Core Managers: Inclusive Workplaces (Creating a Psychological Contract)

Develop healthy psychological contracts to ensure equality and diversity at work

A psychological contract is not written down, but it’s vital to workplace success. Simply put, it defines the relationship, commitments, and expectations between leadership and staff.

Developing and maintaining healthy psychological contracts can be difficult but it’s an essential part of leadership. This five-week course explores how you, as a leader, can create psychological contracts that help ensure both equality and diversity.

Hone your understanding of psychological contracts

Over the five weeks of this course, you’ll learn more about human relationships and the key factors to make them successful, the skills needed to create and maintain a psychological contract, and your inclusive leadership role.

Develop practical skills to foster workplace diversity and relationships

After learning about psychological contracts and how to maintain them, you’ll get clear instructions on how to apply this theory to your own workplace.

You’ll take away key action items that you can implement immediately, as well as effective ways to prevent and recover from psychological contract breaches.

Learn inclusive leadership with a dedicated team

This course is presented by the NHSE London Workforce Equality & Inclusion Team together with NHS Leadership Academy, a part of NHS England (NHSE). The Academy aims to develop exceptional leadership, equality, and diversity across the NHS, thereby improving service delivery and patient care.

Course convenor Ioana Parry, MA, MSc, PG Cert, MRes, MBPSs is a skilled Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion and Organisational Development Manager at NHSE. She is an Organisational Psychologist by profession and her expert guidance will ensure that you develop strong inclusive leadership and psychological contract skills.

This course is designed for anyone involved in healthcare facility leadership, from supervisors to managers, who is interested in cultivating equality and diversity in the workplace. This is the second course of the Core Managers’ Programme

To take part in this course you will need a computer, laptop, or mobile phone access with internet for 30 minutes per week. You may also need a notebook for your learning journal. Each week, you will be provided with activities that you can implement at work. In total, the learning time (at the computer and practical) will be two hours. You can record your thoughts and learning experiences, in your learning journal and reflect further through writing. Although the journal is not mandatory, we highly recommend this very useful learning tool. Writing brings an additional level of understanding and processing of information that illuminates experience and extends the learning that you are acquiring through the course.

• Introduction to the Psychological Contract
• Welcome to Psychological Contracts
• What is a psychological contract?
• Why do we have psychological contracts?
• How do we create a psychological contract?
• Putting principles into practice
• Managing the Psychological Contract in your diverse staff
• What is my role in managing the psychological contract?
• Why is my role as a manager important in managing the psychological contract?
• How do I manage the psychological contract of my organisation?
• Putting principles into practice
• How can you prevent the Psychological Contract breach
• What is a psychological contract breach?
• Why do breaches occur?
• How to prevent or respond to a psychological contract breach?
• Putting principles into practice
• How you can recover from the Psychological Contract breach
• What is the recovery process?
• Why is it important to support recovery after a breach of a psychological contract?
• How can you aid staff's recovery after a psychological breach?
• Putting principles into practice
• Next steps for you
• What have we learned?
• Why is this important?
• How can I apply my learning?
• Putting principles into practice