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Welcome!

Giorgia Gamba Quilliam, CIPD Learning Content Manager, introduces the course and previews some of the learning from the next five weeks.
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Hi I’m Andy Lancaster, head of learning and development content at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Welcome to CIPD’s people management skills MOOC. Great managers are crucial to organisations, managers have the greatest influence on the way people join, contribute, perform and behave in organisations. Managers can be known by different names, they can be called supervisors or team leaders, shift managers, project leaders or just managers. In small organisations they can manage one or two staff. In larger organisations they may have as many as 20 people who they’re responsible for but however many staff they manage their role is critical to the organisation’s success. Line managers have many tasks and responsibilities.
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For example, organising work plans and staffing rotas, overseeing projects and change programs managing budgets or dealing with customer issues. However, the management of people is the most important part of their role. Managers can make a real difference to people through, for example, their approach to management in recruitment induction processes, in supporting the learning and development of individuals in their team, in managing goal-setting, performance and the appraisal process and ensuring well-being at work and the managing of absence. These are the key topics that are covered in this MOOC. The course has a number of creative components. You’ll be watching videos and animations, hearing case studies from other organisations, taking part in discussion forums and practicing your learning with templates and activities.
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The sessions are designed to be both informative and inspirational. You can probably think of a manager who played an important and positive role in your career, we hope this MOOC will enable you to be a truly inspirational manager for someone else.

Welcome to People Management Skills. This course has been developed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with the financial support of JPMorgan Chase Foundation.

About the course

We believe that people managers play a hugely important role in the success of any organisation. We’re delighted you’ve chosen to explore this topic with us.

Over the next five weeks we’ll be looking at the fundamental aspects of people management. Throughout the course we’ll explore the different approaches to management and reflect on how we manage ourselves and others. We’ll take a closer look at how we find the best people, how we develop them and how we help them to perform at their very best. Finally, we’ll investigate the idea of well-being at work and the importance of maintaining a healthy team.

Throughout the course there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss your ideas with others, to reflect on each activity and to apply your learning in practical exercises.

Course Outline

  • Week 1 – Thinking about people management and reflecting on our own management skills.

  • Week 2 – Exploring the labour market, recruitment and induction

  • Week 3 – Identifying effective ways of developing both teams and individuals

  • Week 4 – Looking at performance management

  • Week 5 – Talking about well-being, managing absence and returning to work

Our contributors

This course has been created by CIPD’s leading experts from around the world. Andy Lancaster, Head of Learning and Development Content at CIPD. You can click through to his profile for more information about him as well as our other course contributors David Hayden, Michelle Parry-Slater and Jo Squires.

Throughout the course we have included case studies from a wide range of organisations. We hope this will help you to apply your learning in your own organisation, wherever you are, whatever your size, industry or sector.

Who are the CIPD?

We’re the professional body for experts in people at work. For more than 100 years, we’ve been championing better work and working lives. We set professional standards for HR and people development, as well as drive positive change in the world of work.

The CIPD provide support for people professionals at every stage of their career. Whether you are working in HR or responsible for managing a team, a large organisation or small business, the CIPD website.

CIPD also has a People Skills Hub full of tools and resources to support you within your role. You’ll find podcasts, factsheets to videos and research reports.

Before you get started

Take a moment to think about the best manager you’ve had in your career. Why were they a good manager? What did they do? How did they make you feel? What impact did they have on your work?

When you’re ready to move on to the next step, click the pink mark as complete button.

We’ll see you in the next step.

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People Management Skills

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