Kansas State University

Enrollment open for K-State Supervisory Foundations

Submitted by Human Capital Services - Learning and Development

Human Capital Services is accepting enrollment for 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 Capital Services, 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 & 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.

• Beyond Race: Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace: This session will address the importance of employees seeing beyond the race of their colleagues and understanding characteristics most notably associated with positive and productive work environment. This session will help participants understand their own characteristics, their colleagues' characteristics, and how this knowledge can help make our work environment better in a variety of ways.

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

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

• Performance Management: Supervisory Best Practices, a 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 StrengthsQuest 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 March/April sessions is now open. Participants may take as many Supervisory Foundations sessions or as few sessions as schedules permit, and can register through Qualtrics. Pillar I programming is mandated by Kansas State University for all USS supervisory personnel who must complete the program in the first six months of the original appointment to be granted permanent status. Programming is offered in the spring, summer and fall, and acknowledge of completion will be made once all training requirements are fulfilled. Specific questions can be directed to Megan Eakin in Human Capital Services at learning-develop-hr@k-state.edu.