-hr@ksu.edu.