Management development course in AGRO

The background for this course has, among other things, been reports from WPA and the “GRUS”, which have been carried out in the spring of 2022. This has shown a need to strengthen the management in the department with a focus on increased well-being among employees and in the management. It therefore deals with i.e.:

• Strengthening management skills
• Internal collaboration in the management team
• Employee well-being
• Dealing with collaboration difficulties
• Prevention and handling of stress
• Mutual recognition

So far, we have had three physical meetings, but we also have sparring meetings in smaller groups on relevant issues.

At the recent physical meeting, the focus was on stress and how stress is prevented. Furthermore, recognition of colleagues was a topic. Here we worked i.e., with three subjects in groups:

• Create space for "communities"
• Minimize uncertainties
• Time for reflection

At our meetings we make agreements about who does what. I was tasked to write this article. I have done this based on the notes from my group, where we discussed the topic "Embrace uncertainties". Here were some of the topics we talked about moving forward:

• Reconciliation of expectations around temporary appointments in scientific positions
• Open up opportunities for other forms of work and communities
• Give good examples of career development for both internal and external use

Some of what we suggested has been worked on further. Namely, getting articles with portraits of colleagues and their path to the current position. These articles are to be posted on our website as a basis for profiling the institute. This is already well underway and the first article in this series will be published soon.

In addition, work will be done to organize various scientific communities across the department to bring everyone together within relevant subjects. The first of these is underway with the "AGRO Soil Carbon Research Day". These meetings should provide more clarity about who within the department is working on particular topics.

We will continue to work with a more united leadership group in the coming months, and you will hear more later.