Goal Setting
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.
Hiring for Success: Behavioural Interviewing Techniques
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 workshop will give you the skills and tools to hire successful candidates.
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.
Inventory Management: The Nuts and Bolts
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.
Knowledge Management
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 workshop will introduce participants to knowledge management tips, techniques, and proven processes.
Leadership Skills for Supervisors: Communication, Coaching, and Conflict
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.
Lean Process Improvement
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. The first day will explore the foundations of Lean through the Toyota precepts and the five critical improvement concepts (value, waste, variation, complexity, and continuous improvement). The second day will give participants tools to perform continuous improvement in their organization, including 5S, 5W-2H, PDSA, DMAIC, Kaizen, Genchi Genbutsu, and various Lean data mapping methods.
Managing Difficult Conversations
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.
Managing Pressure and Maintaining Balance
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.
Marketing for Small Businesses
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.
Meeting Management: The Art of Making Meetings Work
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.
Motivation Training: Motivating Your Workforce and Team
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.
Negotiating For Results
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.
Planning for Workplace Safety
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 workshop will give you the foundation to develop your Organizational Safety Plan and take the next step in building your safety culture.
Process Improvement with Gap Analysis
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 one-day 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.
Project Management: All You Need to Know
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 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 Planning: All You Need to Know
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 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!
Prospecting for Leads Like a Pro
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 workshop, participants will become skilled at prospecting and learn the 80/20 rule. They will learn 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. Participants will also build their personal prospecting plan and learn how to ensure their future by planting seeds daily.
Public Relations Boot Camp
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 however. In this comprehensive course, learn how to determine the type of information required, to approach PR strategically, create compelling releases, and manage your media relations.
Purchasing and Procurement Basics
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 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.
Research Skills
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, such as journals, print media, and reliable online sources.
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.
Safety in the Workplace
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 participants the foundation to start building your safety culture.
Self Leadership
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 course 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.
Six Sigma: Entering the Dojo
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 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.
Social Selling for Small Businesses
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 one-day 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.
Strategic Planning
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.
Stress Management
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.
Team Building: Developing High Performance Teams
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 workshop is designed for participants who want to develop their team leadership skills and unleash the talent of their individual team members.
Time Management: Get Organized for Peak Performance
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.
Working Smarter: Using Technology to your Advantage
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 participants how to leverage technology to work smarter, not harder.
Workplace Ergonomics: Injury Prevention Through Ergonomics
The human body is a fragile system, and we put many demands on it every day. Activities like reaching to get supplies off of a shelf, sitting in front of a computer for hours every day, and moving heavy products around the shop can all take a toll on our bodies. In this two-day workshop, you will learn how to make your environment as ergonomic as possible in order to make daily tasks easier on your body and mind.
Workplace Harassment: What It Is and What To Do About It
In 2012 alone, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ordered that $365,400,000 (that’s 365.4 million dollars!) be paid out for discrimination and harassment charges. No wonder companies are working to be more proactive in preventing harassment.
But how do you prevent harassment from occurring? What sorts of policies should be in place? What should managers do to protect their employees? And if a complaint is filed, what will we do? All of these questions (and more!) will be answered in this two-day workshop.
Workplace Health and Safety: The Supervisor’s Role and Responsibilities
This course aims to provide an understanding of the supervisor’s role in organizational health and safety. It will explore the requirements of due diligence, the rights of workers, supervisor and worker health and safety requirements, employee competency, and the role of Health and Safety Committees. The course will also look at supervisor’s roles in hazard identification and control, accident reporting and investigation and the importance of communicating health and safety information.
This course will highlight the most important aspects of the supervisor’s role so that they can participate effectively in health and safety responsibilities and work towards the continual improvement of health and safety performance in their organization.
Workplace Success: Eight Key Skills You’ll Need
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 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.
Writing Reports and Proposals
It is essential to understand how to write reports and proposals that get read. We write reports in a range of formats and a variety of purposes. Whether you need to report on a product analysis, inventory, feasibility studies, or something else, report writing is a skill you will use again and again.