Professor Richard Saundry for THE Campus on power of short courses to transform the workplace

In the article, Professor Saundry discussed valuable lessons learnt from Westminster Business School’s Economic and Social Research Council-funded Skilled Managers research project, which resulted in the development of a Conflict Management Skills short course at the University. The course was developed by Westminster colleagues alongside Sheffield University and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas).  

Starting in 2019, the project aimed to respond to growing evidence that identified poor managerial quality as a key contributor to the UK’s problem of low productivity. Professor Saundry said: “UK managers tend to avoid difficult conversations with their staff. Poor performance is ignored, problems are swept under the carpet, and conflict is allowed to fester and escalate. Conflict at work costs UK business £29 billion per year.”

To tackle this problem, the research team designed and tested an online three-hour short course via a randomised controlled trial aimed at hard-to-reach managers who would otherwise find it difficult to access training. The research, which involved 70 different organisations and over 1,000 managers, had an overwhelmingly positive impact.

Professor Saundry said: “Our data showed that the Skilled Managers intervention had a significant impact in boosting more proactive and collaborative approaches to managing conflict. Among smaller organisations, four out of five managers told us that they intended to change the way they managed their team following the training. Crucially, these changes were felt by staff, with managers more likely to resolve conflict quickly if they had gone through the Skilled Managers programme.”

Following the course’s success, Professor Saundry found “it became clear that business research can create practical solutions and products that not only work but also that managers and organisations want.” The team went onto work with Acas to develop a version of the Skilled Managers’ Conflict Management Skills intervention to be rolled out on a commercial basis via the University of Westminster’s short courses team.

Developing the commercial short course provided the team with “the opportunity to maximise the impact of our research and generate revenues that could be fed back into future development and testing”. Over 400 managers have signed up to the course with overall revenues for the first year on course to exceed £100,000, providing further resources that can be used within the university and its partners to boost their own managerial capability and reinvest in further research.

Professor Saundry went onto share the Skilled Managers team’s future plans: “The Skilled Managers team are now looking to use results from this course to inform the development of additional short courses, which will help employers cope with a rapidly changing legislative and economic landscape.”  

He added: “By bringing a more integrated model of research, learning and impact, universities can find some of the answers to the UK’s productivity puzzle.”

The article concluded with some helpful tips to share with researchers interested in using their insights to “develop commercial learning interventions that can bring concrete benefits to organisations, individuals and wider society.”

The work of the Skilled Managers team directly contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and 17: Partnerships for the Goals. Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.  

Read the full article on THE Campus.

Find out more about short courses at the University of Westminster.