Speaking as a SWE manager who explicitly “mandates” (not actually mandatory but I strongly encourage following your passions and interests in an academic kind of way!) we do exist, I assume I’m not the only one :)
My team almost always can find an hour between tasks organically so I’ve never really had to push
I'm a SWE manager as well. I always tell my team that learning is part of the job, and so it can happen on the job. To be honest, it worked out pretty well. and I lead by example, I'll read something interesting during work and share it with the team.