Relationships with coworkers, personal behavior and attitude, and how these all intersect create the culture of the workplace. The quality of attention and effort put into caring for the culture determines the quality of work life. We offer people and businesses critical information and practical tools and to create great places to work.

Workshops:

The Lenses We Look Through: Unconscious Bias at Work
What do we mean when we talk about unconscious bias? How are these biases formed? Through non-judgemental discussion and activities, we explore what factors influence how we perceive others as well as how others perceive us. We call these the “lenses we look through” and awareness of them can help us see unspoken (and often unknown) assumptions.

Understanding our own lenses makes us better able to identify and address stereotypes, so we can create genuinely inclusive environments. While this discussion is geared toward how unconscious bias “shows up” in the workplace, the content and tools can be used in any part of our lives. This can be a difficult topic to explore. We facilitate a safe and structured discussion, providing all participants with an opportunity to learn the definition of unconscious bias, factual information about how it impacts the workplace, and tools for self-awareness and action.

Workplace Culture: Creating Healthy and Positive Places to Work
Culture is like the air we breath at work. It’s all around us, it affects us, and often we are not too conscious of it. Each person plays an important role in how “clean” or “polluted” it is. What do you want IN the workplace culture and what do you want OUT of it?

This workshop helps participants focus on the specific culture in which they work and what they can do as an individual, and as a leader, to enhance it. We also share practical and helpful strategies that employees in any positions within an organization can use to make it a great place to work.

The Multi-Generation Workplace
For the first time, there are up to four generations working together. How do Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials navigate this new territory? Developing, motivating and retaining the brightest talent from all the generations is key to an organization’s success. But this multi-generational work environment can cause conflict, tension, frustration and misunderstandings.

In this workshop we zero in on the core values of each generation, how they affect perspective, expectations and behavior, and guide participants to better understand and approach working with generations that are not their own.

Effective Communication at Work
Is it hard to communicate with people who have different or stronger views than your own? Do you want to get better at listening to others, even when a part of you may be feeling criticized? Expressing ideas and opinions, listening to others, and understanding what is heard is the foundation for healthy and productive workplaces.

In this workshop, we teach the fundamentals of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) to help participants gain helpful communication tools they can use right away…like how to talk and listen for understanding and how to manage your own emotions during a challenging situation. These strategies can be used in workplace dynamics: within a team, peer to peer, supervisor to employee, and employee to supervisor. Improve what you do and your relationships with others at work by cultivating your communication skills.

What does it take to be successful at work? Technical skills and expertise, yes…and also effectively dealing with stress, organizing time and tasks, receiving useful feedback, and having enough support. Our workshops offer key insights to all of these areas (and more) as well as strategies to put those insights into practice each and every day.

Workshops:

Resilience: Your Immunity to Stress

Resilience is to Stress what the Immune System is to Illness…it won’t prevent you from experiencing it, but it can lessen the impact and frequency. Why do some people seem to be more resilient, better able to “bounce back” after a difficulty? Can you increase your own resilience? Yes! Boosting resilience is a classic “simple but not easy” process, and it is 100% possible. The stronger our resilience the better we are able to let go of everyday annoyances, learn to discern what we can versus cannot control, and put our energy into healthy changes. If you feel stressed out by work, or life in general, this workshop can help you.

Participants will take away practical tools to use immediately in any corner of their lives.

The Helping Hazard: Compassion Fatigue

Caring can hurt…when we provide caring support for others (personally or professionally, people or animals) without intentionally and adequately taking care of ourselves real and significant distress is likely to occur. This may take the form of self-destructive behaviors used as a means to cope with the distress, lack of energy for basic self-care, and a range of damaging emotional states such as loneliness and despair.

Fortunately there IS something that can be done. Compassion Fatigue is not a “natural consequence” of caregiving. It does require practice and effort, but the steps toward personal well-being ARE doable. Learn practical strategies to help you help yourself, as well as ways to reframe your role and work.

Time Is On My Side: Strategies to Organize Time Better

Do you feel perpetually stuck in the cycle of too much to do and not enough time to do it? Does it seem like you are always busy but not getting much done? This workshop will help you! We address numerous time management pitfalls like distractions, lack of prioritizing, and not setting clear daily goals. Participants will learn several tools to organize their time that can be put to use right away. We also cover specific ways to begin to change patterns of behavior that contribute to time clutter so you can transform your day into one that is more productive and rewarding.

If you are a manager or supervisor, you are a boss. Being a boss means you are in charge. Too often individuals shy away from this and the result is ineffective management and leadership. Unfortunately, being in charge has developed a bad reputation. But it actually means having the skills (and will) to see the big picture and the little details; to coordinate teams of individuals; and most importantly to support and develop each person who looks to you for leadership. Our workshops help new and experienced supervisors learn and refresh critical elements of being a good boss.

Workshops:

Performance Feedback: The “Secret Sauce” for a Great Place to Work
Do you cringe when you hear the words, “performance feedback?” Are you a “no news is good news” kind of boss? This workshop is for YOU! Created for supervisors and managers, we will cover why effective performance feedback is vital to a successful organization AND provide practical strategies for giving employees praise and criticism. Great bosses help employees be great at what they do and guidance is essential. We probably won’t make you love giving an employee criticism, but we WILL give you clear and effective tools to do it…and if you practice regularly, you’ll get less uncomfortable.

Change Happens, Do It Better
If “change is the only constant” why do we pretend like we can stop it? Because often change is not done well and people are not prepared to navigate the disruptions. But changes, even small ones, happen frequently in organizations…so let’s learn to handle them better. How are decisions about changes made? How are they communicated? What support is provided while everyone adjusts to the change? Managers and Supervisors play a key role in helping changes roll out smoothly. This workshop specifically focuses on Change and Trust, and helps organizational leaders learn how to guide their teams through transitions.

Leadership: Nurturing Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose in Everyone
Being a manager or a supervisor means leading people. What makes a great leader? What is your style of leadership? In this workshop you will learn effective leadership strategies to guide and motivate your employees. As Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor says, “You are a boss, embrace it!” This workshop helps leaders, new and veteran, increase their confidence to lead others by building on their current level of knowledge and skills when it comes to developing employees, coordinating projects, delegating duties, and managing logistics. Be an effective, and respected, leader in your organization.

Leading a Team: Together We Can Do So Much
A team is more than just a group of individuals. Teams have their own life-cycles and needs. Harnessing and guiding the talent and energy of a group takes its own unique set of skills. As does helping that group navigate through challenges and conflicts. This interactive workshop offers leaders of any kind (not just managers) tools and strategies necessary for teams to achieve results by helping members align their work toward common goals, make conflict be productive, and develop a high degree of trust.

Employment regulations are intended to create safe and equitable workplaces. Complying with them prevents costly and unnecessary fines AND lays the foundation for a healthy workplace culture. Our workshops provide key information and tools to help employers, supervisors, and employees know and follow these rules.

Workshops:

Understanding Harassment and Discrimination at Work
Employment laws outline the rights and responsibilities that employees and employers have to each other. As a supervisor, part of your job is making sure these “rules of the road” are followed. But that doesn’t mean you have to memorize a bunch of laws! This workshop explains the most common employment laws supervisors may encounter and guidance on how to comply with them. Participants also receive a helpful reference tool to take with them and use when they encounter these laws in the workplace.

Preventing and Responding to Sexual Harassment
At a minimum, employers have a legal duty to create and maintain workplaces that are free from sexual harassment. Preventing sexual harassment at work is about more than understanding the laws that prohibit it. Individual behaviors and organizational systems create circumstances where this is more, or less, likely to occur. Understanding personal rights and responsibilities, as well as employer obligations, is vital to preventing sexual harassment at work.

In this interactive workshop employees and supervisors learn how legal definitions of sexual harassment apply to everyday life at work. They also learn what constitutes a hostile work environment and how to prevent these situations from taking over. Additionally, participants explore strategies for how to take prevention further than a “zero-tolerance policy” (which you should have!) to build a work culture where harassment is least likely to occur.

Employment Law for Supervisors
Employment laws outlines the rights and responsibilities that employees and employers have to each other. As a supervisor, part of your job is making sure these “rules of the road” are followed. But that doesn’t mean you have to memorize a bunch of laws! This workshop explains the most common employment laws supervisors may encounter and guidance on how to comply with them. Participants also receive a helpful reference tool to take with them and use when they encounter these laws in the workplace.