Accounting Skills for New Supervisors
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!
Active Listening
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 course will help participants develop and practice their active listening skills.
Advanced Project Management
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.
Advanced Skills for the Practical Trainer
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 three-day workshop will help you reach that goal.
This workshop requires that you have a good understanding of basic training principles, including adult learning concepts, Mainstream Corporate Training's experiential learning cycle, training methods, and designing a learning sequence. We strongly recommend completing Mainstream Corporate Training's "The Practical Trainer" workshop before taking this course.
Advanced Writing Skills
This is a one-day advanced writing skills workshop 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.
An Environmental Audit Primer
This 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.
Anger Management: Understanding Anger
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 one-day anger management workshop is designed to help give you and your organization that edge.
Appreciative Inquiry
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.
Balanced Scorecard Basics
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.
Basic Business Management: Boot Camp
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 three-day business management training 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.
Being A Team Player
Teamwork is essential in any successful enterprise, and to have effective teams, an organization must be comprised of individuals who pride themselves on being great team players. Many of us 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.
Beyond Workplace Politics: Using Social and Emotional Competencies
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 course will explore the social and emotional competencies and their role in working beyond workplace politics!
Budgets and Managing Money
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 two-day workshop will help you prepare budgets and make decisions with confidence.
Building a Consulting Business
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 workshop will show you how to build a business as a consultant.
Building an Online Business
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 one-day course will give you everything that you need to build a successful online business.
Bullying in the Workplace
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?
Business Ethics For The Office
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 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.
Business Leadership: Becoming Management Material
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.
At its core, leadership means setting goals, lighting a path, and persuading others to follow. But the responsibility entails much more. Leaders must get their message out in a way that inspires, make the most of their limited time, and build roads to precious resources. They must negotiate alliances, improve their colleagues, and align the ambitions of the many with the needs of the organization.
What makes for a great leader? Is it something to do with inward characteristics, such as confidence and focus? Is it more about outward presence, including charm and compassion? Or is it about the ability to create a vision and get others to commit to it?
The answer is all of the above. By accepting the challenge to lead, you come to realize that the only limits are those you place on yourself.
Business Process Management
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 course will introduce participants to business process management. Students will learn how business processes can help improve their company’s bottom line by providing a higher level of quality and consistency for customers.
Business Succession Planning: Developing and Maintaining a Succession Plan
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 one-day course will help you teach the basics about creating and maintaining a succession plan.
Change Management: Change and How to Deal With It
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.
Collaboration
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?
Communication Strategies
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 workshop is to help participants understand the impact that their communication skills have on other people. They will also explore how improving these skills can make it easier for them to get along in the workplace, and in life.
Communications for Small Business Owners
Communication between individuals is a two-way street, but communication between 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 course will 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.
Conference and Event Management
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 like anniversaries, special birthday gatherings, weddings, and more. Essentially, we’re creating an effective and well-planned design that is ready for implementation and can be used over and over again.
Creating a Dynamite Job Portfolio
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 course, or identified target positions and completed a full skills assessment and goal setting exercise.
Creating Winning Proposals
Proposals are persuasive documents that are fundamental tools in organizational funding and output. This 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!
Creative Thinking and Innovation
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.
Crisis Management
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.
Critical Thinking
In today’s society, many people experience information overload. We are bombarded with messages to believe various ideas, purchase things, support causes, and lead our lifestyle in a particular way. How do you know what to believe? How do you separate the truth from the myths?
The answer lies in critical thinking skills. The ability to clearly reason through problems and to present arguments in a logical, compelling way has become a key skill for survival in today’s world. This two-day workshop will give you some practical tools and hands-on experience with critical thinking and problem solving.
CRM: An Introduction to Customer Relationship Management
This Customer Relationship Management course will introduce the different facets of CRM and identify who the customers really are. It will also analyze the key components of CRM and explore how it can be integrated within an organization.
As with many significant undertakings, undergoing a Customer Relationship Management review (even simply considering its implementation) requires learners to analyze technical and complicated systems. This 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.
Delegation: The Art of Delegating Effectively
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 whom to delegate to. We will also go through the delegation process step by step and learn about techniques to overcome problems.
Developing a Safety Procedures Manual
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 one-day course will give you the foundation to start writing effective safety procedures.
Developing a Training Needs Analysis
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 one-day workshop will help you to gather the information, assess the data, and present your suggestions for training or non-training solutions.
Digital Citizenship: Conducting Yourself in a Digital World
Technology is evolving at an ever-increasing speed. People are becoming increasingly reliant in ways many have never imagined. Digital tools are literally at our fingertips, and we use them to learn, communicate, buy, bank, share, and interact. For most of us, a significant part of our days is spent in the digital world.
Online interactions and transactions are replacing real world ones. Regrettably, digital use can become misuse and abuse, often without the responsible person realizing it. As citizens of the digital world, users should learn and accept that they have certain rights and responsibilities. Many are not educated in appropriate technology use; other people know but do not practice it. ‘Digital Citizenship’ is fundamental to a safe and satisfying digital world.
This course aims to increase your knowledge and appreciation of the practices needed to ensure you are a good digital citizen.
Diversity Training: Celebrating Diversity in the Workplace
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.
Dynamite Sales Presentations
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 help teach you how to create a winning proposal and how to turn it into a dynamite sales presentation.
E-Commerce Management
As the global Internet population continues to grow, electronic commerce is rapidly growing. By the end of 2022 the retail e-commerce market alone is projected to surpass $735 billion US dollars. 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 course will teach entrepreneurs how to develop, market, and manage an e-commerce business, giving them a crucial advantage in today’s competitive market.
This program will teach entrepreneurs how to develop, market, and manage an e-commerce business, giving them a crucial advantage in today’s competitive market.
Encouraging Sustainability and Social Responsibility in Business
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.
English as a Second Language: A Workplace Communications Primer
“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 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.
Entrepreneurship 101
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.
Environmental Sustainability: A Practical Approach to Greening Your Organization
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 one-day 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 organizations significant environmental impacts.
GDPR Readiness: Creating a Data Privacy Plan
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.
GDRP Readiness: Getting The Message Out
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.
Getting Stuff Done: Personal Development Boot Camp
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!
Getting Your Job Search Started
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.
Global Business Strategies
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 three-day 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.
Influence and Persuasion
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 workshop will help participants learn how to influence and persuade in a variety of areas.