Available courses

Human Resource Portal presents this comprehensive 4-week online training course that delves into the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Human Resource Management (HRM). Spanning 15 in-depth sessions, participants will explore how AI can revolutionize traditional HR practices, from recruitment and performance management to succession planning and employee engagement. The course emphasizes hands-on learning, equipping attendees with practical skills to integrate AI tools into their HR workflows. Through a blend of theoretical knowledge, real-world case studies, and interactive workshops, participants will gain a holistic understanding of the current and future applications of AI in HRM. Additionally, the course addresses the ethical considerations of AI in HR, ensuring that participants are equipped to implement AI solutions responsibly and effectively. Whether you're an HR professional seeking to modernize your department or a tech enthusiast curious about AI's impact on HRM, this course offers valuable insights and skills to stay ahead in the evolving landscape of HR.

 


Human Resource Portal presents this comprehensive 4-week online training course that delves into the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Human Resource Management (HRM). Spanning 15 in-depth sessions, participants will explore how AI can revolutionize traditional HR practices, from recruitment and performance management to succession planning and employee engagement. The course emphasizes hands-on learning, equipping attendees with practical skills to integrate AI tools into their HR workflows. Through a blend of theoretical knowledge, real-world case studies, and interactive workshops, participants will gain a holistic understanding of the current and future applications of AI in HRM. Additionally, the course addresses the ethical considerations of AI in HR, ensuring that participants are equipped to implement AI solutions responsibly and effectively. Whether you're an HR professional seeking to modernize your department or a tech enthusiast curious about AI's impact on HRM, this course offers valuable insights and skills to stay ahead in the evolving landscape of HR.

 


This course is a transformative six-week journey through John C. Maxwell's "Leadership Gold," a compendium of leadership insights gathered from over four decades at the forefront of leadership excellence. As one of the most influential leadership experts in the world, Maxwell distills his most precious lessons into nuggets of wisdom that are as practical as they are profound. This course is designed to not only explore these principles but also to apply them, enabling emerging and established leaders alike to refine their skills and enhance their impact.

Human Resource Portal presents this comprehensive 4-week online training course that delves into the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Human Resource Management (HRM). Spanning 15 in-depth sessions, participants will explore how AI can revolutionize traditional HR practices, from recruitment and performance management to succession planning and employee engagement. The course emphasizes hands-on learning, equipping attendees with practical skills to integrate AI tools into their HR workflows. Through a blend of theoretical knowledge, real-world case studies, and interactive workshops, participants will gain a holistic understanding of the current and future applications of AI in HRM. Additionally, the course addresses the ethical considerations of AI in HR, ensuring that participants are equipped to implement AI solutions responsibly and effectively. Whether you're an HR professional seeking to modernize your department or a tech enthusiast curious about AI's impact on HRM, this course offers valuable insights and skills to stay ahead in the evolving landscape of HR.

 


COURSE OVERVIEW

Emotional intelligence, also called EQ, is the ability to be aware of and to manage emotions and relationships. It’s a pivotal factor in personal and professional success. IQ will get you in the door, but it is your EQ, your ability to connect with others, and manage the emotions of yourself and others, that will determine how successful you are in life.

We have all worked with and listened to brilliant people. Some of them were great and… well, some were not so great. The mean and the meek and all those in between can teach us more than they realize. When we look at the truly extraordinary people who inspire and make a difference you will see that they do this by connecting with people at a personal and emotional level. What differentiated them was not their IQ but their EQ – their emotional intelligence. This one-day workshop will help you develop your emotional intelligence.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand what emotional intelligence means

  • Recognize how our emotional health and physical health are related

  • Learn techniques to understand, use, and appreciate the role of emotional intelligence in the workplace

  • Understand the different emotions and how to manage them

  • Create a personal vision statement

  • Understand the difference between optimism and pessimism

  • Validate emotions in others


What Topics are Covered?

  • History of emotional intelligence

  • Emotional intelligence defined

  • EI blueprint

  • Optimism

  • Validating emotions in others

  • Understanding emotions

  • Setting your personal vision


COURSE OVERVIEW

We all know what good writing is. It’s the novel we can’t put down, the poem we never forgot, and the speech that changes the way we look at the world. Good writing is the memo that gets action and the letter that says what a phone call can’t.

In business writing, the language is concrete, the point of view is clear, and the points are well expressed. Good writing is hard work, and even the best writers get discouraged. However, with practice you can feel more confident about your own writing. This four-week online course will give you the tools to become a better writer.


The pace of the development of new technology is accelerating, and we find ourselves becoming increasingly dependent on technology to communicate with each other. As a result, we find ourselves spending more and more time living in a ‘digital world’.

 Clearly, for many people, online interactions are replacing real world one-to-one interactions. Therefore, it is vital that the concept of ‘Digital Citizenship’ is understood. The appropriate use of technology needs to be appreciated by everyone.

 Unfortunately, we often see people misusing and abusing technology, and not realizing it. The fact that users don’t understand their rights and responsibilities as a digital citizen, and do not know what is appropriate technology usage, is a major issue that must be addressed


Many of us flinch when we hear terms like depreciation, cash flow, balance sheet, and (worst of all!) budgets. However, these are all important concepts to understand if you’re going to succeed in today’s business world, particularly as a supervisor. Even better, financial terms are not as scary as they seem!


What Will Students Learn

·         Describe the art of finance and key financial terms

·         Determine your role in company finances

·         Find the rules and regulations for your area and industry

·         Discuss various types of financial reports, including income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and statements of retained earnings

·         Explain how a chart of accounts is created

·         Tell the difference between cash and accrual accounting

·         Explain single-entry and double-entry bookkeeping

·         Differentiate between debits and credits

·         Identify and analyze important financial data and make financial decisions

·         Read annual reports

·         Determine whether a company is financially high or low risk

·         Recognize different types of organizational financial plans

·         Explain what budgets are and how to prepare them

·         Recognize what computer skills you need to make you a financial whiz

·         Deal with financial situations that impact the people that work for you



Communication skills are at the heart of everything we do each day, whether at home, at work, or at play. Active listening encompasses the best of communication, including listening to what others are saying, processing the information, and responding to it in order to clarify and elicit more information. This four-week workshop will help participants develop and practice their active listening skills.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Define active listening and its key components
  • Identify ways to become a better listener
  • Use body language to reflect a positive listening attitude
  • Understand the difference between sympathy and empathy, and when each is appropriate
  • Create a listening mindset using framing, positive intent, and focus
  • Be genuine in your communications
  • Understand the communication process
  • Ask questions, probe for information, and use paraphrasing techniques
  • Build relationships to create an authentic communication experience
  • Identify common listening problems and solutions

What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining active listening
  • Body language basics
  • Attitude is everything!
  • Encouraging conversation
  • Building relationships
  • Getting over listening roadblocks


It’s easy to forget the “manager” part of your “project manager” title among the other range of activities you are responsible for. However, your management skills are an important part of your success as a project manager, so it is crucial that you grow both of those skill sets. There are also some advanced project management techniques that you can master to help bring your projects to successful completion.

This workshop presumes that participants have a thorough understanding of project management, including topics such as preparing a statement of work, setting project goals, scheduling, budgeting, managing project risks, and executing a project.


What Will Students Learn?

·         Think critically when choosing a project team

·         Make the best of an assigned project team

·         Help teams move through various stages to become a high-functioning unit

·         Maximize productivity at team meetings

·         Reward and motivate your team

·         Develop and execute a communication plan

·         Communicate with sponsors and executives more effectively

·         Identify strategies for working with problem team members

 

What Topics are Covered?

·         Choosing the project team

·         Building a winning team

·         Managing team meetings

·         Easy ways to reward your team

·         Developing a communication plan

·         Communicating with sponsors and executives

·         Dealing with problem team members



COURSE OVERVIEW

Behind every spectacular training session is a lot of preparation and meticulous attention to detail. The truly skilled trainer can make a program exciting. The learners will have fun while they are learning if the facilitator is able to involve their emotions as well as their minds. You will see the involvement, and you will feel the energy. To reach this stage as an adult educator isn’t always easy, but success isn’t just for the naturally gifted. It is possible for all of us who put effort into our personal growth and development. We want the enormous satisfaction that comes from working with others to help them reach their potential as human beings. This four-week workshop will help you reach that goal.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Demonstrate your understanding of learning styles and how to accommodate all four learning styles in the classroom
  • Apply the key principles of effective communication in a workshop setting
  • Use a variety of training techniques to stimulate participation
  • Develop a plan and prepare for an effective training session
  • Explain the different levels of evaluation and when to use each
  • Identify advanced interventions for difficult situations
  • Put your skills to work for a team presentation

 

What Topics are Covered?

  • Preparing to learn and understanding learning
  • Competencies for adult educators
  • Accommodating learning preferences
  • Increasing your expertise and using existing materials
  • Planning a workshop, including preparing visual aids
  • Effective communication (incl. questioning)
  • Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation
  • On-the-job support
  • Managing stress and dealing with difficult situations
  • Training in different forums (i.e. virtual learning)
  • Mock training presentations

NOTE: We strongly recommend completing HR Portal’s The Practical Trainer workshop before taking this course.


COURSE OVERVIEW

This is a four (4) week workshop is for those who already are good writers. Our time will be devoted to writing letters of recommendation, of persuasion, of refusal, or of action, that reflect current word usage and up-to-date formats. You can also learn some basics about writing business cases, proposals, and reports.

 

You must complete HR Portal’s Business Writing That Works course before taking this workshop.

What Will Students Learn?

  • How to make your writing clear, complete, concise, and correct.
  • How to improve sentence construction and paragraph development.
  • How to deal with specific business requests.
  • How to create effective business cases, proposals, and reports.
  • How to thoroughly document sources that you use in your writing.

 

What Topics are Covered?

  • The C’s of writing
  • Writing mechanics
  • Dealing with specific requests
  • Preparing business documents
  • Editing techniques


This four-week course provides participants with the knowledge and skills to conduct internal environmental audits. Practical, proven techniques for planning, conducting, and reporting on internal environmental audits will be introduced. Role-plays and case studies based on actual audits will be used to reinforce the concepts and provide participants with practice in applying the principles to situations typically encountered during internal auditing.


COURSE OVERVIEW
Anger is a universal experience. Dogs get angry, bees get angry, and so do humans. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that managing anger productively is something few individuals, organizations, and societies do well. Yet research tells us that those who do manage their anger at work are much more successful than those who don’t. The co-worker who can productively confront his teammate about his negative attitude increases his team’s chance of success as well as minimizes destructive conflicts. The customer service agent who can defuse the angry customer not only keeps her customers loyal but makes her own day less troublesome. This four-week workshop is designed to help give you and your organization that edge.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize how anger affects your body, your mind, and your behavior.
  • Use the five-step method to break old patterns and replace them with a model for assertive anger.
  • Use an anger log to identify your hot buttons and triggers.
  • Control your own emotions when faced with other peoples’ anger.
  • Identify ways to help other people safely manage some of their repressed or expressed anger.
  • Communicate with others in a constructive, assertive manner.


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is anger?
  • Costs and pay-offs
  • Using an anger log
  • The anger process
  • How does anger affect our thinking?
  • Understanding behavior types
  • Managing anger
  • Communication tips and tricks

Do you love those moments of exception, when everything seems to have come together and things are working beautifully? Would you like to create an environment where those rare extraordinary moments become the norm? Then you may just be ready to learn the value of Appreciative Inquiry, also known as AI. AI is a method for implementing change that is rooted in being positive, sharing stories of things that work well, and leveraging people’s strengths and the power of co-creation to initiate lasting, powerful changes that can make an organization the best it has ever been, because of people who care and are committed.


This course focuses on designing and delivering and Assessment Center (AC). An Assessment Centre is a systematic method of evaluation of behavior of an individual based on the multiple criteria. To assess multiple trained observers and techniques are used.  Assessment center is a place where a person {staff} is assessed to decide whether he/ she is suitable for job or not. 

Assessment center is a method used particularly in military or management. For e.g. to select officers; assessment center method was used in World War II.  In assessment center candidate has to go from interview, psychometric test or certain examination to know his/her suitability for job.  

When a company wants to recruit fresher’s from various engineering colleges as well as from various management schools then companies use this method to know whether the candidate is suitable for particular job or not. 

There was a time when what you learned in school before entering the workforce would be all you needed to know for the rest of your career. That is no longer the case, as today skills can become outdated very quickly. The rapid evolution of workplace technologies and best practices means you need to keep your skills current. You must truly be a life-long learner and can no longer rely on what you already know.

The definition of learning is the process of acquiring new, or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences. It is a means of honing our skills, enriching our minds, and changing the way we see things in the world.

This four-week course will help you to become a better learner, and as a result make you a more valuable employee and well-rounded individual.

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Many people like to think of themselves as progressive in some fashion, but is this usually the case? Employers can be considered progressive for numerous reasons, from the way they treat their staff to their approach to technology. This four-week course will point the way towards being a progressive employer for those who wish to be on the forefront of employee relations and develop an innovative stance on business.


Workplace politics encompasses the power and authority processes and behaviors that are at work in a particular workplace. It is how the links between people in the workplace work. There are workplace politics at play in every organization!

In 1990, two American psychologists (Dr. Jack Mayer and Dr. Peter Salovey) purported that if there was a cognitive intelligence or IQ then there must be an emotional intelligence (sometimes known as EQ). Daniel Goleman, the co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) theorized the social aspect of behavior as a complement to the emotional. His definition expanded to: “Social and emotional intelligence involves understanding your feelings and behaviors, as well as those of others, and applying this knowledge to your interactions and relationships.” In his work with CASEL he developed five interrelated sets of Social and Emotional Competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Good Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision Making. This four-week course will explore the social and emotional competencies and their role in working beyond workplace politics!


Your brand speaks for your company and its products and/or services. In today’s online-focused world, it’s important that your brand has a definitive, consistent, and responsive presence.

 Whether you’re looking to build a brand from scratch or strengthen an existing brand, this course will help you build a brand using social media. We’ll cover how to build a social media strategy, identify social media platforms that fit your brand, craft strong messages that will engage your audience, and evaluate and revise your strategy.


Today’s business environment isn’t focused on 9-to-5, lifelong, static positions like it was decades ago. Our world is constantly shifting and evolving, meaning that businesses (and workers) must evolve with it. As a result of this shift, consultants have more opportunities than ever before. This four-week workshop will show you how to build a business as a consultant.


The Internet has changed the way that we work, live, shop, and play. You can take advantage of this new way of doing business whether you want to set up a part-time venture or create the next million-dollar enterprise. This four-week course will give you everything that you need to build a successful online business.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Over the past several decades, organizations have come to realize that success cannot only be measured in dollars and cents. Intangible assets (like a company’s reputation, the knowledge base created by their employees, and training initiatives) can make up a huge portion of a company’s wealth. It only makes sense, then, that we need a new tool to help us measure this expanded definition of success. Enter the balanced scorecard! This tool and its related components will help your organization identify, document, plan, and execute a balanced strategic mission. It will also help your organization evaluate and revise its strategic execution.

This four week workshop will introduce you to the basics of the balanced scorecard and help you determine if this powerful tool is a good fit for your organization.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define what the balanced scorecard is and its benefits

  •  Describe common balanced scorecard pitfalls & how to avoid them

  •  Determine if the balanced scorecard is right for your organization

  •  Describe the key elements of the balanced scorecard process

  •  Identify a strategy map, tactical action plan, and balanced scorecard

  •  Create a vision statement for the balanced scorecard

  •  Understand what corporate values, mission statements, and vision statements are and how they tie into the balanced scorecard

  • Understand what processes support the balanced scorecard


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding the balanced scorecard

  • The ingredients for success

  • Overview of the balanced scorecard process

  • Creating a project vision statement

  • Understanding organizational mission, vision, and values

  • Plans and processes to build

  • Building balanced scorecard teams

COURSE OVERVIEW

Owning a business requires a vision balanced with attention to detail. You need to be a generalist who understands the multiple aspects of running a business, as well as the ability to step back and see the big picture and to reach into the future. The business environment is a complex place to be. Whether you wish to work as a consultant or freelancer, establish a corporation, or set up an operation that meets a need for very particular type of customer, there is a tremendous amount of information that you need to know and to apply. This four-week course provides essential learning for new business owners, whether the business is just in the idea stage or you have already begun and need to fill in the gaps.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to apply the best methods for creating, leading, and managing their own business

  • Ways to establish an organizational framework through operations, finance, and leadership

  • Techniques for setting up an effective and efficient system for hiring, retaining, and succession planning

  • How to start researching and designing a strategic plan

  • How to describe the essential elements of marketing, sales, and their company brand

  • How to apply financial and accounting terms correctly


What Topics are Covered?

  • Who are you and what are you about?

  • Designing your organizational structure

  • Introduction to operations management

  • Understanding financial terms and budgeting

  • Getting the right people in place

  • Getting your product together

  • Building a corporate brand

  • Marketing and selling your product

  • Planning for the future (including succession planning, goal setting, and strategic planning)

  • Ethics 101 and leadership essentials

  • Building a strong customer care team

  • Training employees for success       


COURSE OVERVIEW

This course is an ideal start for business owners and people new to marketing to learn the basics of Internet marketing. We’ve included information on how to market online, and even more importantly, how to determine what results you are getting. Then, you can figure out whether you are reaching your target market, where your qualified prospects are, and how they are engaged as a result of your efforts. This four-week course includes sessions on search engine optimization, e-mail campaigns, pay per click advertising, and more. 


What Will Students Learn?

  • Determine how your Internet marketing strategy fits with your overall marketing plan

  • Apply techniques to influence and engage your target market

  • Weigh the value of using a distribution service for e-mail marketing campaigns

  • Get started with search engine optimization

  • Use online advertising to boost your marketing results

  • Adjust your Internet marketing plan based on metrics and reporting


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining Internet marketing

  • Creating an Internet marketing plan

  • Extending your influence

  • E-mail marketing

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)

  • Advertising online

Teamwork is essential in any successful organization and to have an effective team, an organization must be comprised of individuals who pride themselves on being great team players. Many of us would consider ourselves to be team players, but are we really? Do we know what that takes and what managers consider to be the qualities that make a person a team player, or that make a good team player a ‘great’ team player? Everyone brings their own skills and strengths to the table, understanding how to use those skills within the context of a team is vital to help an organization succeed.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Body language can make or break our efforts to establish long, trusting relationships. Our body language can help to reinforce and add credibility to what we say, or it can contradict our words. Understanding what signals you are sending, as well as being able to read the signals that your clients send, is an essential skill in sales and throughout our lives. What is your body language saying about you? Find out in this one day workshop!


What Will Students Learn?

  • Apply your knowledge of body language to improve communication

  • Understand the impact of space in a conversation

  • Understand the nuances of body language from a range of areas including your face, hands, arms, legs, and posture

  • Use mirroring and matching techniques to build rapport

  • Shake hands with confidence

  • Dress for success


What Topics are Covered?

  • Body language

  • Give me some space!

  • What’s your face saying?

  • What’s your body saying?

  • Mirroring and leading

  • Monitoring your posture

  • Dressing up

  • Shaking hands

  • Role plays and interactive activities

COURSE OVERVIEW

Your brand is the vehicle that propels your product or service into your customer’s lives, and into their hearts. A good brand is much more than an attractive image combined with some witty type. Your brand must reflect the heart and soul of your product, and offer a promise that you can live up to.  This four-week course will get you started on the road to creating a perfect brand.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define what a brand is and what branding is about

  • Define various types of brand architecture and brand extension

  • Identify your brand’s products, its features, and their values

  • Write a mission, vision, and style statement for a brand

  • Describe the basics of positioning a brand

  • Understand the basics of creating a visual identity, including a brand name, slogan, and logo

  • Help your employees live the brand by empowering them to be ambassadors and creating strong brand touchpoints

  • Effectively plan an internal and external brand launch

  • Monitor and evaluate your brand, and understand how to respond to the results


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining branding

  • Creating a mission and vision

  • Positioning your brand and developing your style

  • Developing a brand name and slogan

  • Creating a visual identity

  • Living your brand and connecting with customers

  • Launching your brand

  • Taking your brand’s pulse

  • Measuring brand health with a balanced scorecard, SWOT analysis, and Middleton’s brand matrix

  • Interpreting evaluation results

COURSE OVERVIEW

For managers in today’s business world, it’s essential to have a working knowledge of finance. We all play a role in our organization’s financial health, whether we realize it or not. If you don’t have training or a background in finance, you may be at a disadvantage as you sit around the management table. Understanding the cycle of finance will help you figure out where you fit into your company’s financial structure, and how to keep your department out of the red. This four-week workshop will help you prepare budgets and make decisions with confidence.

Participants should complete the Accounting Skills for New Supervisors course before this workshop or have equivalent knowledge.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define basic financial terminology

  • Prepare a budget of any type or size

  • Get your budget approved

  • Perform basic ratio analysis

  • Make better financial decisions


What Topics are Covered?

  • The fundamentals of finance

  • The basics of budgeting and parts of a budget

  • The budgeting process

  • Budgeting tips and tricks

  • Monitoring and managing budgets

  • Crunching the numbers

  • Getting your budget approved

  • Comparing investment opportunities

  • ISO 9001:2008

  • In-depth case studies and analysis opportunities

COURSE OVERVIEW

Teams are an important building block of successful organizations. Whether the focus is on service, quality, cost, value, speed, efficiency, performance, or other similar goals, teams are the basic unit that supports most organizations.

With teams at the core of corporate strategy, your success as an organization can often depend on how well you and other team members operate together. How are your problem-solving skills? Is the team enthusiastic and motivated to do its best? Do you work well together? This four-week online course can help you get there!


COURSE OVERVIEW

No one questions that making friends is a good thing. In this one-day workshop, you are going to discover that the business of business is making friends, and the business of all sales professionals is making friends and building relationships. Strategic friendships will make or break any business, no matter how big and no matter what kind of market.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Discover the benefits of developing a support network of connections.

  • Understand how building relationships can help you develop your business base.

  • Learn how to apply communication techniques to build your network.

  • The key elements in strong working relationships, and how to put more of these elements in working relationships.

  • Recognize key interpersonal skills and practice using them.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Focusing on your customer

  • What influences people in forming relationships?

  • Disclosure

  • How to win friends and influence people

  • Communication skills for relationship selling

  • Non-verbal messages

  • Managing the mingling

  • The handshake

  • Small talk and networking

COURSE OVERVIEW

A healthy self-esteem is essential for growth and achieving success. Of all the judgments you make in life, none is as important as the one you make about yourself. Without some measure of self-worth, life can be painful and unrelenting. In this four-week online course, you will discover some techniques that can dramatically change how you feel about yourself, and how you approach the world to get the things that you want.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Bullying is called the silent epidemic. Although half of workers have experienced or witnessed bullying, policies and laws dealing with it are far less prevalent. 

This is, in part, because bullying can be hard to identify and address. People wonder, what does bullying look like? How can we discourage it in our workplace? What can I do to protect my staff and co-workers? All of these questions (and more!) will be answered in this four-week online course.


COURSE OVERVIEW

What exactly makes a decision ethical? The problem with ethics is that what may seem morally right (or ethical) to one person may seem appalling to another. This four-week workshop will not provide you with an easy way to solve every ethical decision you will ever have to make. It will, however, help you define your ethical framework to make solving those ethical dilemmas easier. We’ll also look at some tools that you can use when you’re faced with an ethical decision. And, we’ll look at some techniques you can use so you don’t get stuck in an ethical quandary. Best of all, we’ll look at a lot of case studies so that you can practice making decisions in a safe environment.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand the difference between ethics and morals

  • Understand the value of ethics

  • Identify some of your values and moral principles

  • Be familiar with some philosophical approaches to ethical decisions

  • Identify some ways to improve ethics in your office

  • Know what is required to start developing an office code of ethics

  • Know some ways to avoid ethical dilemmas

  • Have some tools to help you make better decisions

  • Be familiar with some common ethical dilemmas


What Topics are Covered?

  • What are ethics? Why bother with ethics?

  • Taking your moral temperature

  • Kohlberg’s six stages

  • Philosophical approaches

  • Avoiding ethical dilemmas

  • Pitfalls and excuses

  • Developing an office code of ethics

  • 22 keys to an ethical office

  • Decision making tools

  • Handling dilemmas with company policy, co-workers, clients, and supervisors

  • What to do when you make a mistake

COURSE OVERVIEW

If you’ve ever had an awkward moment where:

  • You aren’t sure which fork to use,
  • You don’t know which side plate is yours,
  • You’ve ever had to make small talk with a Very Important Person and been lost for words…

Then you know just how agonizing such moments can be. Even worse (and what can be even more damaging to your career) are the social gaffes you aren’t even aware you make. This four-week  workshop will help you handle most of those socially difficult moments.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Effective networking, including making introductions, shaking hands, and using business cards appropriately

  • How to dress appropriately for every business occasion

  • How to feel comfortable when dining in business and formal situations

  • How to feel more confident of your business communication in every situation

  • That extra edge that establishes trust and credibility


What Topics are Covered?

  • Business etiquette basics

  • The handshake

  • Business card etiquette

  • The skill of making small talk

  • Do you remember names?

  • Making that great first impression

  • Dress for success

  • Business dining

  • E-mail and telephone etiquette

COURSE OVERVIEW

This three-day workshop is a tool for your leadership development. It is designed to help you create and accomplish your personal best, and to help you lead others to get extraordinary things done.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define your role as a manager and identify how that role differs from other roles you have had.

  • Understand the management challenge and the new functions of management.

  • Discover how you can prepare for and embrace the forces of change.

  • Identify ways to get you and your workspace organized and get a jump on the next crisis.

  • Identify your leadership profile and explore ways to use this knowledge to improve your success as a manager.

  • Enhance your ability to communicate with others in meetings and through presentations.

  • Create an action plan for managing your career success.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Learning organizations

  • Peter Senge’s learning disciplines

  • What leadership is and is not (including servant leadership)

  • Kouzes and Posner’s five leadership practices

  • Core skills like communication, body language, delegation, meetings, and time management

  • Understanding the trust cycle and building trust

  • Managing change

  • SWOT analysis and problem solving

  • Giving effective, constructive feedback

  • Building good relationships

COURSE OVERVIEW

Business process management helps organizations leverage processes to achieve their goals and be successful. Once processes are implemented, they must be monitored, evaluated, and optimized to make sure they are still meeting the goals that they were designed to accomplish. A business that can successfully manage its processes is able to maintain a competitive edge, while increasing productivity and efficiency and decreasing costs.

This four-week online course will introduce you to business process management. You’ll learn how business processes can help you improve your company’s bottom line by providing a higher level of quality and consistency for your customers

COURSE OVERVIEW

Change is a hallmark of today’s business world. In particular, our workforce is constantly changing – people come and go and move into new roles within the company. Succession planning can help you make the most of that change by ensuring that when someone leaves, there is someone new to take their place. This four-week online course will teach you the basics about creating and maintaining a succession plan.


COURSE OVERVIEW

We all know what good writing is. It’s the novel we can’t put down, the poem we never forgot, and the speech that changes the way we look at the world. Good writing is the memo that gets action and the letter that says what a phone call can’t.

In business writing, the language is concrete, the point of view is clear, and the points are well expressed. Good writing is hard work, and even the best writers get discouraged. However, with practice you can feel more confident about your own writing. This four-week online course will give you the tools to become a better writer.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Whether we choose to embrace them or cannot stand being interrupted by their calls, call centers are a business element that is here to stay. This course will help call center agents learn to make the most of their telephone-based work, including understanding the best ways to listen and be heard. Each phone interaction has elements of sales and customer service skills, which we will explore in detail throughout this energizing and practical four-week workshop.


What Will Students Learn?

  • The nuances of body language and verbal skills.

  • Aspects of verbal communication such as tone, cadence, and pitch.

  • Questioning and listening skills.

  • Ways of delivering bad news and saying no.

  • Effective ways to negotiate.

  • The importance of creating and delivering meaningful messages.

  • Tools to facilitate communication.

  • The value of personalizing interactions and developing relationships.

  • Vocal techniques that enhance speech and communication ability.

  • Techniques for managing stress.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Verbal communication techniques

  • Who are your customers?

  • Listening skills

  • Asking the right questions and saying no

  • Taking messages and using voice mail effectively

  • Vocal exercises

  • Cold and warm calls, including developing a script

  • Going above and beyond and high impact moments

  • Handling objections and closing the sale

  • Negotiation techniques

  • Tips for challenging callers

  • Phone tag and getting the call back

  • Stress busting

  • Call center trends

Cannabis is one of the most commonly used mind-altering substances in the world. The laws on growing, selling, possessing and consuming cannabis vary greatly from one jurisdiction to another. Whatever the law may allow in your area, having employees under the influence of cannabis can create problems for your workplace in terms of safety and lost productivity. In this four-week course, you will learn how to lower the risks and respond to issues that may arise.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Change is something that excites people who love opportunities for growth, to see and learn about new things, or who like to shift the status quo. Some changes, however, are harder to adjust to and lead to expressions of resistance and anger. We can take concrete steps to make change more palatable by understanding people’s hesitation, enlisting the help of others, setting up plans, and managing stressors. These steps can also ensure that desired changes are implemented successfully. 

In this one-day workshop, you will learn how to manage and cope with change and how to help those around you too.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Accept there are no normal or abnormal ways of reacting to change, but that we must start from where we are.

  • See change not as something to be feared and resisted but as an essential element of the world to be accepted.

  • Understand that adapting to change is not technical but attitudinal. Change is not an intellectual issue but one that strikes at who you are.

  • Recognize that before we can embrace the way things will be, we may go through a process of grieving, and of letting go of the way things used to be.

  • See change as an opportunity for self-motivation and innovation.

  • Identify strategies for helping change be accepted and implemented in the workplace.


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is change?

  • The change cycle

  • The human reaction to change

  • The pace of change

  • The four room apartment

  • Dealing with resistance

  • Adapting to change

  • Strategies for dealing with anger

  • Managing stress

Coach, Mentor, Role Model, Supporter, Guide... do these words ring a bell? Being a coach involves being able to draw from several disciplines. Coaching is based on a partnership that involves giving both support and challenging opportunities to employees. Mentorship is a related skill that is often a part of coaching. It’s about being a guide, offering wisdom and advice when it is needed.

 Knowing how and when to coach (and when to use other tools, like mentoring) is an essential skill that can benefit both you and your organization.


Workplaces are made up of diverse groups of people with diverse motivations, backgrounds, and ethics. When such groups are brought together, sometimes there are opportunities for ethical, moral, financial, or even legal boundaries to be crossed. Sometimes those boundaries are crossed with disastrous results.

 

A workplace code of conduct is a tool that can be used to prevent such digressions by providing a framework for employees to follow of what is expected of them and how to conduct themselves in various situations.

 

This four-week course will look at the material that goes into a code of conduct and will allow participants to build their own as the day goes on.


Collaboration is a skill that is utilized with one or more people to produce or create a result or shared goal. Everyone in the group has a shared vision or outcome. The group not only has to work together, they must think together, and the product comes from group effort. Collaborators are equal partners. Do we know what it takes to achieve successful collaboration with colleagues? What are the importance and benefits of collaboration in the workplace and how can employers create a collaborative environment and reward employees for collaborative efforts? 


COURSE OVERVIEW

Have you ever wondered why it seems so difficult to talk with some people and so easy to talk with others? Can you recall an occasion where you met someone for the first time and immediately liked that person? Something about the individual made you feel comfortable.  

A major goal of this two-day workshop is to help you understand the impact your communication skills have on other people. You will also explore how improving these skills can make it easier for you to get along in the workplace, and in life. 


What Will Students Learn? 

  • Identify common communication problems that may be holding you back 
  • Develop skills to ask questions that give you information you need
  • Learn what your non-verbal messages are telling others 
  • Develop skills in listening actively and empathetically to others
  • Enhance your ability to handle difficult situations 
  • Deal with situations assertively


What Topics are Covered? 

  • Creating positive relationships 
  • Growing our self-awareness 
  • Communication basics and barriers 
  • Asking questions and listening skills 
  • Body language 
  • Communication styles 
  • Creating a positive self-image 
  • Frame of reference 
  • Techniques for the workplace 
  • Assertiveness 

 

COURSE OVERVIEW

Communication between individuals is a two-way street, but communication between a small business and its customers is a multi-lane highway. Navigate this highway successfully and you increase customer numbers and profits. Set out on this highway unaware, ill-prepared, or unconvinced of its importance, and you will lose ground to your competitors. This is a two-day course to introduce and reinforce the essential components of written communication that will connect you with existing and potential customers. If you are new to the communications highway, this course will provide the foundation for future development. If your company has some communications expertise, this course will help you strengthen and polish your essential components.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define the essential pieces of communication

  • Customize these essential pieces for their company

  • Identify the processes and plans needed for clear communications

  • Develop, maintain, and evolve effective content for their communications


What Topics are Covered?

  • Key communication components

  • Your communications plan

  • The five C’s of a successful message

  • Communication strategies

  • Sharing information through media releases

  • Communicating online

  • Using stories to communicate

  • Polishers and time savers

  • Enhancing your results

  • Maintaining your message in crisis

As the Internet grows, it becomes more challenging to find the correct information from a reliable source in a timely manner. As research expert Gary Price puts it, “The haystack is growing and finding the needles takes more time and requires greater skill.”

 This four-week course will teach you how to conduct accurate Internet research by creating a search plan, searching both the surface web and the deep web, and staying organized. You will also learn how to think critically and find the best sources for your Internet search.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Performance reviews are an essential component of employee development. The performance review meeting is an important aspect of career planning, and the outcomes of the meeting should be known to the employee and supervisor before the meeting actually takes place. Remember what the German philosopher Goethe said: “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of being.” Setting goals and objectives to aim for will give both supervisors and employees a focus, and is one of the key aspects to meeting overall company objectives. Supervisors must also learn how to give feedback, both positive and negative, on a regular and timely basis so that employees can grow and develop. Performance appraisals involve all these activities.


What Will Students Learn?

  • The importance of having a performance review process for employees.

  • How to work with employees to set performance standards and goals.

  • Skills in observing, giving feedback, listening, and asking questions.

  • An effective interview process and have the opportunity to practice the process in a supportive atmosphere.

  • How to make the performance review legally defensible.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Common errors and solutions

  • Types of performance reviews

  • The performance management process

  • Setting standards and goals

  • Creating a performance development plan

  • Feedback and communication skills

  • Accepting criticism

  • Appraisal preparation

  • Planning and conducting the interview

  • Coaching and maintaining performance

  • Terminating an employee

  • Performance management checklists

COURSE OVERVIEW

Although it does take plenty of creativity to design an event that is memorable and meaningful, it also takes careful attention to detail, adaptability, effective delegating, and a lot of work. This two-day course will walk you through the process of event management, from the beginning stages of planning, to the final touches (like decorations, food, and music). While this course is specifically for corporate event planning, the elements here can also be applied to more personal event planning. Essentially, we’re creating an effective and well planned design that is ready for implementation and can be used over and over again.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Plan a complete corporate event, including an agenda, budget, goals, venue, audience, food, and whatever else your client needs

  • Keep your event on budget

  • Design an advertising and marketing plan that includes a comprehensive use of media, take-aways, and/or swag bags

  • Determine whether partners, sponsors, and volunteers can help to make your event unforgettable

  • Create an atmosphere of service that delegates will remember

  • Select speakers and a master of ceremonies to add impact to your event

  • Create a diversity plan

  • Evaluate the process once it's all wrapped up


What Topics are Covered?

  • Event planning essentials

  • Budgeting basics and managing contracts

  • Using the committee approach

  • Connecting with partners and sponsors

  • Advertising and marketing

  • Selecting the venue

  • Feeding the masses and business etiquette

  • Celebrating diversity

  • Selecting speakers and a master of ceremonies

  • Adding the finishing touches

  • Event day roles

  • Closing the event and gathering feedback

COURSE OVERVIEW

Success in dealing with conflict comes from understanding how we behave, as well as how we can influence others. If we approach difficulties as needing to take place in one or a series of conversations, and we approach those conversations with a plan, we will find that we have less difficult people to deal with. More often than not, we will also have more meaningful and significant conversations. In this one-day workshop, you will learn how to turn difficult situations into opportunities for growth.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize how your own attitudes and actions impact others.

  • Find new and effective techniques for dealing with difficult people.

  • Learn some techniques for managing and dealing with anger.

  • Develop coping strategies for dealing with difficult people and difficult situations.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Conflict as communication

  • Benefits of confrontation

  • Preventing problems

  • Getting focused

  • Dealing with anger (yours and others)

  • Dealing with problems

  • The three step conflict resolution model

  • Changing yourself

  • Why don’t people do what they are supposed to?

  • De-stress options to use when things get ugly

COURSE OVERVIEW

Many people see conflict as a negative experience. In fact, conflict is a necessary part of our personal growth and development. Think of when you were trying to choose your major in college, for example, or trying to decide between two jobs. However, conflict becomes an issue when the people involved cannot work through it. They become engaged in a battle that does not result in growth. When this type of conflict arises, negative energy can result, causing hurt feelings and damaged relationships. This two-day course will give participants the tools that will help you resolve conflict successfully and produce a win-win outcome.


What Will Students Learn?

  • What conflict is and how it can escalate.

  • The types of conflict and the stages of conflict.

  • The five most common conflict resolution styles and when to use them.

  • How to increase positive information flow through non-verbal and verbal communication skills.

  • Effective techniques for intervention strategies.

  • Ways to manage conflicts to enhance productivity and performance.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining conflict and types of conflict

  • Spontaneous and reflective action

  • The Johari window

  • Stages of conflict

  • Conflict resolution style questionnaire

  • The role of communication in conflict resolution (including information on active listening, paraphrasing, asking questions, and body language)

  • The conflict/opportunity test

  • Conflict and its resolution

  • Helping others through conflict

COURSE OVERVIEW

Do you get nervous when presenting at company meetings? Do you find it hard to make conversation at gatherings and social events? Do you lock up in awkward social situations? If so, this one day workshop is just for you! It’s aimed at anybody who wants to improve their speaking skills in informal situations. We’ll give you the confidence and the skills to interact with others, to speak in informal situations, and to present in front of small groups.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Speak with more confidence in one-on-one conversations

  • Feel more confident speaking socially or small groups such as meetings

  • Practice developing these skills in a safe and supportive setting


What Topics are Covered?

  • Good communication skills

  • Interpersonal skills

  • Getting comfortable in conversation

  • Practicing dialogue

  • Redesigning yourself for strength

  • Professionalism

  • Maximizing meetings

  • Sticky situations

  • Controlling nervousness

Companies everywhere, no matter what their industry, can benefit from the principles of continuous improvement with Lean. Whether they adopt a very formal process or commit to something less structured, they can follow its principles and improve their bottom line by reducing wasted time and resources.

 This four-week course is designed for learners who have completed the pre-requisite Lean Process Improvement course, and perhaps have been involved in implementation of its principles in their workplace. It is the ideal next step along the path of learning and creating a workplace culture committed to continuous improvement.


Effective leaders understand how powerful an opportunity can be when they can tap into the intelligence, wisdom, and innovation present in their workforce. Conversational leadership provides the space and infrastructure for knowledge sharing to take place; for employees, stakeholders, and the community to be involved in discussing big, important questions; and to generate solutions that people within the organization can take action on.


COURSE OVERVIEW

The job market continues to change, as does the way we look for work. This course examines the value of presenting yourself as a complete package by using a resume as an introduction to an employer and backing it up with a portfolio presented at the interview.

In order to make the most of this course, participants need to have recently completed the Getting Your Job Search Started workshop, or identified target positions and completed a full skills assessment and goal setting exercise.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Speak about yourself using descriptive language.

  • Apply the essential elements of cover letters and resumes.

  • Understand the need for pre-employment testing and what to expect in your target market.

  • Design a personalized portfolio.

  • Develop a plan that moves you to a new job within 60 days.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Who are you?

  • Writing the resume

  • Creating a noticeable package

  • Cover letters

  • The portfolio

  • Dealing with awkward points

  • Getting to a new job in 60 days

  • Giving references

  • Thank-you notes

COURSE OVERVIEW

Many companies advertise with pay per click ads. This course focuses on the largest machine available: Google AdWords. In this one-day course, participants will learn how Google AdWords work, what pay per click means, the importance of correctly setting an AdWord budget, how to select keywords and set up ad groups, how to design a compelling ad, and how to make adjustments to increase success.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define Google AdWords and pay per click

  • Set up keywords lists and groups

  • Find tracking and statistical information

  • Describe conversions from clickthroughs

  • Decide whether they will write your own ads or enlist help


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding AdWords lingo

  • Creating an AdWords strategy

  • Creating a PPC campaign

  • Creating groups

  • Designing your ads

  • Looking at success

Not all of us have had the opportunity to work in a truly positive work environment. A positive work environment is important for the productivity of a company but it is also important to us personally. Our emotional and physical health can be improved by working in a positive work environment. We should wake up each morning wanting to go to work - not trying to think of excuses to not go. We want to be proud of where we work and enjoy telling others about where we work. As an employee or a leader within a company you have a responsibility to create and maintain a positive work environment. Everyone has a responsibility to create and maintain a positive work environment. Even if this is not a companywide reality you can seek to provide this type of environment for your department/ division or those within your sphere of influence. This four-week course will give you tools to be able to create the type of company environment that you crave through building and nurturing effective workplace relationships.


COURSE OVERVIEW 

Organizations recognize that they do better business when their people are engaged, motivated, and yes, talented. Having the right people in place at the right time is a key aspect to continued growth, success, or even just stability. This two-day course will provide you with just what it takes to have the right people ready. It will help you create a program to measure the talents of your people and how to help them grow in preparation for the future. It will also help you support and grow your organization by teaching you how to apply the most current research and adapt your organization to the ever-changing marketplaces.


What Will Students Learn?

  • ü Apply the multifaceted aspects of talent management in their own organization

  • ü Describe the skills required to manage high potential candidates

  • ü Recognize and foster talent within an organization


What Topics are Covered?

  • Talent management, performance management, and succession planning

  • Creating a talent management plan

  • Competency-based programs

  • Identifying talent

  • Conducting talent assessments

  • Keeping people interested

  • Talent review meetings

  • Compensation and benefits

  • Communicating with high potentials

  • Development strategies

  • Fostering engagement

  • Evaluating the plan

  • Explain the principles of competency-based management

  • Use the language for talent management

A staff retreat can evoke some pretty strong emotions. Dread of a week hanging around with people you would never invite home for dinner. Queasy thinking about throwing yourself backwards hoping your ‘new friends’ will catch you. However, staff retreats still continue even in hard times. Why? Many of the things we really need to get done take longer than the two hours you have in meeting time. As well, the retreat itself can bring about a change in approach not possible sitting in your boardroom for a meeting. This four-week course will give you tools to be able to create staff retreats that are successful and help to bolster productivity, sales and positive workplace culture.


Proposals are persuasive documents that are fundamental tools in organizational funding and output.  This four-week course will look at sources of funding, types of proposals and how to write proposals that will meet funding agencies requirements.  This will include a number of tips and techniques to increase the potential success of your proposals.  An important but often overlooked aspect of proposal writing will also be covered- Building and Maintaining Relationships.  Relationships are built on honesty.  Potential projects must be a good fit for your organization and your organization must be ready to do the work contained in the proposal. The most successful proposals are going to be those that fulfill the mission and values of your organization and that of the funding agencies as well!


Webinars are now a common and effective tool being used by thousands and thousands of companies and people, across all industries. They are being used for everything from training to customer service, and education to marketing. Webinars are an affordable means of connecting with your staff, customers and online community.

 

This course will take you through the entire process of creating an effective webinar.  

o   Why and how to use Webinars

o   Defining your webinar objectives

o   Choosing the structure and content of your webinar

o   Creating the outline

o   Choosing the platform

 

This four-week course will offer an introduction to Webinar Creation and provide you with a tool that is both appealing to you, the creator, and Webinar Attendees. With millions of webinars taking place online every month this is a medium to be embraced.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Creative thinking and innovation are vital components in both our personal and professional lives. However, many people feel as though they are lacking in creativity. What most of us do not recognize is that we are creative on a daily basis, whether it’s picking out what clothes to wear in the morning or stretching a tight budget at work. While these tasks may not normally be associated with creativity, there is a great deal of creativity involved to get those jobs done. While some people seem to be simply bursting with creativity, others find it a struggle to think outside the square. If you fall into the latter category, it is important to understand that boosting your creative and innovative abilities takes practice. Recognizing and honing your own creative potential is a process. That’s what this two-day workshop is all about.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to identify the difference between creativity and innovation

  • How to recognize their own creativity

  • Ways to build their own creative environment

  • The importance of creativity and innovation in business

  • Problem solving steps and tools

  • Individual and group techniques to help generate creative ideas

  • How to implement creative ideas


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is creativity and innovation?

  • Individual creativity and how to get creative

  • Developing the right environment for creativity

  • Creativity and innovation in business

  • Where does creativity fit into the problem-solving process?

  • Defining the problem

  • Creative techniques (RAP model, shoe swap, mind mapping, metaphors and analogies, situation/solution reversal)

  • Encouraging creativity in a team (brainstorming, rolestorming, brainwriting, stepladder, and slip writing)

  • Putting it all together

Creativity can be defined as the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness or a composition which is both new and valuable. How do we tap into our creativity when corporations and organization require or expect it?

Creativity is a skill. It can be learned. Workplace employers and the workplace environment can assist and promote the creative corporate culture.

Creative thinking in the workplace is in demand. We live in a competitive society and creativity improves productivity, teamwork, and innovation. Organizations receive many benefits when a creative corporate culture is implemented.

There are several techniques that once learned can assist workplace personnel to increase their creativity.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Viable organizations need to be ready for emergencies because they are a fact of doing business. The worst plan is not to have any kind of plan at all, and the best plans are tested and adjusted so that they work over time. Fortunately, you do not need separate plans for fire, weather disasters, and all the different kinds of crises that can occur. One solid plan will help you to prevent, respond, and recover from all crises. This two-day course will help you ensure your organization is ready to manage any kind of crisis. 


What Will Students Learn?

  • Assign people to an appropriate crisis team role

  • Conduct a crisis audit

  • Establish the means for business continuity

  • Determine how to manage incidents

  • Help your team recover from a crisis

  • How to apply the process


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is crisis management?

  • Training leaders and staff

  • Conducting the crisis audit

  • Performing a risk level analysis

  • Developing a response process

  • Consulting with the experts

  • Incident management techniques

  • Working through the issues

  • Establishing an emergency operations center

  • Building business continuity and recovery

  • Recovering and moving on

  • Plenty of case studies and practice opportunities

COURSE OVERVIEW

As with many significant undertakings, undergoing a CRM review (even simply considering its implementation) requires learners to analyze technical and complicated systems. This one day course sorts through a myriad of information and brings you the basics you need to make a decision about the need for CRM, its benefits, and how to coordinate the base requirements for a CRM undertaking.


What Will Students Learn?

  • The terms and benefits of CRM on a company’s bottom line

  • Analyze the different components of a CRM plan

  • Develop a checklist for readiness and success in CRM

  • Describe how CRM creates value for organizations and customers

  • Consider developmental roles that have the greatest impact on CRM


What Topics are Covered?

  • What CRM is and who it serves

  • Checklist for success

  • Requirement driven product selection

  • Considerations in tool selection

  • Strategies for customer retention

  • Building the future

  • Homegrown vs. application service provider

  • The development team

  • Evaluating and reviewing your program

COURSE OVERVIEW

The need to lead, model, and promote the organizational values within a customer service environment is essential for business success. This one-day workshop will provide you with opportunities to explore your responsibilities within your role as a leader (supervisor or manager) in a customer service environment.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify ways to establish links between excellence in customer service and your business practices and policies.

  • Develop the skills and practices that are essential elements of a customer service-focused manager.

  • Recognize what employees are looking for to be truly engaged.

  • Recognize who the customers are and what they are looking for.

  • Develop strategies for creating engaged employees and satisfied customers in whatever business units you manage.


What Topics are Covered?

  • The six critical elements of customer service

  • Understanding leadership

  • Managing performance

  • Onboarding and orientation

  • Five practices of leadership

COURSE OVERVIEW

While many companies promise to deliver an incredible customer experience, some are better at delivering than others. This two-day course is designed around six critical elements of customer service that, when the company lives them, bring customers back to experience service that outdoes the competition.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Demonstrate a customer service approach

  • Understand how your own behavior affects the behavior of others

  • Demonstrate confidence and skill as a problem solver

  • Apply techniques to deal with difficult customers

  • Make a choice to provide customer service


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is customer service? Who are your customers?

  • Meeting expectations

  • Setting goals

  • Communication skills and telephone techniques

  • Dealing with difficult customers and people

  • Dealing with challenges assertively

  • Dealing with stress

  • The first critical element: A customer service focus

  • The second critical element: Defined in your organization

  • The third critical element: Given life by employees

  • The fourth critical element: Be a problem solver

  • The fifth critical element: Measure it

  • The sixth critical element: Reinforce it

Cyberattacks are increasing at an alarming rate. Radware reported that there were 2.3 billion data breaches in 2018 – almost three times more than the year before – which cost companies about $600 billion. Most companies have installed firewalls and other cyber defenses to stop cyberattacks, but they are not foolproof. In fact, one of the key risk factors in cyberattacks is human error. A recent Intel Security survey found that 97 per cent of people could not identify all the phishing emails in a sample of 10 emails.

The need for training of non-IT staff is critically important. This four-week course will ensure that staff gain an appreciation of company-wide measures to protect against cyberattacks and their own role in the success of these defense measures. Most importantly, it will help staff recognize phishing attacks, and when a cyberattack has been successful, understand what steps to take to mitigate the effect. The importance of practicing safe social media behavior to prevent cyber criminals from mining sensitive personal and company data will also be discussed. In the capstone activity each participant will create a personal cybersecurity plan.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Effective delegation is one of the most valuable skills you can master. It reduces your workload and develops employee skills. Delegating prepares employees who work for you to be able to handle your responsibilities and simultaneously allows you to advance to other career opportunities within your organization.

Delegation is often one of the hardest skills for a manager to master. However, the skill can be learned. This one-day workshop will explore many of the facets of delegation, including when to delegate and to whom to delegate. We will also go through the delegation process step by step and learn about techniques to overcome problems.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How delegation fits into their job and how it can make them more successful

  • Different ways of delegating tasks

  • How to use an eight-step process for effective delegation

  • How to give better instructions for better delegation results

  • Common delegation pitfalls and how to avoid them

  • Ways to monitor delegation results

  • Techniques for giving effective feedback


What Topics are Covered?

  • Why delegate? What is delegation?

  • Pre-assignment review

  • Picking the right person

  • The delegation meeting

  • Giving instructions

  • Monitoring delegation

  • Practicing delegation

  • Giving feedback

  • Becoming a good delegator

Most of us have experienced the reality of virtual meetings and presentations during our forced stays at home during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it is virtual team meetings, client engagements, or even conferences, the situation we find ourselves in is likely to continue well into the future and become an increasing component even in the ‘new normal’ in at least a hybrid form. If you are not familiar with Zoom, MS Teams, GoToMeeting, and Google Meet or are not sure if you can do well as an on-line presenter, you could be facing a challenge. This four-week workshop will give participants valuable insights into how to present in a virtual environment using the most popular delivery platforms.


Design Thinking is a collaborative problem-solving process based on design used in artistic endeavors. Whether you are involved with marketing, product development, customer service, or leadership — you can benefit from Design Thinking. This four-week course focuses on:

·         Empathy to understand a design for your users

·         Ideation to develop solutions for your users’ wants and needs

·         Prototyping and testing to refine solutions


Today’s world is full of the unexpected. System failures, terrorism events, disease outbreaks, and superstorms disrupt businesses every day, sometimes to an unrecoverable point. Despite these challenges, some services (such as power plants, hospitals, and airports) have no choice but to continue operating.

 This four-week course will explore how these organizations maintain high reliability even in times of serious crisis and stability. We will share their secrets in a way that can be applied to all organizations in order to create high reliability and continued success.


If you look at any successful organization they have the support of employee development as a core part of their culture. For these organizations it goes beyond professional or even personal development to offering learning opportunities that create increased energy, creativity and fun. Lunch and Learns are a venue to foster sharing and peer learning and are typically aimed at fostering cross-organization collaboration and communication. They are a tool for sharing of information, approaches and talent. Further, they offer opportunities for networking in a safe, friendly and relaxed atmosphere.

 This four-week course will give you tools to be able to create a Lunch and Learn Program that creates opportunities for learning that might not otherwise happen. You will also prepare a short Lunch and Learn session and receive feedback from other course participants.


Safety procedures are the backbone of an organization’s Safety Management System. They provide consistency and when followed create a safe working environment and greater productivity due to less injury down time. However, safety procedure writing is more difficult and time consuming than it at first appears. This four-week course will give you the foundation to start writing effective safety procedures.


The right training at the right time can make a huge difference in the productivity and profitability of your organization. Whether you are scanning your workplace for opportunities to make things better and training is the answer, or a client asks you to come into their organization and do an assessment, your answer is best framed in the form of a training needs analysis. Your ability to create an analysis that is comprehensive yet simply prepared is critical for it to be understood and acted upon. This four-week workshop will help you to gather the information, assess the data, and present your suggestions for training or non-training solutions.


Some people immediately command attention and respect when they walk into a room. Do you have that kind of presence? If not, is it something that you would like to develop?  This four-week workshop will help you do just that by building your credibility, improving your personal appearance, honing your networking skills, and enhancing your ability to communicate effectively. You will also receive an introduction to core leadership skills.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Training is an essential element of development in any organization. Being knowledgeable and continuing to learn throughout your career can make you a very valuable asset. We also know that training and orientation (or ‘onboarding’) for newly hired employees is a key factor in retention. This two-day workshop is designed for a trainer who wants to develop training programs that are meaningful, practical, and will benefit both trainees and the organizations they work for.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe the essential elements of a training program

  • Apply different methodologies to program design

  • Demonstrate skills in preparation, research, and delivery of strong content

  • Explain an instructional model

  • Be prepared to create a training program proposal


What Topics are Covered?

  • Program design

  • Identifying needs

  • Training and instructional systems design models

  • The program’s basic outline

  • Evaluation strategies

  • Researching and developing content

  • Pre-assignments in training

  • Choosing openings and energizers

  • Training instruments, assessments, and tools

  • Creating supporting materials

  • Testing the program

  • Creating proposals

  • Building rapport


Digital transformation looks different for every business, but at its core, it means altering how a company operates with the addition of technology and with the goal of improving the customer experience and the workplace. This four-week course will teach you about digital transformation, and what companies in different industries are doing, as well as best practices so you can do it yourself.


COURSE OVERVIEW

People with disabilities represent a significant and largely underutilized resource for businesses. Many disabled persons are underemployed or unemployed. As a result of advocates for diversity, as well as a shrinking labor pool, employers are taking a serious look at hiring and retaining people with disabilities. This two-day workshop will give supervisors, managers, and human resource consultants tools and tips for creating a diverse workplace.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Prepare to welcome people with disabilities into your workplace

  • Interact with people with disabilities

  • Identify and overcome barriers in the workplace

  • Use respectful, appropriate, acceptable language in any circumstance

  • Understand what your company can do during hiring and interviewing

  • Understand what job accommodation is and how it applies in your workplace


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining terms

  • Misconceptions and realities

  • Dissecting labels

  • Accessibility

  • The cornerstones of diversity

  • Encouraging diversity by hiring

  • Using the STOP technique

  • Communication essentials

  • Communication styles and critical conversations

  • How do we make it happen?

COURSE OVERVIEW

More than ever, a workplace is a diverse collection of individuals proud of who they are: their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, their ethnic background, and all the other components that make an individual unique. One of the challenges for workplace leaders is how to help these diverse individuals work as a team. We all know what happens to organizations that don’t have effective teamwork: they fail. And, failing to embrace diversity can also have serious legal costs for corporations. This one-day workshop will give you ways to celebrate diversity in the workplace while bringing individuals together.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe what diversity and its related terms mean

  • Explain how changes in the world have affected you and your view

  • Identify your stereotypes

  • Use terms that are politically correct and avoid those which are not

  • Apply the four cornerstones of diversity

  • Avoid the pitfalls related to diversity

  • Use a technique for dealing with inappropriate behavior

  • Develop a management style to encourage diversity

  • Take action if you or one of your employees feels discriminated


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining diversity

  • How does diversity affect me?

  • Identifying stereotypes

  • Wise words

  • The cornerstones of diversity

  • How to discourage diversity

  • The stop technique

  • Managing for diversity

  • Dealing with discrimination

COURSE OVERVIEW

A great sales presentation does not demand that you have all the bells and whistles to impress the client with your technical skills. Rather, try impressing your clients with your knowledge of the products and services you sell and your understanding of their problems and the solutions they need. This one-day workshop will show you how to create a winning proposal and how to turn it into a dynamite sales presentation.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify the key elements of a quality proposal

  • Perfect your first impression, including your dress and your handshake

  • Feel more comfortable and professional in face-to-face presentations

  • Write a winning proposal


What Topics are Covered?

  • Getting down to business

  • Writing your proposal

  • Getting thoughts on paper

  • Proposal formats

  • Expert editing tips

  • The handshake

  • Getting ready for your presentation

  • Elements of a successful presentation

  • Dressing appropriately

  • Presentations

As the global Internet population continues to grow, electronic commerce is growing as well. By the end of 2015, e-commerce is expected to generate over $400 billion annually. This huge market encompasses traditional e-commerce, as well as m-commerce (which is growing faster than any other sector) and location-based e-commerce.

 This four-week program will teach entrepreneurs how to develop, market, and manage an e-commerce business, giving them a crucial advantage in today’s competitive market.


COURSE OVERVIEW

As project managers and leads, we all know how difficult it can be to accurately determine the duration of a project, yet that is exactly what is expected of us on a regular basis. This workshop will not disclose the secret of creating an accurate schedule, because there isn’t one. However, it will provide the factors and fundamental elements that you should consider and address when creating any type of schedule.

 Participants should complete the Intermediate Project Management workshop prior to this course, or have equivalent knowledge.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define and create a Work Breakdown Structure

  • Identify and understand task relationships

  • Estimate task durations and determine project duration

  • Construct a network diagram

  • Calculate the critical path of a project

  • Use the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) to create estimates

  • Plan for risks

  • Create a communication plan

  • Effectively allocate project resources

  • Update and monitor the project schedule


What Topics are Covered?

  • Projects and schedules

  • The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

  • Estimating activity durations

  • Identifying task dependencies

  • Aligning resources with activities

  • Project Planning with network diagrams, the Critical Path Method, PERT, and Gantt charts

  • Scheduling software

  • Uncertainty and risk management

  • Communication strategies

  • Creating a viable schedule

  • Updating and monitoring the schedule


COURSE OVERVIEW

Emotional intelligence, also called EQ, is the ability to be aware of and to manage emotions and relationships. It’s a pivotal factor in personal and professional success. IQ will get you in the door, but it is your EQ, your ability to connect with others, and manage the emotions of yourself and others, that will determine how successful you are in life.

We have all worked with and listened to brilliant people. Some of them were great and… well, some were not so great. The mean and the meek and all those in between can teach us more than they realize. When we look at the truly extraordinary people who inspire and make a difference you will see that they do this by connecting with people at a personal and emotional level. What differentiated them was not their IQ but their EQ – their emotional intelligence. This one-day workshop will help you develop your emotional intelligence.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand what emotional intelligence means

  • Recognize how our emotional health and physical health are related

  • Learn techniques to understand, use, and appreciate the role of emotional intelligence in the workplace

  • Understand the different emotions and how to manage them

  • Create a personal vision statement

  • Understand the difference between optimism and pessimism

  • Validate emotions in others


What Topics are Covered?

  • History of emotional intelligence

  • Emotional intelligence defined

  • EI blueprint

  • Optimism

  • Validating emotions in others

  • Understanding emotions

  • Setting your personal vision


COURSE OVERVIEW

Organizations who promote accountability are more successful and more productive. In this one-day workshop, you will learn about what accountability is, how to promote it in your organization, and how to become more accountable to yourself and others.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand what accountability is and what events in history have shaped our view of it

  • Identify the requirements for personal and corporate accountability

  • Apply the cycle of accountability and the fundamental elements required to build an accountable organization

  • Describe what individuals must do to become accountable

  • Build skills required for accountability, including goal setting, giving and receiving feedback, and delegation

  • Pinpoint ways to build ownership in your organization

  • Isolate areas for further self-improvement


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining accountability

  • Creating an accountable organization

  • Setting goals and expectations

  • Doing delegation right

  • Offering feedback

  • A toolbox for managers


COURSE OVERVIEW

Have you ever been in a workplace situation where a supervisor has made a decision that you didn’t agree with? Did you wish that you could ask someone else what they thought of the decision; whether they would have done the same thing? The peer review process offers employees just that chance, using a formalized procedure to ask, consider, and resolve just these sorts of questions. This one-day workshop will teach you everything you need to know about employee dispute resolution through mediation.


What Will Students Learn?

  • What the peer review process is

  • A process for employees to file grievances and for management to respond

  • How to choose a facilitator and panel

  • What is involved in the hearing process, from preliminary meetings to the hearing, and the decision process

  • What responsibilities and powers a panel should have

  • How to apply professional questioning and probing techniques

  • Why peer review panels fail and how to avoid those pitfalls


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is peer review?

  • Initiating the process

  • The peer review panel

  • Asking questions

  • The peer-review process

  • Panel walkthrough

  • Why does the process fail?


Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Some people like more recognition than others, but it’s all important on some level. It can be doubly important in the workplace, as it keeps employees happy and therefore results in a strong business that serves customers well and keeps the bottom line strong. Employee recognition can be a simple, but effective, tool.

This four-week course looks at the value of recognizing employees and how to carry it out in the workplace, both formally and informally.


The ideas behind encouraging sustainability and social responsibility in business seem noble, as organizations commit to creating optimal circumstances for people to live and work. The reality is that every company, whether it is a micro-business or a large multinational corporation, can take steps to create sustainable, socially responsible environments that contribute to positive workplaces, communities, and futures.


“A different language is a different vision of life,” said the Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. Employees who use English as a second language demonstrate great commitment and skill in learning a language other than their native tongue. There are subtle differences between languages because of social influences and workplace demands that can create or strengthen the language barrier for employees who have learned a language other than English in their formative years. That barrier is an obstacle for both employer and employee, severing what could be productive relationships with co-workers and clients.

This four-week course will identify any gaps in communication as the result of cultural language differences and provide exercises to help connect those gaps. This course is written for employees with intermediate competency in English as their second language. Exercises will explore the four main categories of communication: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Wouldn’t it be nice to be your own boss, work on your own schedule, and make money doing something that you’re passionate about? Millions of people around the world are living that dream and running their own business. This three-day course will teach you the basics of entrepreneurship. You’ll consider if entrepreneurship is right for you and learn the basic steps of creating your own business. At the end of the course, you’ll have a solid foundation to start your entrepreneurial journey.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Assess your own entrepreneurial capabilities

  • Outline and evaluate a business and product idea

  • Identify your target market and customers

  • Develop your value proposition

  • Understand different types of business ownership and structures

  • Evaluate franchising and business purchasing opportunities

  • Create key business planning documents

  • Create financial projections for your business and gather funding

  • Create a product development plan, marketing plan, & sales strategy

  • Identify ways to protect your intellectual property

  • Describe effective ways to brand your product

  • Launch and grow your business

  • Demonstrate the behaviors of an entrepreneurial leader

  • Find appropriate resources to help you on your journey


What Topics are Covered?

  • What it takes to make it

  • Resources to consider

  • Laying the groundwork

  • Building on your business idea

  • Business ownership options

  • Key documents to prepare

  • Gathering funding and developing your product

  • Creating a sales and marketing strategy

  • Branding 101

  • Setting up your office

  • Launching the business

  • Keeping the business moving

  • Being an entrepreneurial leader

  • Bringing it all together


Environmental Management Systems (EMS) involve a set of processes and practices that enable an organization to reduce its environmental impacts and increase its operating efficiency. A well-designed EMS can help an organization address its regulatory demands in a systematic manner thereby reducing the risk of noncompliance. An EMS can also help address non-regulated issues such as pollution prevention, odor management, water usage and energy conservation.

 In this four-week course participants will learn about EMS and how it can benefit their organization. Through the use of a Case Study and information they bring about their own company participants will leave with a draft EMS for their organization. It will include organizational Environmental Aspect and Impacts, and Objectives and Targets for their organization’s significant environmental impacts.


COURSE OVERVIEW

How can you facilitate, rather than control, group decision-making and team interaction? With no formal training, people may find it difficult to make the transition from instructors or managers to facilitators. This two-day workshop has been created to make core facilitation skills better understood and readily available for your organization. It represents materials and ideas that have been tested and refined over twenty years of active facilitation in all types of settings.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to distinguish facilitation from instruction and training

  • How to identify the competencies linked to effective small group facilitation

  • The difference between content and process

  • The stages of team development and ways to help teams through each stage

  • Common process tools to make meetings easier and more productive


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining your role and how facilitators work

  • Establishing ground rules

  • Content and process

  • Types of thinking

  • Dealing with controversial issues and divergent perspectives

  • Communication skills

  • Listening for common ground

  • Common facilitation techniques

  • Giving effective feedback

  • The language of facilitation

  • Dealing with difficult dynamics

  • Building sustainable agreements

  • Stages of team development

  • Analysis tools


Innovation in its purest form means to create something new, but it can also mean better solutions, new methods of doing something, finding more efficient and effective ways of completing a task, or creating new processes or workflows.

Innovation is what drives companies; by coming up with new and fresh ideas, companies are able to remain relevant and drive success.

Innovation is what propels businesses into the future, and allows them to forge a new path of relevance, profit, and success.


Bad bosses. Almost everyone has had at least one in their working career. You do not want to be the bad boss in your work environment, the one who causes good employees to cringe when you enter the room. Or worse yet, you do not want to be the one who causes good people to leave the company. You want to be the type of manager that employees are willing to go the extra mile for. You want to nurture and inspire your team, giving them the confidence to do their jobs well. You want to provide guidance and motivation, while showing integrity and modelling the behaviors you want to see in your team. You want to be more than a boss, you want to be a leader. This four-week course will arm you with the tips and general information you need to enhance your skills and transform from a boss to a great leader. 


The Data Privacy Plan is the best way an organization can document and enforce the privacy of personal information they hold. It puts in place procedures and guidance for how to properly handle data, respond to information requests, and deal with unexpected incidents or breaches. It contains information that applies to the day-to-day work of employees, as well as higher-level policies and guiding principles that apply to the company as a whole. The Data Privacy Plan is one of the best ways for an organization to become privacy compliant.


An important aspect of privacy compliance is communication both internally and externally. Employees need to know that privacy-related policies and procedures exist in your organization, and they need to be instructed on their use. Customers also need to be informed about a company’s privacy practices, and be given the chance to ask questions. Good communication is essential for maintaining company transparency and is an important aspect of compliancy with data privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation. While having written policies and procedures is the best starting place, getting the message out about privacy is a critical subsequent step in the process.


COURSE OVERVIEW

There are currently five generations in the workforce, and employers faced with mass retirements of Baby Boomers are looking for ways to prepare for the changes that will result. This course examines the history and reality of the generation gap.

This course explores whether defining the actual limits of each generation is most important, or whether the merits of people within the context of employment is the bigger issue. Understanding others helps us to understand ourselves and to manage the people that we work with. We will explore problems, solutions, and strategies to help overcome issues of the generation gap.


What Topics are Covered?

  • History in brief

  • Finding common ground

  • Silents, Boomers, Xers, Y’s, and Millennials

  • Recruiting that bridges the gap

  • Creative solutions

  • The value of planning

  • Developing targeted retention strategies


What Topics are Covered?

  • History in brief

  • Finding common ground

  • Silents, Boomers, Xers, Y’s, and Millennials

  • Recruiting that bridges the gap

  • Creative solutions

  • The value of planning

  • Developing targeted retention strategies

COURSE OVERVIEW

Why are there so many different organizational systems and time management methods out there? The answer is simple: it’s like any other personal challenge, like weight loss or money management. There is no simple, one size fits all answer. You must build a solution that works for you. Over the course of this two-day workshop, we will explore various time management and organizational tools and techniques so that you can build a customized productivity plan for your personal and professional lives. At the end of the course, you will emerge with a plan that works for you, so that you can start regaining control of your life!


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify what personal efficiency is, what skill sets can improve personal productivity, and what attitudes we should cultivate

  • Explain why multi-tasking is a myth

  • Describe what role long-term goals play in short-term efficiency

  • Share a personal vision and develop dreams and goals from it

  • Apply the 80/20 rule and learn how it should affect planning

  • Identify the characteristics of a good organizational system

  • Develop a plan for an efficient workspace, including a customized information center and a filing system

  • Apply a system that will allow them to process any type of information that crosses their desk

  • Use the Eisenhower principle to prioritize work and routines to simplify lives

  • Understand why they procrastinate and develop methods for tackling tasks

  • Apply tools to make their households more productive and efficient


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding personal efficiency

  • Developing the right attitude

  • Laying the foundation

  • Building blocks of an organizational system

  • Creating the right environment

  • Setting up your virtual environment and information management center

  • Managing information in six easy steps

  • Prioritizing your tasks

  • Saying no

  • Creating routines

  • Stopping procrastination now (not later!)

  • Applying our lessons at home

COURSE OVERVIEW

While looking for work can be an exciting time, it can also involve fear and discomfort about change and the unknown. Whether you are already in the midst of a job search or just thinking about it, this workshop will help you to determine what your skill set is made up of, the kind of work that is important and realistic to include in your search, and how to get started.

Today’s job market is not the same as it was even five years ago. Knowing where to go, who to talk to, and the opportunities that are available will help to shift you from someone who dreams about having a job, to someone who has the job they always wanted.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe their skills, values, and beliefs about work and looking for opportunities.

  • Demonstrate an understanding for the types of work available and where to go for more information.

  • Recognize the differences and benefits available through career coaches, counselors, and mentors.

  • Apply different approaches to job searching, such as networking and tapping into the hidden job market.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Change and transitions

  • The important stuff

  • Skill and ability

  • Vocation and strategy

  • Resources

  • The job market

  • Invite your network

  • Ready, set, goal!

  • Thinking unconventionally to get what you want

  • Getting things moving


COURSE OVERVIEW

This one day course is designed to help workplace leaders learn how to provide feedback any time that the message is due. Whether feedback is formal or informal, and whether it is provided to employees, peers, or someone else, there are ways that it can be structured to be effective and lasting.

This course will help participants learn why the way we deliver is feedback is important, how to deliver a message so that people accept it and make changes that may be needed, and how to accept feedback that we are offered.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Explain why feedback is essential

  • Apply a framework for providing formal or informal feedback

  • Use descriptive language in delivering feedback

  • Describe six characteristics of effective feedback

  • Provide feedback in real situations


What Topics are Covered?

  • Feedback definitions

  • Speaking clearly

  • Communication strategies

  • Characteristics of effective feedback

  • Receiving feedback graciously

  • Testing the waters (role play practice)

Opportunities to take a regional business into the global market make it possible to strategically, smartly, and profitably accomplish more than you can by staying local. To prepare, you need to set your business up for success by being open to learning, to applying new ideas, and to continually reviewing how you can create success in the global market.

 Topics such as trade financing, regulatory considerations, international business planning, sustainability, and much more are included in this four-week course. The materials here are well suited for small and medium sized business leaders as they prepare to take their company into the global marketplace.

 We strongly recommend that participants complete our “Entrepreneurship 101” and “Basic Business Management” programs before taking this course.


COURSE OVERVIEW

We all have things we want in life. The route to success is to take the things that we dream about and wish for, and turn them into reality. This one-day workshop will lead participants through thinking, planning, and taking action on the things they really want. They will learn ways to ensure that they get where they want to go in life.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify what’s important to you in your life

  • Use goal setting activities and appropriate language to articulate what you want in your life

  • Explain what your dreams and goals are for both the short and long term

  • Use motivating techniques to help you reach your goals

  • Understand how to deal with setbacks


What Topics are Covered?

  • Self-understanding 

  • Laying the foundation

  • What’s in your bucket?

  • Getting down to business

  • Getting started today

  • Dealing with setbacks

The new economy calls for a new way of attracting customers and sales.

Growth hacking is to the new economy what marketing was to the last millennium.
The goal is to share a message and make a sale. The difference is in how those customer connections are discovered, created, and nurtured.

This four-week course will highlight the essentials of growth hacking — from learning the new growth hacking mindset and discovering the need your product or service can fill, through planning, delivery and optimization — that will position your company to grow and thrive today and in the future.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Interviewing sounds easy enough: you arrange for a conversation between you and potential candidates, and then select the best person for a particular position. But what if you could refine the process in such a way that you were confident that you are selecting the right person? How do you separate the good from the great, when they have similar work experience and strengths to offer? This two-day workshop will give you the skills and tools to hire successful candidates.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to recognize the costs incurred by an organization when a wrong hiring decision is made

  • Ways to develop a fair and consistent interviewing process for selecting employees

  • How to prepare better job advertisements and use a variety of markets

  • How to develop a job analysis and position profile

  • How to use traditional, behavioral, achievement oriented, holistic, and situational (critical incident) interview questions

  • Communication skills that are essential for a skilled recruiter

  • How to effectively interview difficult applicants

  • Ways to check references more effectively

  • Basic employment and human rights laws that can affect the hiring process


What Topics are Covered?

  • History of the interviewing process

  • The recruitment and selection process

  • Cost analysis

  • Job analysis and position profiles

  • Finding candidates and advertising guidelines

  • Screening resumes and performance assessments

  • Problems recruiters face and interviewing barriers

  • Non-verbal communication and types of questions

  • Traditional vs. behavioral interviews

  • The critical incident technique

  • Difficult applicants

  • Interview preparation and format

  • Scoring responses and checking references

  • Human rights

This four-week course will prepare students to develop a message and remain on topic when they are presenting that message to the media and public without straying from the point, or points, they want to make. The final session will give students the opportunity to craft and hone a message of their own.


COURSE OVERVIEW

In today’s fast-moving world, many managers and supervisors are expected to deal with some human resource issues. They may be asked to take part in developing job descriptions, take part in interviews, or take responsibility for discipline. This four-week workshop will introduce those managers to human resource concepts. We will walk you through the hiring process, from performing a skills inventory to conducting the interview; discuss orientation; and cover some issues that arise after the hiring (such as diversity issues, compensation, and discipline).


What Will Students Learn?

  • Discuss current issues in the human resource field and the changing role of supervisors and managers in terms of HR functions.

  • Write job specifications and identify core competencies.

  • Apply methods of finding, selecting, and keeping the best people using behavioral description interviewing techniques.

  • Get new employees off to a good start.

  • Understand compensation and benefits.

  • Maintain healthy employee relations.

  • Make performance appraisals a cooperative process.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining human resources

  • Skills inventory and job analysis

  • Position profiles and job descriptions

  • Finding candidates and advertising guidelines

  • Preparing for and conducting the interview

  • Employee orientation and onboarding

  • Planning training and external providers

  • Performance reviews

  • Attendance management and diversity

  • Privacy issues and compensation and benefits

  • Managing disciplinary issues and termination

  • Exit interviews

Building and maintaining trust is essential to attracting and retaining customers. What the public sees and hears about you is crucial to building that trust. That is why the emergence of ‘fake news’ is so unsettling to businesses and individuals dependent on public trust to grow, prosper and ultimately do their jobs. 

What can be done in a society where it seems everyone is a reporter, judge, and critic — and a piece of fiction can be created, branded as truth and shared around the world in the blink of an eye?

This four-week course will highlight the essentials of fake news: spotting it, coping with it, and growing from it — turning a potential crisis into opportunities for promotion and connection.


COURSE OVERVIEW

When we talk about influence and persuasion, we often talk about marketing and sales. However, we influence in many ways and with great frequency. If you want a raise, sometimes you need to persuade your boss. If you want to convince your team to adopt a change, help your staff make choices, or choose the best place for lunch, there is often influencing taking place. This one day workshop will help participants learn how to influence and persuade in a variety of areas.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Make decisions about using persuasion versus manipulation

  • Apply the concepts of pushing and pulling when influencing others

  • Describe different techniques for getting persuasive conversations and presentations underway

  • Make a persuasive presentation by using the 5 S’s

  • Apply storytelling techniques to extend influence

  • Leverage concepts of neuro linguistic programming in everyday influence and persuasion


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding persuasion

  • Preparing to persuade

  • Getting off on the right foot

  • Presentation strategies

  • Using stories to persuade

  • Using neuro linguistic programming (NLP) techniques

COURSE OVERVIEW

Project management is not just restricted to certain industries, or to individuals with certification as a project manager. Lots of us are expected to complete assignments that are not a usual part of our job, and to get the job done well, within our budget, and on time.

This workshop is intended for participants who understand the conceptual phase of a project’s life cycle, including setting goals, creating a vision statement, and creating the Statement of Work. This course will take participants through the remaining three stages: planning, execution, and termination.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify your project’s tasks and resources

  • Order tasks using the Work Breakdown Structure

  • Schedule tasks effectively

  • Use basic planning tools such as a Gantt chart, PERT diagram, and network diagram

  • Prepare a project budget

  • Modify the project budget and schedule to meet targets

  • Identify and manage risks

  • Prepare a final project plan

  • Execute and terminate a project

  • Develop and manage a change control process


What Topics are Covered?

  • What really needs to be done?

  • The Work Breakdown Structure

  • Scheduling techniques (including Gantt charts, network diagrams, flow charts, and PERT diagrams)

  • Budgeting tips and tricks

  • Assessing project risks

  • Preparing the final plan

  • Making it fit

  • The execution phase

  • Controlling changes

  • Closing out a project

Intrapreneurship has been described as a great way to make beneficial changes to your organization. People can choose to continue with the status quo, or they can work to make a difference in the lives of themselves and others within the company.

 Who wants to feel empowered and recognized for their innovative and creative ideas? Who wants to make a difference? If you answered yes to these questions, then this course will help you become energized and ready to push your ideas forward. After you complete this workshop, you will have ways to get started and implement your plans.


E-mail marketing is here to stay, and knowing how to do it well is essential for marketers as well as small business owners, coaches, and consultants. In this four-week workshop you’ll learn the essentials of planning, creating, and delivering exceptional e-mail marketing campaigns that support your overall marketing strategy. After this workshop, you will be able to reach more clients and potential clients through your efforts at being an e-mail influencer.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Your brain, thoughts, and behavior are at the core of everything that you do every day, even if you aren’t aware of it. In order to truly achieve the results that you want to achieve, you must master the art of bringing your unconscious thoughts to the surface, so that you can have real choice over how you interact with and respond to the world. Neuro linguistic programming can give you the tools to do just that. In this one-day introductory workshop, you will learn the basics of neuro linguistic programming. We will give you the tools to manage your thoughts, and thereby manage yourself.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define neuro linguistic programming (NLP) and its key terms

  • Describe the key presuppositions of NLP

  • Describe the five key senses as seen by NLP

  • States of mind/modes of thinking using predicates & visual cues

  • Develop and refine response strategies for any situation

  • Use enriched language to engage your audience

  • Interpret body language based on NLP principles

  • Ask clean, precise questions to get the information you need

  • Use hypnotic language and positive commands to get results


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is Neuro Linguistic Programming?

  • The NLP Presuppositions

  • The Senses According to NLP

  • Using Enriched Language

  • Interpreting Body Language

  • Asking Clean Questions

  • The Power of Hypnotic Language

  • Putting it All Together


COURSE OVERVIEW

No business can survive very long without an effective program of controls over the parts and materials that are used in producing or distributing goods and services of the firm. Like many other things that depend on human interpretation, “control” means different things to different individuals. This is an introductory workshop for you, the warehouse or stockroom manager, the person in charge of what comes in and goes out of your company. You want a smooth and cost-effective operation, with enough products on hand to satisfy needs without stockpiling too much.

This course will discuss all aspects of inventory management, including common terms, the inventory cycle, how to maintain inventory accuracy, and what some of the latest trends are.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand terms that are frequently used in warehouse management

  • Identify the goals and objectives of inventory management and measure your process against these goals

  • Calculate safety stock, reorder points, and order quantities

  • Evaluate inventory management systems

  • Identify the parts of the inventory cycle

  • Better maintain inventory accuracy


What Topics are Covered?

  • What inventory is and types of inventory

  • Setting up the warehouse

  • What makes a good inventory management system?

  • The warehouse inventory cycle

  • Identifying demand

  • The receiving process and validating inventory

  • The put-away process and maintaining accuracy

  • The outbound process and industry trends

This Job Analysis and Job Description Writing course is delivered online over a six-week period. This will enable delegates to develop their abilities to identify job functions and conduct effective job analysis and descriptions. Each module will provide knowledge on techniques combined with practice and feedback pertaining to the core objectives of the online workshop.

The Job Analysis and Job Description Techniques training program outline is up to date and pertinent to marketplace requirements, thus catering well to all analytical prediction of training needs in the specified area.


Today’s fast-paced marketplace demands that businesses think fast. Crowdsourcing can help all types of businesses keep on top of trends and stay competitive. This four-week course will show you how to leverage all types of crowdsourcing (including microwork, macrowork, crowdvoting, crowdcontests, crowdwisdom, and crowdfunding) to kickstart your business’ growth.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Understanding how to manage the knowledge within your organization is the key to business success. Mismanagement of organizational knowledge comes with a price: frustrated employees, angry customers, and decreased productivity. All of these things can affect a business’ bottom line. The purpose behind knowledge management is to help us bridge organizational gaps and to use our greatest asset (our knowledge) to take our business performance to the next level. The theory of knowledge management has emerged to help us harness and enhance both the individual and collective brain power of our businesses. This two-day workshop will introduce you to knowledge management tips, techniques, and proven processes.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define knowledge and knowledge management.

  • Explain the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge.

  • Identify various knowledge management theoretical models.

  • Explain how a properly implemented knowledge management program can improve efficiency.

  • Describe the steps for employing a new knowledge management program in an organization.

  • Identify the required components for implementing a knowledge management framework within an organization.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Definitions of knowledge management, tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, and KMBOK

  • The business case for knowledge management

  • The knowledge management mix

  • The knowledge management framework

  • Knowledge management models

  • The knowledge management toolkit

  • Implementing knowledge management initiatives

  • Designing a chief knowledge officer position

  • Case studies and success stories

COURSE OVERVIEW

Supervisors represent an important force in the economy. You have the power to turn on or turn off the productivity of the people who report to you. You are the crucial interface between the employee on the shop floor or the service desk and the managers of the organization. Although you usually have more technical experience than the employees you supervise, you may not have had a lot of leadership experience. This one-day course will give you the skills in communication, coaching, and conflict that you need to be successful.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Ways to prioritize, plan, and manage their time.

  • How to identify their primary leadership style.

  • How to develop some flexibility to use other leadership styles.

  • Ways to meet the needs of employees and co-workers through communication and coaching.

  • Ways to make conflict a powerful force for creative, well-rounded solutions to problems.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Pre-assignment review

  • What’s your type? How about mine?

  • Understanding leadership

  • Managing your time and your energy

  • The commitment curve

  • Employee development models

  • Dealing with conflict and difficult issues

  • What successful leaders do

COURSE OVERVIEW

Lean principles have come a long way over the past 300 years. From Benjamin Franklin’s early ideas, to Henry Ford’s work in the 1920’s and the Toyoda precepts in the 1930’s, to Jeffery Liker’s publication of The Toyota Way in 2004, Lean processes have evolved from a simple concept to a set of widely used best practices. This two-day course will give participants the foundation to begin implementing Lean process improvement tools in their workplace.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define Lean and its key terms

  • Describe the Toyota Production System and the TPS house

  • Describe the five critical improvement concepts

  • Use the Kano model

  • Identify and reduce various types of waste

  • Create a plan for a more environmentally Lean organization

  • Use the PDSA and R-DMAIC-S models

  • Use Lean thinking frameworks, including 5W-2H, Genchi Genbutsu and Gemba

  • Prepare for and complete a basic 5-S

  • Describe the key elements of Kaizen events, particularly a Kaizen blitz

  • Gather, analyze, and interpret data using flow charts, Ishikawa (fishbone) diagrams, SIPOC diagrams, and value stream maps

  • Go back to their organization with a plan to begin incorporating Lean into their corporate culture


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding Lean

  • The Toyota Production System

  • The Toyota Production System House

  • The five critical improvement concepts

  • Understanding value with the Kano Model

  • Types of waste

  • Creating a Lean enterprise

  • The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle

  • Using the R-DMAIC-S model

  • Lean thinking tools

  • Kaizen events

  • Data gathering and mapping

  • A plan to take home

The supply chain is a crucial part of any business’s success. Optimizing the flow of products and services as they are planned, sourced, made, delivered, and returned can give your business an extra competitive edge.

 This four-week course will introduce you to the basic concepts of supply chain management, including the basic flow, core models, supply chain drivers, key metrics, benchmarking techniques, and ideas for taking your supply chain to the next level.


We have all participated in training courses or workshops. Some of these have been helpful and useful in our everyday lives and others have seemed redundant and a waste of time. How often have we cheered or grumbled at being asked to participate in a training day?

 The good news is that all training can be useful and applicable if the trainer keeps some simple tips in mind when developing and applying training. We all learn differently, but there are some truths about learning that can be applicable to most groups and can be tweaked to fit any training session.


Starting and building a business begins with a great idea.

At this moment, there are millions of ‘great ideas’ seeking attention and success. Some of those ‘great ideas’ may be very much like your own. To make your idea not only stand out, but to take root and grow a sustainable, successful business, you need the right team, tools, and expertise.

This four-week course will highlight the essentials of business acumen, from relationship selling to team building, through to planning and marketing, that will position your company to grow and thrive today and in the future.


Our culture defines many aspects of how we think, feel, and act. It can be challenging for managers to bridge cultural differences and bring employees together into a functioning team. This four-week course will give supervisors and managers easy-to-use techniques for communicating across cultures, building teams, promoting multiculturalism in the organization, and leveraging the global talent pool.


The need to lead, model, and promote the organizational values within a customer service environment is essential for business success. This four-week workshop will provide you with opportunities to explore your responsibilities within your role as a leader (supervisor or manager) in a customer service environment.


COURSE OVERVIEW

We have so many interactions in the run of a day, it’s reasonable to expect that some of them are going to be difficult. Whether these are conversations that you have in person, or you manage a virtual team and need to speak with someone in another city, there are things that you can do to make these conversations go smoothly. This one-day workshop will give you the tools to manage difficult conversations and get the best results possible out of them.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to define their frame of reference

  • How to establish a positive intent and a desired outcome

  • Good communication skills

  • How to draft a script for a difficult conversation

  • Use specific steps to carry out a difficult conversation

  • How to access additional resources as required

  • How to maintain safety in a conversation


What Topics are Covered?

  • Choosing to have the conversation 

  • Toolkit for successful conversations

  • Choosing the time and place

  • Framework for difficult conversations

  • Conversation template

  • Staying safe

  • Role play practice

COURSE OVERVIEW

When things are extremely busy at work and you have your hands full with many tasks and dealing with difficult people, having skills you can draw on are essential for peace of mind and growth. This one-day course will help participants understand the causes and costs of workplace pressure, the benefits of creating balance, and how to identify pressure points. They will also learn how to apply emotional intelligence, increase optimism and resilience, and develop strategies for getting ahead. 


What Will Students Learn?

  • Apply a direct understanding of pressure points and their costs and payoffs

  • Speak in terms related to emotional intelligence, optimism, and resilience

  • Create a personalized toolkit for managing stressors and anger

  • Work on priorities and achieve defined goals


What Topics are Covered?

  • Under pressure!

  • Getting to the heart of the matter (including identifying pressure points and creating an action plan)

  • Emotional intelligence

  • Coping toolkit (including anger and stress management)

  • Getting organized

Virtual workers and virtual teams are an essential part of today’s workforce. More than ever, people are using technology to work anywhere, anytime.

There are benefits to today’s virtual workplace, but there can be challenges, too. This four-week course will teach managers and supervisors how to prepare employees for the virtual workplace, create telework programs, build virtual teams, leverage technology, and overcome cultural barriers.


COURSE OVERVIEW

A small marketing budget doesn’t mean you can’t meet your goals and business objectives. You just have to be more creative in your marketing tactics. This one-day workshop will show you how to get maximum exposure at minimum cost. You will learn effective, low-cost, and non-cost strategies to improve sales, develop your company’s image, and build your bottom line.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize what we mean by the term “marketing.”

  • Discover how to use low-cost publicity to get their name known.

  • Know how to develop a marketing plan and a marketing campaign.

  • Use their time rather than their money to market their company effectively.

  • Understand how to perform a SWOT analysis.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining marketing

  • Recognizing trends

  • Doing market research

  • Strategies for success

  • Mission statements

  • Brochures

  • Trade shows

  • Developing a marketing plan

  • Increasing business

  • Saying no to new business

  • Advertising myths

  • Networking tips

COURSE OVERVIEW

Marketing is about getting your business known and building your position within the marketplace. Small businesses don’t always have a big budget for marketing, so they have to do things a little differently than big business in order to grow their presence, increase results, and meet business goals. This two-day workshop will help small business owners and managers develop their marketing message, create a marketing plan, and apply the right strategies.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe the essential elements of a marketing plan, no matter the size of the business

  • Apply tools and strategy to create a marketing plan that supports the growth of their small business

  • Use six steps to create, implement, and review a marketing plan

  • Leverage the best of Internet and social media marketing


What Topics are Covered?

  • Marketing for small business

  • Elements of a successful marketing message

  • The marketing cycle in small business

  • Marketing strategies

  • Implementing your plan

  • Internet marketing basics

COURSE OVERVIEW

Social media remains an evolving aspect of our daily lives in addition to being a part of our businesses. This two-day course is designed for people who have some familiarity with social media already. Participants will learn to develop a social media marketing plan as a part of their overall marketing strategy, determine who should be on their team, and choose how they will measure what is taking place. In addition, we will explore some of the major social media sites and look at how specialty sites and social media management tools can take their social media marketing to the next level.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe the value of social media to their marketing plan

  • Create and launch a social media marketing plan

  • Select the right resources for a social media marketing team

  • Define how to use social media to build an internal community

  • Use metrics to measure the impact of a social media plan

  • Manage difficult social media situations

  • Describe features of some of the key social media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

  • Decide whether a blog adds value to a social media plan

  • Speak about specialty sites and social medial management tools

  • Stay on top of social media trends and adjust their plan as the online world evolves


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is social media?

  • Understanding the marketing mix

  • Developing a social media plan

  • Building your social media team

  • Using social media to build internal communities

  • Analyzing your impact with metrics

  • Keeping on top of the trends

  • Damage control

  • Using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

  • Building a blog or vlog (including using YouTube)

  • Using specialty sites (e.g. Pinterest and Yammer)

  • Using social media management tools

  • Launching your plan

COURSE OVERVIEW

The interview is one of the key elements of the job search process. As with any skill, we can get better at it with preparation and practice. In this workshop, participants will explore how to prepare for an interview and become familiar with the types of questions to expect, as well as the questions they should think about asking. They will learn how to prepare for second interviews, testing, and shadowing, as well as how to follow up on their interview sessions.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand the different types of interview questions and how to prepare to answer them.

  • Apply the most effective ways to prepare for an interview, including how to present yourself professionally.

  • Express yourself effectively.

  • Know how to ask for feedback following an interview.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding the interview

  • Types of questions

  • Getting ready

  • Unwinding for the interview

  • Common problems and solutions

  • Phase two

  • Sealing the deal

  • Getting what you’re worth

  • Plenty of mock interview practice

There are lots of good reasons to offer training and even more reasons to participate and take training. But there is also an accountability element, where we ask ourselves:

·         What was the value of that training?

·         Did we meet the objectives that were set out?

·         Did the training bring about some kind of lasting change in behavior?

In this four-week workshop, we will explore the essential elements in evaluating training and measuring results, while creating a process that is simple for trainers and human resource practitioners to implement.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Meetings come in all shapes and sizes, from the convention to a quick huddle in an office hallway. This one-day workshop will be concerned with small working meetings; with groups that have a job to do requiring the energy, commitment, and talents of those who participate.

Members of such a group want to get some kind of result out of their time together: solving problems, brainstorming, or simply sharing information. At its best, such a group knows what it is about, and knows and utilizes the strengths of individual members.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand the value of meetings as a management tool

  • Recognize the critical planning step that makes meeting time more effective

  • Identify process tools that can help create an open and safe forum for discussion

  • Develop and practice techniques for handling counterproductive behaviors


What Topics are Covered?

  • The basics for effective meetings

  • The best and worst of meetings

  • Holding productive meetings

  • Preparing for meetings

  • Setting the place

  • Leading a meeting

  • Process and content

  • How to control a meeting

  • A plan for success


More and more people are becoming familiar with the harmful effects of bullying. Mobbing has been called “bullying on steroids.” In this four-week workshop, you will learn what it looks like, how good people sometimes get caught up in it, and how to ensure your workplace is not a breeding ground for mobbing.


COURSE OVERVIEW

It’s no secret that employees who feel they are valued and recognized for the work they do are more motivated, responsible, and productive. This one-day workshop will help supervisors and managers create a more dynamic, loyal, and energized workplace. It is designed specifically to help busy managers and supervisors understand what employees want, and to give them a starting point for creating champions.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify what motivation is

  • Describe common motivational theories and how to apply them

  • Learn when to use different kinds of motivators

  • Create a motivational climate

  • Design a motivating job


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is motivation?

  • Supervising and motivation

  • Motivational theories

  • Setting goals

  • The role of values

  • Creating a motivational climate

  • Applying your skills

  • Designing motivating jobs

COURSE OVERVIEW

Negotiating is about resolving differences. People who can master the process of negotiation find they can save time and money, develop a higher degree of satisfaction with outcomes at home and at work, and earn greater respect in their communities when they understand how to negotiate well.

Negotiating is a fundamental fact of life. Whether you are working on a project or fulfilling support duties, this workshop will provide you with a basic comfort level to negotiate in any situation. This interactive workshop includes techniques to promote effective communication and gives you techniques for turning face-to-face confrontation into side-by-side problem solving.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand how often we all negotiate and the benefits of good negotiation skills.

  • Recognize the importance of preparing for the negotiation process, regardless of the circumstances.

  • Identify the various negotiation styles and their advantages and disadvantages.

  • Develop strategies for dealing with tough or unfair tactics.

  • Gain skills in developing alternatives and recognizing options.

  • Understand basic negotiation principles, including BATNA, WATNA, WAP, and the ZOPA.


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is negotiation?

  • The successful negotiator

  • Preparing for negotiation

  • Making the right impression

  • Getting off to a good start

  • Exchanging information

  • The bargaining stage

  • Reaching mutual gain and moving beyond “no”

  • Dealing with negative emotions

  • Moving from bargaining to closing

  • Solution types


COURSE OVERVIEW

Business networking is an effective and efficient way for business people to connect, develop meaningful relationships, and grow their businesses. These achievements don’t come through a direct sales approach, however. They come from being interested in helping others, in listening, and in purposefully meeting and introducing people to one another. In this two-day course, you’ll learn the essential ingredients for business networking, including in-person, people-centered connections and online spaces such as LinkedIn.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Introduce yourself in a meaningful, memorable way, even if you’ve never worked on an elevator pitch before

  • Be goal focused about networking so that you make the most of events you attend

  • Apply the concept of give first and be helpful as part of a system of reciprocity

  • Use strategy and systems in order to network effectively

  • Leverage the availability and usefulness of the Internet, including LinkedIn and Twitter


What Topics are Covered?

  • Assessing your networking skills

  • Identifying opportunities and customizing your approach

  • Creating a positive first impression

  • Your memorable intro

  • Starting the conversation

  • The handshake

  • Business cards

  • Handling tough situations

  • Following up

  • Organizing your network

  • Leveraging the internet


COURSE OVERVIEW

Neuro linguistic programming (NLP for short) is all about bringing your unconscious thoughts to the surface, so that you can have real choice over how you interact with and respond to the world. Once you have a grasp on NLP's basic principles, you might be interested in learning about some tools that can help you do more with NLP. This one-day workshop will give you some hands-on experience with important NLP techniques, including anchoring, establishing congruency, developing rapport, creating outcomes, interpreting and presenting information efficiently, and even some self-hypnosis techniques.

To get the most out of this workshop, participants should first complete An Introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Develop a deeper rapport with others

  • Use anchoring to create a desired state of mind

  • Become congruent with your inner self

  • Understand and apply basic self-hypnosis techniques

  • Create goals with momentum using NLP’s outcome framework

  • Present, interpret, and analyze information using the 7±2 rule and the chunking technique


What Topics are Covered?

  • Developing Rapport

  • Getting in Tune with Yourself

  • Self-Hypnosis

  • Creating Comprehensive Outcomes

  • Creating a Desired State with Anchoring

  • Chunking Information


COURSE OVERVIEW

Did you know that most employees decide to leave a job within their first 18 months with an organization? When an employee does leave, it usually costs about three times their salary to replace them. You can greatly increase the likelihood that a new employee will stay with you by implementing a well-designed onboarding program that will guide the employee through their first months with the company. This two-day workshop will explore the benefits of onboarding, show you how to design an onboarding framework, give you ways to customize the program for different audiences (including managers and executives), and demonstrate how to measure results from the program. (Statistics from a 2007 study by the Wynhurst Group)


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define onboarding and describe how it is different from orientation

  • Identify the business benefits of onboarding

  • List the factors that contribute to a successful onboarding program

  • Build a team to create an onboarding program

  • Prepare a vision statement and goals for an onboarding program

  • Design a framework for an onboarding program that includes program setup, various types of training, games, progress tracking, follow-up

  • Customize your onboarding framework

  • Identify which metrics you should track to evaluate program results

  • Create a branded, unique program


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining Onboarding

  • Creating the Onboarding Steering Team

  • Gathering Supporting Information

  • Setting Goals

  • Developing the Program

  • A Personal Onboarding Plan

  • Customizing the Framework

  • Measuring Results

  • Branding the Program

  • Onboarding Executives

  • Understanding Employee Engagement

  • Ten Ways to Make Your Program Unique

  • Fun and Games

  • Case Study Analysis


COURSE OVERVIEW

An effective human resource professional knows that managing employee performance is more than responding to problems, conducting performance reviews, or hiring staff. Performance management begins with an orientation to the organization and the job, and continues on a daily basis as employees are trained and coached.

A thoughtful new employee orientation program, coupled with an employee handbook (or website) that communicates workplace policies, can reduce turnover and those reductions save your organization money. Whether your company has two employees or a thousand employees, don’t leave employee retention to chance. Engage them from the moment they are hired; give them what they need to feel welcome, and let them impress you with what they bring to your company. This two-day workshop is just the start that you need!


What Will Students Learn?

  • How important an orientation program is to an organization

  • The role of the human resource department in the orientation program

  • How the commitment curve affects both new employees and their managers

  • What companies can do to deliver their promise to new employees

  • The critical elements of effective employee training

  • The importance of having an employee handbook for new and long-term employees


What Topics are Covered?

  • Finding, hiring, and keeping good people

  • Building employee commitment and engagement

  • Fast-track orientation

  • Designing a successful orientation program

  • The commitment curve and obtaining buy-in

  • Employee training and adult learning

  • Working with external providers

  • Helping people make connections

  • Creating employee manuals


COURSE OVERVIEW

If you are like most sales professionals, you are always looking for ways to overcome customer objections and close the sale. This one-day course will help you to work through objectives effectively. We will help you plan and prepare for objections so that you can address customer concerns, reduce the number of objections you encounter, and improve your averages at closing sales.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Steps that they can take to build credibility.

  • How to identify the objections that they encounter most frequently.

  • How to develop appropriate responses when prospective buyers throw a curveball.

  • Ways to disarm objections with proven rebuttals that get the sale back on track.

  • How to recognize when a prospect is ready to buy.

  • How working with their sales team can help them succeed.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Building credibility

  • Your competition

  • Critical communication and observation skills

  • Handling customer complaints

  • Overcoming and handling objections

  • Pricing issues

  • How can teamwork help me?

  • Buying signals

  • Closing the sale


COURSE OVERVIEW

Inspiring someone to be their best is no easy task. Just how do you manage for optimum performance? How do you create a motivating environment that encourages people to go beyond their best? This one-day workshop will give you some of those skills.


What Will Students Learn?

  • The role of goal setting in performance management.

  • Tools to help your employees set and achieve goals.

  • A three-phase model that will help you prepare employees for peak performance, activate their inner motivation, and evaluate their skills.

  • Motivational tools and techniques


What Topics are Covered?

  • The shared management model

  • Setting goals

  • Phase I (Preparation)

  • Phase II (Activation)

  • Phase III (Ongoing and Formal Evaluation)


COURSE OVERVIEW

This course is a two-day exploration about the type of impact we want to have in life and work. Participants will consider and define the influence that they can have on their life and work. They will also learn skills for success and how to create those circumstances.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Speak in terms of the impact and influence that you want to have in life and work

  • Understand your personal style in terms of your personal brand

  • Develop skill in areas like focus, concentration, and communication to support your brand

  • Build credibility and trust by living your brand

  • Take ownership of your image, both online and in person


What Topics are Covered?

  • Importance of a personal brand 

  • Your brand approach to others

  • Looking at the outside and the inside

  • Setting goals

  • Networking for success

  • Communication strategies

  • Building your credibility

  • Brand You

  • Living your brand

  • Managing your social media presence

  • Having influence

  • Dealing with challenging people

  • Presentations and meetings


Beginning with the Organizational Safety Policy, the company’s Safety Plan shows that Senior Management takes the commitment to worker health and safety seriously. The safety plan provides a system of policies, procedures and practices to help prevent accidents/incidents, gives workers the knowledge to help them create a safe working environment and outlines a consistent methodology for the company’s approach to Health and Safety. It is one of the more important safety documents that a company can produce.

 This four-week workshop will give you the foundation to develop your Organizational Safety Plan and take the next step in building your safety culture.


COURSE OVERVIEW

We make decisions and solve problems continually. We start making decisions before we even get out of bed (shall I get up now or not?). Sometimes, we will have made as many as 50 decisions by the time we leave for work. Despite all the natural decision making that goes on and the problem solving we do, some people are very uncomfortable with having to make decisions. You may know someone who has a hard time making decisions about what to eat, never mind the internal wrestling they go through in order to take on major decisions at work. Likewise, we’ve probably all looked at a solution to something and said, “I could have thought of that.” The key to finding creative solutions is not just creativity, although that will certainly help. The answer rests in our ability to identify options, research them, and then put things together in a way that works. Having a process to work through can take the anxiety out of problem solving and make decisions easier. That’s what this two-day workshop is all about.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to apply problem solving steps and tools

  • How to analyze information to clearly describe problems

  • How to identify appropriate solutions

  • Ways to think creatively and be a contributing member of a problem solving team

  • How to select the best approach for making decisions

  • How to create a plan for implementing, evaluating, and following up on decisions

  • Ways to avoid common decision-making mistakes


What Topics are Covered?

  • Problem-solving definitions

  • Making decisions

  • Problem-solving model and toolkit

  • Getting into It

  • SWOT Analysis

  • Making good group decisions

  • Analyzing and selecting solutions

  • Planning and organizing

  • Many hands-on case studies and exercises

Charles Kettering, an inventor for General Motors, once said, “A problem well-stated is half-solved.” The gap analysis tool can help you define problems and identify areas for process improvement in clear, specific, achievable terms. It can also help you define where you want to go and how you are going to get there.

 This four-week course will give you the skills that you need to perform an effective gap analysis that will solve problems, improve processes and take your project, department, or organization to the next level.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Project management isn’t just for construction engineers and military logistics experts anymore. Today, in addition to the regular duties of your job, you are often expected to take on extra assignments, and to get that additional job done well, done under budget, and done on time.

This one-day workshop is not intended to take participants from a supervisory or administrative position to that of a project manager. However, these topics will familiarize them with the most common terms and practices in terms of working on projects.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Describe what is meant by a project

  • Explain what project management means

  • Identify benefits of projects

  • Identify the phases of a project’s life cycle

  • Sell ideas and make presentations related to pitching a project

  • Prioritize projects

  • Begin conceptualizing your project, including goals and vision statements

  • Use project planning tools

  • Contribute to creating a Statement of Work


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining projects and project management

  • The role of a project manager

  • How can projects help me?

  • A project’s life cycle

  • Selling a project

  • Creating a vision

  • Project goals

  • Using a target chart

  • Preparing your project

  • Laying out the project

COURSE OVERVIEW

In this three-day workshop, we will walk you through the nuts and bolts of project management, from setting priorities to controlling expenses and reporting on the results. You may still have to cope with the unexpected, but you’ll be better prepared.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand what is meant by a project.

  • Recognize what steps must be taken to complete projects on time and on budget.

  • Have a better ability to sell ideas and make presentations.

  • Know simple techniques and tools for planning and tracking your project.

  • Have methods for keeping the team focused and motivated.


What Topics are Covered?

  • What a project is

  • Project management basics

  • How projects can help you

  • A project’s life cycle

  • Selling and preparing a project

  • The role of a project manager

  • Project goals

  • Laying out a project

  • Project risks and contingency planning

  • The work breakdown structure

  • Planning tools and budgets

  • Teamwork and development

  • Communication

  • Closing out a project

  • Team meetings

  • Project presentations

Project management is no longer only for mega projects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Small projects can benefit from project management tools. These time tested tools can help you to get that small project done well, done under budget, and done on time. This workshop is not intended for those looking to be certified as project managers but rather for those who complete projects at work from time to time.

 In this four-week course, you will gain experience using the most common project management execution tools from Project Tracking Forms, Risk Monitoring Tables to Communications Plans, Change Request Forms, Issues Logs and Lessons Learned Forms. Your small projects will be more successful than ever!


Project management is no longer only for mega projects worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Small projects can benefit from project management tools. Statements of Work, Work and Resource Breakdown Structures and Project Planning documents can help you to get that small project done well, under budget, and on time. This workshop is not intended for those looking to be certified as project managers but rather for those who complete projects at work from time to time.

 In this four-week course, we will gain experience using the most common project management planning tools and will completely plan a case study project from Statement of Work through Work and Resource Breakdown, Scheduling and end up with a completed Project Planning Worksheet. Your small projects will be more successful than ever!


Webinars are an affordable and effective tool for connecting with your staff, customers, and your online community. As someone who already has the skills to create webinars — from the structure and content to how to use webinar platform technology — you are ready to join the thousands of companies and entrepreneurs using webinars to promote their products and grow their revenue. This four-week course focuses on the essential steps to promoting a marketing webinar that connects with your target audience and generates your desired results.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Prospecting is one of the keys to your sales success. Keeping your pipeline full ensures that you will continue to attract new business, and so your success today is a result of the prospecting you did six months ago. In this one-day workshop, you will become skilled at prospecting and learn the 80/20 rule. After this course, you will know who to target and how to target them, and commit to do some prospecting every day through warming up cold calls, following up on leads, or networking. You will also build your personal prospecting plan and learn how to ensure your future by planting seeds daily.


What Will Students Learn?

  • The importance of expanding your client base through effective prospecting.

  • How to use a prospecting system to make you more successful.

  • How to identify target markets and target companies with the 80/20 rule in mind.

  • How to develop and practice networking skills at every opportunity.

  • How to develop, refine, and execute the art of cold calling.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Targeting your market

  • The prospect dashboard

  • Setting goals

  • Why is prospecting important?

  • Networking

  • Public speaking

  • Trade shows

  • Regaining lost accounts

  • Warming up cold calls

  • The 80/20 rule

COURSE OVERVIEW

The field of public relations has changed with the evolution of computers and the speed with which information can spread. However, the need for public relations to be clear, concise, and accurate while being completely appropriate for the situation has not changed. In this comprehensive course, you will learn how to determine the type of information required, to approach PR strategically, create compelling releases, and manage your media relations.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Apply the different purposes to strategic vs. tactical PR

  • Design a PR strategy

  • Develop strong relationships with reporters and journalists

  • Take their communication skills to a higher level


What Topics are Covered?

  • Public relations

  • Building your PR plan

  • Structuring messages

  • Establishing media guidelines

  • Managing the media

  • The press release

  • PR and the crisis

  • Social media and public relations

A great presenter has two notable qualities: appropriate skills and personal confidence. Confidence comes from knowing what you want to say and being comfortable with your communication skills. You can forget small spaces, darkness, and spiders, standing up in front of a crowd and talking is far more terrifying for most people. Through this workshop your participants will become more confident and relaxed in front of an audience which will translate into a successful speaking event. Mastering this fear and getting comfortable speaking in public can be a great ego booster, not to mention a huge benefit to your career. In this four-week online workshop, you will master the skills that will make you a better speaker and presenter.


COURSE OVERVIEW

This workshop has been designed for those in positions where they must speak in front of audiences that are hostile or demanding. This material is also suitable for those who are relatively new speakers who want some encouragement to speak up in meetings or who want some training before they begin making presentations on behalf of the organization. Speaking under pressure, or thinking on your feet, means being able to quickly organize your thoughts and ideas, and then being able to convey them meaningfully to your audience to modify their attitudes or behavior. It applies to formal speeches as well as everyday business situations. This two-day course is aimed at improving your skills and learning some new techniques which will give you the persuasive edge when you are making a presentation, fielding difficult questions, or presenting complex information.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Apply quick and easy preparation methods that will work whether you have one minute or one week to prepare.

  • Prepare for questions, even before you know what those questions will be.

  • Overcome nervousness that you may have when speaking in front of a group, particularly if the group is not sympathetic to what you have to say.

  • Use presentation techniques that establish your credibility and get people on your side.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Getting started and planning

  • Force field analysis

  • Understanding your audience

  • Controlling your jitters and body language

  • Making your listener hear you

  • Key themes and sentences

  • Structuring ideas and organization methods

  • Beginnings and endings

  • Expanding a basic plan

  • Many opportunities to practice and present!

Purchasing and procurement functions are about much more than bringing goods and services into an organization. They are the foundation of strong, collaborative relationships with suppliers. Since many companies source products from around the globe more frequently than ever, a procurement manager needs strong capabilities. These skills cannot just be learned on the job: they need to be taught. As well, the value of procurement is now recognized as an integral part of cost control within the organization.

 In this four-week course, you’ll learn the basics of procurement, including what a supply chain looks like, the purchasing cycle, essential tools and strategies for making the best purchasing relationships work, managing bids, and more.


COURSE OVERVIEW

In this age of information overload, it can be hard to know where to find good information that you can trust. If you’re doing research for an important project, report, or proposal, how do you find information that you can count on?

This one-day workshop will teach you how to research any topic using a number of different tools. We will start with basic techniques, such as reading, memory recall, note-taking, and planning. We will also talk about creating different kinds of outlines for different stages of your project, and how to move from the outline to actual writing, editing, and polishing. Most importantly, we will talk about how to use all kinds of sources, including a library’s Dewey Decimal System, journals, and the Internet. After you complete this course, you’ll be ready to find reliable information on any topic, and turn that information into a compelling, accurate piece of writing.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify the benefits to proper research and documentation

  • Read for maximum information retention and recall

  • Take effective notes

  • Plan a research strategy

  • Identify and use various types of research sources

  • Create preliminary and final outlines

  • Know how to use style guides and be able to identify common styles

  • Document and attribute your work to ensure you don’t plagiarize


What Topics are Covered?

  • Why are research skills important?

  • Basic skills (reading, note-taking, and recall)

  • Planning your research strategy

  • Where to look and what to look for

  • Finding information the old-fashioned way

  • Researching with the internet

  • Getting ready to write

  • Putting pen to paper

COURSE OVERVIEW

Risk management has long been a key part of project management and it has also become an increasingly important part of organizational best practices. Corporations have realized that effective risk management can not only reduce the negative impact of crises; it can provide real benefits and cost savings.

The risk management framework provided in this workshop is flexible enough for any organization. You can apply it to a single project, a department, or use it as a basis for an enterprise-wide risk management program.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define risk and risk management

  • Describe the COSO ERM cube and ISO 31000

  • Establish a risk management context

  • Describe the 7 R’s and 4 T’s that form the framework of risk management activities

  • Design and complete a basic risk assessment

  • Determine the appropriate response to risks and create a plan for those responses

  • Describe the key components of reporting, monitoring, and evaluation of a risk management program


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding risk

  • Risk management activities

  • Assessing risk

  • Responding to risks

  • Resourcing controls

  • Reaction planning

  • Reporting and monitoring

  • Reviewing and evaluating the framework

COURSE OVERVIEW

Workplace accidents and injuries cost corporations millions of dollars and thousands of hours lost every year. They also have a profound, often lifelong impact on workers. Introducing a safety culture into your organization, where safety is valued as an integral part of the business’s operation, not only saves the business time and money, it also builds a committed, loyal, healthy workforce. This one-day workshop will give you the foundation to start building your safety culture.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand the difference between a safety program and a safety culture

  • Use resources to help you understand the regulations in your area

  • Launch a safety committee

  • Identify hazards and reduce them

  • Apply hiring measures that can improve safety

  • Explain what a safety training program will involve

  • Identify groups particularly at risk for injury and know how to protect them

  • Help your organization write, implement, and review a safety plan

  • Respond to incidents and near misses

  • Understand the basics of accident investigation and documentation


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining a safety culture

  • Governing bodies and resources

  • Getting started

  • Identifying hazards

  • Resolving hazards

  • Taking proactive measures

  • Identifying groups at risk

  • Writing a safety plan

  • Implementing the plan

  • Incident management

  • Reviewing the program

COURSE OVERVIEW

Self-leadership puts together taking responsibility for our outcomes, setting direction for our lives, and having tools to manage priorities. Self-leaders work at all levels of an organization. They are front-line workers in every possible role, middle managers, and CEOs. Self-leaders like Walt Disney and Wayne Gretzky worked hard to achieve their dreams without using the term self-leadership. However, they have clearly demonstrated that being in control of their behavior and results, focus, practice, and learning were necessary to achieve their goals.

Self-leadership requires a commitment from individuals to decide what they want from life and to do what’s necessary to get the results they want. This one-day workshop will help participants internalize the four pillars of self-leadership and to make meaningful, empowered choices while taking action to get where they want to go.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Define self-leadership and what it means on an individual level

  • Assume responsibility for their results by understanding who they are, what they want, and how to reach they goals

  • Describe the four pillars of self-leadership

  • Use techniques related to adjusting to change, cultivating optimism, and developing good habits to build self-leadership


What Topics are Covered?

  • What is self-leadership?

  • Knowing who you are

  • Change management

  • Knowing what you do

  • Motivation for optimists

  • Using what you know

COURSE OVERVIEW

It’s no secret that the sales industry continues to change and evolve rapidly. This is an exciting and dynamic profession, although it is often underrated and misunderstood. The back-slapping, high pressure, joke-telling sales person has disappeared. In his place is a new generation of sales professionals: highly trained and well groomed, with the characteristics of honesty, trustworthiness, and competence. This one-day workshop will help you learn how to be one of those smart sales professionals!


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to explain and apply concepts of customer focused selling

  • How to use goal-setting techniques as a way to focus on what they want to accomplish and develop strategies for getting there

  • How to apply success techniques to get the most out of work

  • Productivity techniques to maximize their use of time.

  • Ways to find new clients and network effectively


What Topics are Covered?

  • Selling skills

  • The sales cycle

  • Framing success

  • Setting goals with SPIRIT

  • The path to efficiency

  • Customer service

  • Selling more

  • Ten major mistakes

  • Finding new clients

  • Selling price

Six Sigma is a set of qualitative and quantitative quality tools that can help a business improve their processes. The efficiency built into the business processes brings about improved profits, confidence and quality. Ultimately this effort is there to ensure customer satisfaction.

 The term Six Sigma comes from statistics to indicate that the process outputs fall within three standard deviations from the center (expected value) giving a range of six standard deviations (or 6 sigma- 6 σ). As a result in terms of individual outputs it means you would have 3.4 defects per million items.

 This four-week course is designed to introduce students to basic concepts of six sigma particularly in continuous process improvement. Various quality tools used in process improvements will be explored as well as the importance of customer relationships. Courses in Lean, quality and teams will provide knowledge on the other aspects of how six sigma works. It is a predecessor to studies in Six Sigma Yellow, Green and Black Belt.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Work is not the only thing that matters in life, but most of us want to take pride in what we do. While we don’t have to like the people we work with, or report to, at the very least we should be able to interact positively with them. The biggest influence on job satisfaction is our relationship with others. Our work should not be a burden to us and our offices shouldn’t be battlefields. We are human beings working with other human beings. This four-week workshop is about working to the best of your abilities, and encouraging the best in those who work with you, or for you.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Work is not the only thing that matters in life, but most of us want to take pride in what we do. While we don’t have to like the people we work with, or report to, at the very least we should be able to interact positively with them. The biggest influence on job satisfaction is our relationship with others. Our work should not be a burden to us and our offices shouldn’t be battlefields. We are human beings working with other human beings. This four-week workshop is about working to the best of your abilities, and encouraging the best in those who work with you, or for you.


Mastering certain behaviors and skills can help an employee in their first days at a new job. These start with a professional appearance and making a good first impression, but also include having a positive attitude, being assertive, practicing good self-management, communicating effectively, and having specific goals and a personal action plan. 

This four-week course looks to introduce you, as a new employee, to behaviors and skills that will give you a great head start to becoming successful in your job.


There have been a number of studies that identify the key skills that workers need to be successful. Various studies call them different things - critical employability skills, soft skills, or transferrable skills. Regardless of the name these skills are critical for workplace success. Eight of the most commonly identified skills are: Being a Productive Team Member, Flexibility, Problem Solving, Resourcefulness, Giving and Receiving Feedback, Self-Confidence, Creative Thinking and Emotional Intelligence. Many of us possess one or more of these attributes already and perhaps all of them. Luckily these skills can be improved upon through training.

 This four-week course looks to take you from where you are now to a new level of understanding for the key skills that will help to make you successful at work.


Social media remains an evolving aspect of our daily lives in addition to being a part of our businesses. This four-week course is designed for people who have some familiarity with social media already. Participants will learn to develop a social media marketing plan as a part of their overall marketing strategy, determine who should be on their team, and choose how they will measure what is taking place. In addition, we will explore some of the major social media sites and look at how specialty sites and social media management tools can take their social media marketing to the next level.


Social selling isn’t just a fad or the latest approach to selling that businesses need to adopt. It’s a result of the massive integration of social media in how we conduct our lives. Sales professionals understand they can connect to and leverage these habits. This course is designed for entrepreneurs and sales professionals to learn how to function in that space.

 In this four-week workshop, we’re going to explore how social selling is an essential requirement for sales teams, and how the relationships that are created and nurtured within social media will help you grow and sustain your business. We’ll also learn how to apply specific techniques to connect with your audience and potential fans in the social space.


Cultures both ancient and modern have strong storytelling traditions. Our brains are wired to share and process information through storytelling. Information presented as a story has the power to inform, influence and motivate.

Story marketing is the process of attracting and engaging customers through story – their story, rather than yours. Instead of the ‘buy our product’ messages of typical marketing campaigns, story marketing tells the customer story and motivates them to connect with your company as a solution to their problem or a way to a better life.

This four-week course will highlight the essentials of story marketing for your small business: story marketing tools, storytelling basics, and how to write and refine your own story for marketing to your target audience.


COURSE OVERVIEW

If you and the people who work with you don’t understand where the company is going, they may all develop their own priorities and actually prevent you from getting where you need to be. Part of getting everyone on board is creating a strategic plan complete with the organization’s values, vision, and mission. Then, there’s the challenge of bringing these principles to life in a meaningful way that people can relate to. This two-day course will help you describe what you want to do and get people where you want to go.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to identify the values that support their company

  • How to define the vision for their company

  • How to write a mission statement that explains what the company’s purpose is

  • How to complete meaningful SWOT analyses

  • Tools and techniques to create a strategic plan that directs the organization from the executive to the front line

  • Ways to implement, evaluate, and review a strategic plan

  • How related tools, such as the strategy map and balanced scorecard, can help them develop a strategic plan


What Topics are Covered?

  • Understanding strategic planning

  • Identifying our values

  • Designing our vision

  • Writing mission statements

  • Performing a SWOT analysis

  • Setting goals

  • Assigning roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities

  • Gathering support

  • Making the change

  • Presentation options (infographics, reports, etc.)

  • Getting there successfully

  • Plenty of case studies and practice opportunities

COURSE OVERVIEW

Today’s workforce is experiencing job burnout and stress in epidemic proportions. Workers at all levels feel stressed out, insecure, and misunderstood. Many people feel the demands of the workplace, combined with the demands of home, have become too much to handle. This one-day workshop explores the causes of such stress, and suggests general and specific stress management strategies that people can use every day.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand that stress is an unavoidable part of everybody’s life

  • Recognize the symptoms that tell you when you have chronic stress overload

  • Change the situations and actions that can be changed

  • Deal better with situations and actions that can’t be changed

  • Create an action plan for work, home, and play to help reduce and manage stress


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining stress and how it affects us

  • What is stress about?

  • Building a solid foundation

  • Mental strategies

  • Stress at work

  • Time management tips

  • Stress at home

  • Drainers and fillers

Change is something that excites people who love opportunities for growth, to see and learn about new things, or who like to shift the status quo. Some changes, however, are harder to adjust to and lead to expressions of resistance and anger. We can take concrete steps to make change more palatable by understanding people’s hesitation, enlisting the help of others, setting up plans, and managing stressors. These steps can also ensure that desired changes are implemented successfully. 

In this four-week workshop, you will learn how to manage and cope with change and how to help those around you, too.


COURSE OVERVIEW

If you are thinking about becoming a trainer, or have started doing some training already and want to know more about what will help you to become an excellent trainer, this workshop will help. This one-day workshop is designed as an exploration of the essential skills that trainers need to develop, and to get you started in the learning process in an interactive and fun environment.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Understand the essential background for trainers to have

  • Explore how being genuine enhances training

  • Identify the elements of good questions

  • Understand how to apply listening skills

  • Develop rapport building strategies

  • Recognize key skills in a trainer’s toolbox and identify skill areas for development


What Topics are Covered?

  • What makes a good trainer?

  • Personal best, professional best

  • Being genuine

  • Assertiveness skills

  • Asking the right questions

  • Listening skills

  • Connecting with people

  • Defusing difficult participants

  • Essentials for success

  • Do’s and don’ts for new trainers

COURSE OVERVIEW

Success as a manager is heavily influenced by how well your team operates and what kind of results they achieve. Is your team able to solve problems? Can they resolve conflict? Are they enthusiastic and motivated to do their best? Do they work well together? This three-day workshop is designed for participants who want to develop their team leadership skills and unleash the talent of their individual team members.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify different types of teams.

  • Build teamwork by recognizing and tapping into the 12 characteristics of an effective team.

  • Promote trust and rapport by exploring your team player style and how it impacts group dynamics.

  • Recognize the key elements that move a team from involvement to empowerment and how to give these elements to your team.

  • Develop strategies for dealing with team conflict and common problems.

  • Understand how action planning and analysis tools can help your team perform better.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Organizations today, types of teams, team norms

  • The TORI team building model

  • Beckhart’s team activities

  • Stages of team development and shaping factors

  • Parker’s 12 characteristics of great teams

  • Team player types

  • The trust/relationship model

  • Creative, lateral, and vertical thinking 

  • Interventions for team leaders

  • Resolving conflict and solving problems

  • SWOT analysis and developing team action plans

Virtually everybody in sales today sells over the phone at least part of the time. Perhaps it is time for you to evaluate how you use the telephone and where it fits into your sales and marketing mix. This four-week workshop will show you how the telephone can supplement, enhance, and sometimes replace other means of marketing and selling, and how this personal approach can dramatically increase your sales success. Today we will also talk about how to hone your communication skills, your ability to persuade, and techniques to personalize each sales call.


Presentations, whether in person or via video interface, remain a primary means of building business relationships and partnerships that will sustain and grow your company. In the filled calendars of busy customers and investors, time is literally money. In 10-Minute Presentations, you will learn how to craft and polish an engaging, professional presentation that shares your message and call to action swiftly and clearly. This will maximize your impact, conversions and productivity.


This workshop is for people who are new supervisors or who are interested in a supervisory position, as well as those who are team leads or part-time supervisors without a great deal of authority.

 This four-week course is designed to help participants overcome many of the supervisory problems that they will encounter as a workplace leader. Dealing with the problems that a new supervisor encounters isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to lead to discouragement.


COURSE OVERVIEW

No matter who you are or what you do, whether at work or in the community, you are likely involved in meetings. Meetings are costly, whether they are held in a company boardroom or at the local coffee shop. To ensure that meetings are productive and worth the expense involved, three ingredients are necessary: an assurance of closure, a strong chair or leader, and accurate minutes. It has been said that if accurate minutes have not been recorded, then the meeting may just as well not have taken place.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize the importance of minute-taking.

  • Develop key minute-taking skills, including listening skills, critical thinking, and organization.

  • Be able to resolve many of the complaints that affect minute-takers.

  • Be able to write minutes that are suitable for formal meetings, semiformal meetings, and action minutes.

  • Be an efficient minute-taker in any type of meeting.

  • Be able to prepare and maintain a minute book.
 
  • If people can’t remember or agree on what actually occurred at a meeting, how can the group effectively accomplish its objectives? After this one-day workshop you will understand your role as a minute-taker and the best techniques for producing minutes that include all the essential information needed.


What Topics are Covered?

  • The role of a minute taker

  • The skills of a minute taker

  • Meeting agreements

  • Minute styles (formal, informal, and action)

  • What do I record?

  • Techniques for preparing minutes

  • The minute book

  • Taking minutes in an interactive meeting

COURSE OVERVIEW

People who work as trainers are often put into difficult situations without much understanding of what training is or how to do it well. We know that being a good trainer is the result of developing skills to bring information to an audience. This information will then engage, empower, and encourage continued learning and development. This four-week course will give you the skills that you need so that your students not only learn, but also enjoy the process, retain information shared, and use their new skills back in the workplace.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize the importance of considering the participants and their training needs, including the different learning styles and adult learning principles.

  • Know how to write objectives and evaluate whether these objectives have been met at the end of a training session.

  • Develop an effective training style, using appropriate training aids and techniques.

  • Conduct a short group training session that incorporates these training concepts.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining a successful training program/trainer

  • Adult learning and the learning process

  • Principles of adult learning

  • Style assessment, including introvert/extrovert analysis

  • Applying the learning cycle

  • The training process (planning training, choosing methods, designing learning sequences)

  • Adding games

  • Setting the climate

  • Presentation skills

  • Dealing with difficult trainees

  • On-the-job training

  • Evaluation techniques

  • Mock training presentations for peer review

COURSE OVERVIEW

People who work as trainers are often put into difficult situations without much understanding of what training is or how to do it well. We know that being a good trainer is the result of developing skills to bring information to an audience. This information will then engage, empower, and encourage continued learning and development. This four-week course will give you the skills that you need so that your students not only learn, but also enjoy the process, retain information shared, and use their new skills back in the workplace.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Recognize the importance of considering the participants and their training needs, including the different learning styles and adult learning principles.

  • Know how to write objectives and evaluate whether these objectives have been met at the end of a training session.

  • Develop an effective training style, using appropriate training aids and techniques.

  • Conduct a short group training session that incorporates these training concepts.


What Topics are Covered?

  • Defining a successful training program/trainer

  • Adult learning and the learning process

  • Principles of adult learning

  • Style assessment, including introvert/extrovert analysis

  • Applying the learning cycle

  • The training process (planning training, choosing methods, designing learning sequences)

  • Adding games

  • Setting the climate

  • Presentation skills

  • Dealing with difficult trainees

  • On-the-job training

  • Evaluation techniques

  • Mock training presentations for peer review

People who work as trainers are often put into difficult situations without much understanding of what training is or how to do it well. We know that being a good trainer is the result of developing skills to bring information to an audience. This information will then engage, empower, and encourage continued learning and development. This four-week course will give you the skills that you need so that your students not only learn, but also enjoy the process, retain information shared, and use their new skills back in the workplace.

With a host of new challenges and responsibilities to tackle, new supervisors need training that helps them adjust to their new role. Learning how to supervise your new employees on a trial and error basis can lead to discouragement. This four-week workshop can help you overcome many of the problems a new supervisor may encounter, and to set the groundwork for a successful change in your working life!


COURSE OVERVIEW

Time is money, the saying goes, and lots of it gets lost in disorganization and disruption. We also deal with a constant barrage of technology, people, and tasks that can contribute to that disorganization. Many people find that they flit from one task to another, trying to get everything done.  In this one-day workshop, you will learn how to make the most of your time by getting a grip on your workflow and office space, using your planner effectively, and delegating some of your work to other people.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Better organize yourself and your workspace for peak efficiency.

  • Understand the importance of, and the most useful techniques for, setting and achieving goals.

  • Identify the right things to be doing and develop plans for doing them.

  • Learn what to delegate and how to delegate well.

  • Take control of things that can derail your workplace productivity.


What Topics are Covered?

  • The Power of a Change

  • Changing Our Perspective

  • Setting Goals

  • Planning Tips and Tricks

  • Setting a Routine

  • Doing it Right

  • Putting an End to Procrastination

  • Getting Organized

  • Organizing Your Files

  • Managing Your Workload

COURSE OVERVIEW

As a manager, you’re probably used to dealing with tough situations: employees who insist on being late, team members who miss deadlines, and staff members who can’t get along. But conversations about an employee’s personal appearance are a whole different ball game. It’s something that we often avoid talking about, or worse, make light of. This one-day workshop has two major themes. First, we’ll give you a framework for having those tough conversations. We’ll also give you some guidelines for customizing that framework for your organization. Then, we’ll look at some common tough conversations that come up, including body odor, flatulence, poor clothing and hair decisions, and bad breath. At the end of the workshop participants will have a chance to role play a tough situation. You’ll walk away well prepared for any kind of challenging conversation.


What Will Students Learn?

  • Identify the advantages to having tough conversations
  • Describe the components to a behavior modification conversation
  • Use the organization’s resources to help them deal with hygiene issues
  • Overcome barriers that employees put up when discussing hygiene problems
  • Resolve hygiene issues such as bad hair days, inappropriate piercings and body art, poor clothing choices, bad breath, body odor, excessive gas, and incontinence
  • Nip poor hygiene habits in the bud
  • Identify ways to encourage good hygiene in the workplace


What Topics are Covered?

  • Let’s talk about it!
  • Guidelines for difficult conversations
  • Overcoming objections
  • Bad hair days (and weeks… and months…)
  • Addressing piercings and body artwork
  • Helping employees dress for success
  • Bad breath and body odor
  • Gastrointestinal issues
  • Bad habits
  • Role plays and case studies

Most companies spend huge amounts of time and money designing, construction, outfitting, transporting, and setting up their trade show booth. This course aims to have you understand some of the basic skills that would allow you to get the most out of your trade show experience. The workshop will start by looking at who attends trade shows and why they are there. It will explore a number of things that should be done before the show even starts, including setting trade show goals, understanding your company, and developing good trade show introductions. It will then look at trade show etiquette and skills emphasizing active listening, body language and questioning. A special emphasis will be placed on conducting prospecting. The workshop will end with an exploration of the follow-up necessary after the show. This four-week course will highlight basic skills that should allow you to generate more leads, prospects and especially qualified prospects at your next trade show.


Training is constantly evolving, just as the needs and desires of learners are constantly changing. This four-week course is for trainers who are ready to make their training stronger, more memorable, and more engaging for learners by using visual storytelling and graphical techniques to create better learning experiences that lead to better retention. 


A safe, inclusive workplace in many jurisdictions is not just the law; it is a goal of every employee and company that values the contributions, well-being, and productivity of everyone in the organization. In society today, individuals are of many personal communities. In addition to heterosexual or ‘straight’ there is also LGBTQI2SAP – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, 2S, for two-spirited: an indigenous concept of two sexualities within one body, asexual and pansexual. ‘Trans’, however, refers to gender identity, whereas the other terms describe primarily sexual orientation. The importance of understanding terms of identification is critical to creating and maintaining a safe workplace.

 Transgender Employees: Creating an Inclusive Work Community is a four-week course to introduce the importance and elements of safe inclusive workspaces for Transgender persons – those identifying as a gender other than the one assigned at birth. This course will offer an introduction to terminology, elements, policies, and resources to build and sustain a safe, inclusive environment for Transgender employees and increase the comfort level and productivity off all in your organization.


The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting people around the world, resulting in health care systems being overwhelmed, people being confined to their homes, restrictions on travel, and the closure of businesses and industries. Because of this, many people are struggling with uncertainty and fear.

This four-week course aims to combat this by helping people understand the situation, and what they can do to protect themselves and others, while looking after their mental wellness.

This course contains the best information available at the time of writing, as the situation is changing rapidly. Different areas and countries are responding to this pandemic in different ways. Be mindful of directives in your area.


COURSE OVERVIEW

A study of adult educators conducted by Pennsylvania State University doctoral student David Tanis found that playfulness creates a learning environment of “fun, enjoyment, and laughter,” and that their students notice cognitive gains in terms of “engagement, retention, and understanding.”

Ways to incorporate playfulness into the training classroom include the use of games and other activities, along with humor, which will be explored in this course.

Purposeful, well-thought out, and engaging activities in a training course can help learners apply new skills and knowledge, as well as retain that information in a meaningful way, while meeting learning objectives.


What Will Students Learn?

  • How to understand how training can include the use of activities

  • How to explore different types of games

  • How to identify methods to elicit participant buy-in

  • How to apply humor principles in adult learning

  • How to troubleshoot when activities go badly

  • How to develop their own activities


What Topics are Covered?

  • Let’s have some fun!

  • Getting everyone on board

  • Choosing the right activity

  • When activities go badly

  • Using humor in training

  • Balancing act

  • Quick and easy games

  • Creating a game


More than 90 per cent of companies buy from vendors and some have a lot of vendors! Dealing with many different vendors requires a systematic way to manage them. And, how well a vendor does their job also affects the performance of your business. In order to ensure maximum value to your business it is important to understand the benefits and challenges of vendor management so that you can define an effective vendor management process. This four-week course will outline a vendor management process, including a vendor policy document, developing key performance indicators, assessing potential vendor risk, describing components of a vendor contract, and monitoring the performance and relationship of vendors using questionnaires, forms and auditing.


Women have a long-standing history in the workforce, in all roles from front-line worker to visionary founder, influential behind-the-scenes patron to front-and-center CEO. As women, however, what are the influences, barriers and benefits to our leadership? Do we use or even acknowledge our strengths and skills?

This is a time of great change in the workforce, in part because of the increase in numbers and influence of women in the workplace. Flex time, daycare and caregiver support, and telecommuting are a few examples of workplace initiatives that benefit everyone, but evolved primarily due to the roles and influence of women who are often juggling multiple home, workplace, and community responsibilities. However, there are some areas in which women could still be more visible and vocal.

This four-week course will explore the history of women in the workforce and offer personal opportunities for exploration, identification, and development of leadership strengths and skills.


COURSE OVERVIEW

Rudeness in the workplace is increasing to the level that universities are studying it. Everyone is busy, everyone is stressed, and most people take it out on their colleagues at one time or another. We’ve all been in a situation where we need to print something ASAP and someone has left the printer jammed, or we need coffee and the coffeepot is empty. Technology is supposed to make life easier and simpler, but most managers find themselves cleaning up the messes caused by too many gadgets. This two-day workshop will show you how to leverage technology to work smarter, not harder.

What Will Students Learn?

  • Make your workplace a technology-friendly place

  • Make the most of computers, telephones, instant messaging, e-mail, contact management applications, and scheduling software

  • Communicate better with the IT department

  • Make the best software and training choices

  • Set an IT budget

  • Set expectations and responsibilities for security and privacy

  • Keep employees safe and healthy

  • Develop and implement a system usage policy

  • Implement policies for dealing with company property

  • Decide whether or not employees should telecommute

  • Make telecommuting work

  • Deal with workplace rage

  • Address technological issues


What Topics are Covered?

  • Making your company a technology-friendly place

  • Conquering computers

  • Communicating with the IT department

  • Choosing software wisely and technical training

  • Setting an IT budget

  • Security and privacy, including network types

  • Ergonomics

  • System usage policies

  • Taking care of company property

  • Time-Saving Tools (including telephone, e-mail, and instant messaging)

  • Telecommuting

  • Workplace rage

  • A policies and procedures checklist