Supervisory Skill Building Workshops

Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance for Supervisors and Managers: Creating and Preserving a Legal and Respectful Workplace

In a recent Appellate court decision, it was ruled that “… leaving managers with hiring authority in ignorance of the basic features of the discrimination laws is an ‘extraordinary mistake’ for a company to make, and a jury can find that such an extraordinary mistake amounts to reckless indifference.”Mathis v. Phillips Chevrolet, Inc., No. 00-1892, Seventh U.S. Circuit court of Appeals (2001).

Companies cannot afford to make “extraordinary mistakes.” Human Resources management is no longer a simple hire and fire operation. There are over 30 federal, state, and local laws that must be complied with. In addition to hiring the best people for your jobs, good management also assures that you retain those good folks. Even with the best intentions, employers make mistakes…costly ones. Give your supervisors and managers the basic tools to be successful…legally.

This customized training will provide:

Understanding the Role of a Supervisor or Manager
Review of Relevant Employment Laws and Your Company’s Policies
Guidelines for Creating a Respectful Workplace

Recruiting, Interviewing, and Hiring Top People

How you search for, select and bring on-board the best employees is probably the most critical employment practice for any company. Learn the best practices for these essential steps:

Overview of Employment Laws – receive an overview of the Federal dn State laws governing employee recruitment, selection, and hiring and the agencies that enforce them.

How and Where to Look for Great Employees – Learn how to set the stage for finding the perfect employee: know what you are looking for, where to look, and other tools for recruiting. Learn common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Interviewing and Selecting the Best Qualified – Learn the steps in preparing for interviews, great interview questions, credit checks, using references, and other essential tools in picking future top performers. Learn if “tests” are useful and legal.

The Essential Orientation Stage – Receive a recommended Orientation Training package. Learn why the first three to six months are the hardest for the new employee’s supervisor and for the new employee and how to make this transition the most effective.

Take the Fear Out of Employee Evaluations: Performance Management for the New Supervisor

The hardest part of being a supervisor is conducting an employee evaluation. During this session, managers and supervisors will learn how to approach the process in a positive way:

Why is it important?
What are the benefits?
When does it start?
How often should an employee be evaluated?

Our experienced trainers will provide examples of specific forms that have been used and discuss the philosophy of why an evaluation is really more than just a form. Also included in this workshop will be a discussion of how to go about setting performance goals, and the difference between evaluation of a new employee versus a veteran employee.

Rescue and Retain: How to Discipline to Salvage Good Employees and Terminate Those you Can’t

Rescue and Retain what you have: Whether the job market is tight or plentiful, it is difficult and costly to recruit good employees. Therefore, it has become extremely important to hire, orient and continuously develop every employee. Performance problems can be prevented and disruptive and unproductive behavior can be managed.

In this overview, the employer will:

Review relevant Federal, State and Local employment laws that relate to discipline and termination.
Learn what records should be maintained, effective discipline policies, and what must be done to effectively release the employee.
Learn how, from date of hire, what steps should be taken to not only discipline or terminate a problem employee, but hopefully, correct an otherwise valuable employee.
Learn to implement consistent corrective action and how to salvage and retain problem employees.
What is a vital pre-termination process and how to defuse a potentially violent situation?

Comprehensive Workplace Harassment Prevention Program

This program is designed to introduce employers and their employees to the basic employment laws involving workplace harassment, including sexual harassment. Topics will include a review of the laws, definitions, and strategic management techniques to handle complaints and, by education and prevention, minimize legal exposure. Because of the comprehensive approach to this issue, the Program will include the following:

Work session(s) to review current Workplace Harassment Policy and Complaint Procedures and any historical and current problems or concerns, including sexual harassment. May include the revision or development of new Harassment Policy and Procedures. From these sessions, the Training Programs will be tailored to meet any specific concerns.

Comprehensive Workplace Harassment Prevention Classes – Classes will use multi-media presentations, handouts, and group discussions and will last up to three hours. Class size should be limited to 20 people.

Supervisors/Managers Workplace Harassment Prevention and Response Training – This class will focus more specifically on the roles and responsibilities of Management in enforcing the workplace harassment policy and procedures and in responding to complaints. Participants in these classes must first attend the Comprehensive Workplace Harassment Prevention Class. Classes will last up to 2 hours.

Working with The Americans with Disability Act: A Workshop for Managers and Supervisors

In this overview, the employer will learn the current definition of a covered disability, what is a reasonable accommodation, and what steps should be taken to recruit, hire and accommodate an individual with a disability.

Students will learn what the ADA does for both the employer and the applicant or employee, how to effectively hire and accommodate a qualified person with a disability, and how to prepare managers, supervisors and co-workers to work with an individual with a disability.

Managing a Diverse Workforce in a Changing Environment

Diversity is more than differences in race and gender. We now also see differences in generations in the workplace, work styles, educational experiences, and countries of origin. How your organization operates and thrives in this climate depends on your employees’ recognition, acceptance, and embrace of diverse colleagues…and clients.

What is Diversity, including Generational Diversity
What does a Diverse Organization Look Like
The Importance of a Diverse Organization
How a Diverse Organization leads to a more productive working environment
The Type of Environment which Embraces Diversity

How does the acceptance and knowledge of a Diverse Workplace facilitate change in an organization?

Overcoming the Dysfunctional Workgroup: Team Building for Optimum Performance

It often seems that people don’t automatically work productively and collaboratively together. It’s amazing, but a dysfunctional team of cohorts can even take down an entire organization. Even when there is no overt hostility, the workgroup may only be treading water until the end of the workday. While every team has problems and challenges in its path, everyone wants to solve the problem in a difference way. What teams need is a common method, which anyone can use, and which erases 90% of the emotion from the situation.

Teams can learn to trust each other and produce an exciting synergy for problem solving and creativity.CMK Associates LLC has experienced facilitators to guide your group to peak performance. Explore the process by learning:

What are the five critical elements to effective teamwork?
Understand individual preferences to maximize group interaction.
Experience problem solving from a collaborative rather than competitive posture.

Conflict Resolution: The Skill that Makes a Difference

Discover how to respond to Conflict and learn how to meet confrontations head-on. It is important to effectively respond to negativity in others.You can turn differences into opportunities for you, your organization, and possibly for the other person too. Communication is the key to resolution of any conflict.

Learn how to demonstrate your ability to resolve conflict.

Workplace Violence Prevention

The main myth about workplace violence is “it can’t happen here.”Unfortunately, it does happen and far too often. Learn what constitutes workplace violence and who may be a perpetrator. Discover how to identify the crisis warning signs that can lead to violence. Develop responses and intervention strategies to deal with violent situations.

To Meet or Not to Meet?

Business is run by meetings…and everybody loathes them.

Learn how to make the meetings you need more effective.
Determine when and how often to meet.
Structure meetings efficiently.
How to attend others’ meetings and get the most out of them.

Roadmaps: Creating Effective Written Action Plans

Many organizations go through the strategic planning process and have a good and clear view of future. After an exciting few days of focus doing the plan, the reality of work looms. Many Strategic Plans sit on a shelf and gather dust.Let’s dust off those dreams and get going.
In this three-hour workshop you will learn a simple, yet effective, system to put goals into action. A good plan is like a roadmap: it shows the final destination, and usually the best way to get there.
By creating S.M.A.R.T. objectives you can implement real change in your organization.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr. 1963