Appraisal and Performance Management (1 day) 

Are appraisals something you hate, do you avoid them?

 

This course will help you conduct a good and constructive appraisal meeting that is a rewarding experience for both you and your subordinate.

Course Objectives

We will be going through the following topics:

·         Preparing for the appraisal meeting

·         The talking ratio

·         Listening effectively

·         Giving feedback constructively

·         Seeing things from other points of view

·         Performance not personality

·         Setting achievable goals and expectations

·         Recognising achievement, acknowledgement and praise

·         Motivation

·         Building confidence and morale

·         Handling difficult messages

·         Asking the right questions

·         Future development possibilities?

·         Gaining agreement for future performance

We will also investigate the different models of appraisal s including competency, goal setting, peer appraisal, 360 feedback and self-assessment

 

Assertive Communication (2 days)

This course will enable participants develop and practise basic assertiveness skills in order to be more effective with colleagues and difficult situations.

You will learn how to:

·         Distinguish between passive, aggressive and assertive behaviours

·         Recognise verbal/non-verbal aspects of these behaviours

·         Look at yourself, your own experiences and discuss the consequences of being passive or aggressive

·         Explore some pre-requisites for assertive behaviours

·         Practice Broken Record technique

·         Use the Fogging technique

·         Have a go...

 

This course is ideal for anyone who needs to learn how to be more assertive. Understand yourself and your colleagues and gain confidence in speaking without using aggressive or passive behaviour.

 

Coaching for Improved Performance (1 day)

This course will enable you to understand the benefits of coaching and the learn the skills required to be an effective coach.

·         The benefits to coaching—a look at the coaching concept

·         The importance of setting the ground rules

·         Gain a greater understanding of human behaviour

·         Handling change and resistance

·         Modelling

·         Confidence building techniques

·         Applying coaching strategies

·         Watching out for personal baggage

·         Goal setting and outcomes

·         Monitoring, reviewing and evaluating outcomes

·         Giving feedback

Complaints are a Gift! (half a day)

How to treat complaints is essential to any organisation, yet it isn’t a natural. Every organisation will at some stage face complaints but how can we face these in a positive manner?

·         The philosophy behind treating complaints as gifts

·         Recovering service and keeping your customer

·         How to avoid generating more complaints

·         Empowerment the way forward

·         What we can learn

·         The costs to not responding well

·         When customers blow their top!

·         Maintaining a calm appearance

·         Communicating with confidence

·         Getting to the crux of the matter through effective questioning

Counselling Your Team (2 days)

Getting the work-life balance is difficult and putting your home issues away when you arrive at work is a struggle for some. Do you find that your team come to you with problems and you struggle with how to deal with them? You feel empathetic, but powerless to do anything.

Line managers and HR professionals are increasingly being asked to support employees in a number of roles including counselling. Indeed, counselling skills underlie and underpin many forms of employee help.

Learn the basics in how to counsel your team and give back the responsibility for their life to them.

 We will be covering:

·         Personal qualities unconditional positive regard, genuineness, being congruent, and understanding our motivation to help

·         Understanding the dynamics of the counselling relationship including allowing the individual to come to their own decisions/conclusions about their behaviour and the way ahead  

·         Setting boundaries providing a clear contract of what will and what won’t be included within the setting. Getting greater understanding of ourselves and building good boundaries. Being able to let go and not take on an individuals issues. Knowing if you are the right person for them to be speaking to.

·         Confidentiality enabling confidence and building trust but knowing the limits. Making notes?

·         Listening skills including establishing rapport, reflecting back, summarising, questioning, probing, prompting, immediacy, self-disclosure and handling silences

·         Emotional issues – the causes of feelings of anxiety, anger and guilt. Understanding on the statement “all behaviour leads towards a goal”. The dangers of the emotional vampire and common techniques they may use such as projection, manipulation and transference.

·         Providing feedback and challenge by ensuring a good bridge of empathy is built

·         Confronting and Challenging irrational ideas and distorted thinking using the basics of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy  

·         Helping People move on using the Gestalt Therapy technique of the Empty Chair

·         The grief cycle Kubler-Ross

·         When to refer to the professional (knowing your limits) - with issues such as those receiving medical treatment, or have mental health issues.

Creative Problem Solving (1 day)

On this course you will learn how to unleash your creativity and discover the different techniques available for you to problem solve. 

We will cover:

·         How to challenge your pre-conceptions and break mindsets

·         How to get your creative juices flowing with various techniques including: Ishikawa; Brainstorming; Reversal; Forcing Connections; mind mapping and reframing the problem

·         How to use Edward de Bono’s six hat thinking in your meetings

·         How to evaluate alternative ideas

·         Methods for choosing the best solution, including 5 point scoring; force field analysis; SWOT and PEST(LE)

·         How to present your ideas to key personnel

This course will give you an opportunity to put these techniques into practice. It aims to make problems solving interactive and fun.

Communicating with Understanding (1 day)

This course will enable participants to gain an understanding of the subtleties of communication and how to analyse and develop their communication skills in order to communicate more effectively with both colleagues, customers and in our personal life. 

You will learn how to:

·         Differentiate between different forms of communication

·         Analyse how effective our communication skills currently are

·         Look at listening and questioning techniques

·         Get your message across to others

·         Give and receive feedback

·         Influence others with our ideas

Improve your Customer Service (1 day)

If you work with people then you need Customer Service training. Customers are not just people outside the organisation, but other team members throughout the organisation. If someone needs something from you, then they are your customer.

This training course will equip you with the skills not just to meet your customers expectations, but to exceed them. In a competitive business environment, your staff can make the difference between success or failure! Don’t let poor attitudes mar your reputation, but create customer loyalty.

You will learn how to:

·         Understand what your Customer expects and how to exceed this?

·         Build customer loyalty

·         Pick up on body language and tonal cues

·         Improve your communication with transactional analysis

·         Build rapport with customers and create an atmosphere of trust

·         Value your internal customer and create better relationships internally

Interview Skills (1 day)

 Research shows that in the first four minutes we make a decision on someone! In interviews it’s commonly known as the ‘halo’ effect. This course seeks to help the interviewer overcome the halo effect and make good choices through effective questioning and listening.

We will look at writing questions for an interview

·         Which questions to use and when

·         Dangers to avoid

·         Body language

·         Rapport & pacing

·         Setting the scene

·         Assessing the candidates

·         Writing competency based questions

·         An overview on Assessments

Managing Change (1 day)

We all experience change throughout our life, some of it is welcome, some of it isn’t, but our power lies with how we handle this change. This course is specifically written for people who find change difficult and want to know how to better deal with change.

This course will give you some helpful tools on dealing with change, being proactive and understanding what happens when change occurs.

You will learn:

·         The effects of change on people 

·         How to move from reactive change to proactive change

·         The joys of change

·         How to manage our responses to change

·         Techniques for bringing someone else through the change process painlessly

·         Force field analysis perspective on change

Microsoft Software Training 2010 (1 day per subject and level)

If you have noticed the difference between 2003 and 2007 you will understand that things are very different. You may have 10 + years on Microsoft 2002/3 but now all the icons have changed. Why not equip yourself or your staff with the new Microsoft 2007 training. Training is available from beginners to advanced level on the following packages:

·         Excel

·         Word

·         PowerPoint

·         Outlook

·         Publisher

Or perhaps you have taught yourself how to use Microsoft products and really think there must be a short cut to what you do?

The training sessions will be interactive and include exercises and activities to consolidate your learning. You will go away feeling better equipped.

Alternatively, maybe you have used Microsoft for a number of years and think I want to know more e.g. More complex formulas, how to use filters, macros, and pivot tables.

In addition other IT training can be provided on the use of Social Media, Internet Researching, Understanding Windows 7 and File Management (ideal for those who can never find their work!)

Presentation Skills (1 day)

Out of a list of 10 top fears speaking in public comes 2nd. In fact it comes higher than fear of death which is 6th! It is easy to recognise a poor presentation, but how do we avoid falling into the same trap?

This course will provide you with the necessary skills to deliver fantastic presentations.

You will learn how to:

·         Prepare and be ready for the presentation

·         Tame the Tiger – managing your nerves

·         Make the most of your body language, eliminating your ticks

·         Structure a presentation

·         Spicing up your content & using stories

·         Keeping it simple

·         Consider your audience

·         PowerPoint tips

·         Have a go…

The course will also enable you to receive valuable feedback and coaching on how you can improve your presentations

Professional Receptionist (1 day)

The receptionist represents the initial point of contact with the outside world, and as such is in a powerful position to enhance the way the company is perceived.

This course aims to equip the professional receptionist with the skills necessary to present an excellent image of the organisation. 

We will cover:

·         First impressions and creating a professional image

·         How to make good customer service excellent

·         Welcoming and Greeting Visitors

·         Tips and techniques for working on a reception & taking calls

·         Being prepared – everything to hand

·         Communicating Better

·         Transactional analysis to improve your communication

·         Active listening skills

·         Building rapport

·         Observing and understanding body language

·         Questioning skills

·         Dealing with that tricky visitor (or caller)

·         Handling complaints – turning your customer around

Taking calls including:

·         Pet hates - what do customers hate?

·         Taking the message - keeping it simple 

·         Fielding unwelcome calls – assertiveness with that persistent caller

·         The difficulties of telephone communication

Team Building Skills (1 day)

This training will help course participants develop the knowledge, skills and attitude necessary to improve communication, quality and team work. The training will be fun and interactive, yet thought provoking. Teaching on the psychological models of teams, understanding your own team role and what being a good team member is all about.

This course is suitable for anyone who leads a team or is in a team. 

This is a fun interactive session where you will learn

·         What makes a good team

·         The team development stages and what can be done at each

·         Where you fit into your team using a Belbin model

·         How to understand your challenging colleagues

·         How to analyse your own behaviour!

·         How to manage conflict and negotiate a solution

·         To identify possible team conflicts and solutions

·         The importance of building trust

·         Setting common goals

·         Decision making

·         All about ownership and blame shifting?

·         The Locus of Control

Professional Telephone Handling (1 day)

This course will enable you to answer the telephone promptly and professionally. 

Course includes:

·         The importance of every telephone interaction

·         Getting into the shoes of your caller, building rapport and empathy

·         Meeting and exceeding expectations

·         The stages of a professional call

·         Getting the facts through questioning

·         Active listening and positive communication

·         Controlling the call and keeping it timely

·         Dealing effectively & politely with challenging callers

·         Continually improving

·         Taking the message

 In addition to the above you will gain practical experience through activities, build upon your skills and eliminate unwanted behaviour.

Stress Management (1 day)

The pace of life is such that what was once a tight schedule ends up being a headache leading to stress. This can result in feelings of anger, impatience, tears, sleeplessness, even time off work dreading stepping foot back in the office. This course will enable you to understand and manage the pressures of work better and equip you with positive healthy coping mechanisms.

On this course you will:

·         Gain an understanding of the effects of both short term and long term stress on your health

·         Learn how to control negative thinking and make your thought life work for you!

·         Analyse your own stressors

·         Learn some quick stress reduction techniques

·         Establish coping strategies & preventative methods

·         Learn about setting clear boundaries

·         Learn how to improve your time management including watching out for the time stealers

Time Management (1 day)

 Do you find there’s not enough time in the day?

This one day workshop session is designed to give you the tools and techniques to manage your time more effectively.

 

·         Feel time seems to disappear and you don’t feel you have done anything

·         Constantly find you’re chasing around fire-fighting

·         Have tight schedules you can’t meet because you over promise your time away

 

What is it about?

This interactive workshop will cover

·         Top time stealers

·         Preventing disruptions and minimising distractions

·         Identifying priorities and planning your time

·         Setting SMART goals

·         Using planning tools e.g. Outlook and calendars

·         Knowing your limits and communicating them

·         Rewarding yourself for a job well done

What will I get out of it?

·         How to manage your time more effectively

·         How to make meetings work successfully

·         Increase your effectiveness and reduce stress

Train the Trainer (2 Days) 

The aim of this train the trainer course is to provide the learner with the core skills and knowledge to understand what makes a successful trainer. The train the trainer course covers areas such as: learning styles, the learning process and using the right media to communicate your message.

The second day of the course allows the learner to create their own training courses and looks at content, timings, transfer strategies and how to present effectively.

 

You will learn how to:

·         Plan a training session including writing the aims and objective

·         Understand the different learning styles including your own

·         Improve retention through writing mnemonics 

·         Managing the group dynamics including the challenging participant and building self-esteem of course participants 

·         Kolb’s learning cycle explained 

·         Using mixed media—role plays, activities, games, stories, simulations, discussions, quizzes etc. 

·         Identify the barriers to learning and find solutions to help overcome them

·         Practice coaching

·         Plan and deliver a short training session