Brain Brolly Line Managers Programme
The Brain Brolly Line Managers Programme consists of 5 days of training specifically designed to support your mental wellbeing as a line manager and to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to identify relevant supports for your team. In order to assist you in implementing the strategies you learn, this programme also includes 6 follow up consultations across 12 months, after the training, with one of our highly trained and experienced Clinical Psychologists.
Programmes are available nationwide
Module 1: Brain Functionality and Optimisation
Where do your best business development ideas come from? From your brain?
Why do you work with other people? For their skills and ideas? For their brains?
If brains are so vital to your business, how can we protect them?
We often don’t think about our individual brain function and operate under the assumption that it is a given and always will be. Consider what happens when a person suffers a brain injury. All of a sudden there becomes a necessary focus on what their brain is able to do. Consideration is given to how they will interact with the world. feel successful in the world and ultimately enjoy their life. Why don’t we pay so much attention to our own brain function before there is any injury? And if we did, what could we achieve?
Consider what happens in business when there is a difficulty or even when people are trying to take something that is already great and make it excellent. There is often a focus on systems, how things operate and how to optimise effectiveness and efficiency by considering what the strengths and weaknesses of the system are. Human Resources experts may be called in to look at the skill mix in teams or strategy around communications. But what could be achieved if there was a focus on optimisation of individual brains and protecting individual brains from outside influences or stressors?
Module 2: Brain Protection and Socialisation
When we better understand our brain function, we can better protect our brains. Being a Line Manager, however, means also understanding and protecting other people’s brains. Being a Line Manager means dealing with people and dealing with people means dealing with the individual differences in people. This session is about what happens when your brain meets other brains and how to make this go as smoothly as possible.
Module 3: Understanding Mental Health in Business
There are plenty of statistics: 15.4 million working days lost to work related stress, depression and anxiety in 2017-2018; up 24% from previous year (Health and Safety Executive Report). Mental health difficulties at work cost UK economy £34.9 billion in 2017, up from £26 billion in 2007 (Report by Centre for Mental Health). There are plenty of campaigns, by charities. by the Royal Family, by others. There are legal obligations on employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees. There is plenty of evidence that mental health programs reduce illness, absenteeism and disability costs. Mental health programs increase employee productivity and engagement and retain talent. Despite the evidence that a healthier workforce is more productive, people still often focus on output rather than wellbeing. There people are missing a trick and don’t have to.
What is mental health? How do we best understand it? Why is it relevant in business? Even if mental health issues are accepted in business, there can still be a focus on business outcomes or individuals personal circumstances. People who work in business are expected to know about business, they are not necessarily expected to know about mental health but as businesses expand, this often involves more people and perhaps structures such as line management. At this stage there is a legal requirement to look after the people who work for you. Understanding mental health then becomes something important to understand.
Module 4: Mental Health Presentations – spotting the signs and knowing what to do about it
Mental health is a short name for a huge subject. In this session, we will focus on some common mental health conditions and consider how to know when something is a problem.
How do you know if someone is having a mental health difficulty? Do you think they know and if not, how do you bring THAT up? Even if you have spotted a difficulty, decided it is a problem, brought it up with the person, what do you then do about it?
Module 5: Communication Skills in Mental Health
When people are struggling with mental health difficulties, they sometimes have a particular perspective on things. This can mean that communication is strained or difficult. But communication is key to creating an environment in which people feel comfortable to speak about mental health issues and supported in those mental health issues.
Module 6: Boundaries of your Role in Mental Health Presentations
Line Managers are usually expected to be the first port of call for any employee having a difficulty. You want to help the person. You want to look competent and confident to your own line manager. It can feel like you are the person expected to have all the answers plus your company has paid for you to attend training on mental health so surely you should know what to do. This session is designed for Line Managers to feel comfortable and confident in their own role and to understand the boundaries of this in relation to mental health in the workforce. The whole programme aims to support you as a line manager, not to blur lines with HR, mental health services and others.
Module 7: Resilience
After natural disasters, or other traumatic events, some people will be traumatised while others seem to bounce back. Research evidence tells us that the difference here is resilience. If people are resilient, they can manage unimaginable things well. Hopefully you and the people you line manage won’t have any natural disasters, but you will experience change at work and this can be stressful. If you have built resilience in yourself, change is much easier to manage. If you build resilience in the people you line manage, they will also find change easier and people are less likely to be off work due to stress.
But how do you do this?
Module 8: Self Care
Discussing mental health issues can be emotive and even difficult for people. In this session we discuss self care and how to protect yourself when supporting someone through something very difficult in their lives.
Module 9: People and Motivation
As a line manager, one of your key roles will be to ask people to do things. Sometimes these will be things they will enjoy doing and other times, these will be more mundane but necessary tasks. What if they just don’t want to do it? What if they just don’t do it? What if they list all the reasons why they will get around to it but not at the moment? Understanding motivation in people is the key to most of the frustration of the line manager and this session aims to consider this.
Module 10: Motivation for Change
This is not about coping with change but about motivating for change. How do you take all of the training over this programme and translate it into practice. You could make changes for yourself and/or you could motivate others to consider change as well. Their ideas plus your ideas. Their brains plus your brain.
Anything could happen!
Throughout the programme, we aim to bring you the best evidence based information and we use a blended learning approach as there is evidence that this is highly successful. We are aware that people often attend training, participate fully and leave with the intention of making changes based on their new knowledge and skills. When they get back to the office and discover the numerous emails and general pile of work awaiting their return, making those changes can be re-prioritised. Our one-to-one sessions are designed to support change over time in implementing new mental health strategies in your business to allow maintenance of that initial momentum for action.
Programmes are available nationwide