Loraine Kennedy wants to talk about out-of-office replies. They are just one part of her wide-ranging exploration of how instant communications and management styles are affecting and changing each other.

In her session at the English UK Management Conference, Loraine promises to look at how the digital age and social media are helping to drive a new work environment, and how that affects leadership in general and of language schools in particular.

"Customers don’t want to receive voicemail messages any more, they want instant text messages. They don't want to plough through emails. And there's really fascinating stuff out there at the moment around changes in how to run an organisation.

"It doesn't matter if it's a language school or a bank: it's about the interaction between leaders, teams and users - in our context students, parents and agents - what's happening? How do people want to communicate. Emails and out of office messages were OK ten or 15 years ago but now people look at your readiness to respond."

She will, she says, also explore the implications for management style which are an outcome from changing forms of communications, getting delegates to consider some big questions about how their centres should interact with a young customer base from all over the world, and about how management styles will evolve.

The English UK Management Conference is being held at the Royal York Hotel in York on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March 2015. With big-name speakers and ELT specialists, there are presentations for everyone, including why a happy workplace is more productive, the English UK ‘MBA’, conflict, communication, CPD, careers, inspection, and more. An Open Space session, moderated by Will Nash, is designed to ensure managers discuss issues most crucial to their working lives.

Find out more and book your place at the English UK Management Conference 2015.