Career Coaching
"How can I get this person back up to speed?"
When productivity, motivation, communications, management
style, human relations, or skill levels show a strong need
for improvement, we offer individualized assistance and
work with the employee to restart his/her career. Career
coaching consists of confidential counselling, testing,
training, and consulting for company designated individuals
who require assistance in one or more area.
It utilises
a customized six-stage approach to assess strengths and
limitations leading to design and implementation of an appropriate
career coaching program. The coaching program is initiated
following a review with the company representative. Meetings
with the sponsored employee are held at our offices. Depending
on the level of the individual and the intensity of the
issues, the time frame can range from one month to twelve
months.
Career Pathing
"I'd like to take the guesswork out of promoting this
person." Employees who are identified as having the
potential for handling increased responsibility or for having
the potential for successfully fulfilling the requirements
of an expanded job description are prime candidates for
career pathing.
The
process involves: a review of the employee's performance
history, interviews with current and previous bosses, consultations
with the employee, career assessment, summary report, decision
on promotability, and recommendations to both the employee
and management. A formal, thorough and objective assessment
assists the employer in discovering an individual candidate's
compatibility to a selected career plan. Over 70 selected
traits are assessed in the following categories: Intellectual,
Motivational, Productivity, Self-Issues, Human Relationships,
Life-Style Priorities, Vocational Incentives, and Career
Interests. This methodology can also be designed to assist
during the hiring process.
Outplacement Counselling
Releasing an employee is always a complex and demanding
management decision. While never an easy task, we can help
make the process less complicated. At our fully serviced
offices, we have over many years assisted thousands of dismissed
employees find alternate employment. We are respected in
the business community for our dedication to client service,
our flexible approach and our caring support.
As professional
counsellors for over 25 years, we are often called upon
to deal with the more involved situations. A wide variety
of individual programs are offered to take into consideration
each employee-client's level, age, length of service and
other relevant factors. We also work with our sponsoring
employers to "plan the departure" and are on-site
to assist with the employee's dignified exit from the company.
Managing
Personal Transition
"When change occurs, everyone goes back to zero".
A workshop designed to help managers and their employees
understand the impact of major change initiatives in their
workplace, and often in their lives.
Organizations
and their members can expect change to be a given in the
new marketplace and they must have the agility and the resilience
to compete successfully. More importantly, this workshop
is aimed at helping participants develop the skills required
to accept change, find the opportunities therein, and adapt
successfully to present and future changes in their world
and their organization with a healthier attitude. The focus
of this workshop is to enable individuals to create and
maintain their own personal stability and energy, resulting
in higher productivity and motivation.
Managing Organizational Transition
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always
get what you always got, maybe...." In today's fast
changing organizations, managers at all levels need to manage
not only their own personal transitions but those of their
employees as well. This workshop is designed to help managers
learn new ways to manage and help their employees work through
the transition process with the clear goal of sustaining
and enhancing employee productivity as the organization
changes to new ways of doing business.
Team
Building
"Teamwork doesn't just happen; it takes skill, knowledge
and hard work - anything less just won't cut it in tomorrow's
workplace." This workshop is designed to help teams
of all kinds become more effective and more self-managing,
freeing up valuable supervisory and managerial time to do
what they are really paid to do: planning, coaching, co-ordinating,
leading and monitoring businesses.
Building
a collaborative team environment through norm setting, contracting
for expectations, team performance, self-evaluation, problem-solving
and decision-making skills, and the application of simple
but effective quality tools are critical (and basic) steps
to the development of high performing teams. This workshop
is experiential with a minimum of theory and a maximum of
interaction and transference to organizational work life.
Problem-Solving / Decision-Making
This workshop focuses on the rational, analytical skills
required to find root causes of problems and to decide on
the most appropriate alternative to meet business goals.
A proven, structured process always ensures objectivity
in problem solving, resulting in reduction of wasted time
or other valuable resources that focus on symptoms, pet
theories, and costly quick fixes.
A structured
process applied to decision-making can lead to higher quality
decisions, greater ability to manage accompanying risks,
reduced guesswork, and increased confidence in organizational
decisions. Both of these processes apply equally well to
technical and non-technical situations. Case studies, discussion
groups and real-life application sessions form the core
of this workshop.
New Millennium Supervision
"Getting more done through others is the new definition
for managers and supervisors." Tomorrow's organizations
are slimmer, faster and team-based. Supervision needs to
work smarter than ever, with less direct control and more
responsibility and accountability than yesterday's supervisor.
Add to that a more educated, diverse workforce and the age-old
functions of Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling
take on truly new meaning.
Leading
and Managing are blended in this workshop because to separate
them is to create "good-guy" "bad-guy"
fallacies that result in wasted productivity in organizations,
and both skill sets are required to successfully supervise
in the workplace of the future. Case studies, discussion
groups, self-evaluation and experiential exercises form
the core of this workshop.
Stress Survival Skills
Beginning with an understanding of the nature of stress,
participants are introduced to its common physical symptoms.
External and internal stressors are identified and a repertoire
of effective coping strategies are developed.
From
this, participants are able to further develop an Action
Plan and make personal decisions to achieve an integrated
and balanced lifestyle. This one-day workshop is designed
to explore the nature of stress, along with values and their
impact on stress. Internal stress generators and worry-generated
stress are identified. Case studies demonstrating strategies
for coping with typical stressful life situations are presented
to assist participants in learning to use problem-solving
strategies to minimize external stressors. The goal is to
learn how to manage stress through increased internal control.
Assertiveness Without Aggression
"Usually a manager's request is carried out and an
employee's request is listened to...... but don't hold your
breath!" All too often, unassertive managers and employees
convey their message in a tentative way, as if they didn't
really expect to be taken seriously. Fear of an unpleasant
reaction, dislike or disapproval can prevent management
staff from effectively applying their leadership skills.
Alternatively, fear of rejection or retaliation may stop
some employees from calling a person on inappropriate behaviour
or perhaps inhibit them from presenting creative ideas.
During
the workshop, participants will discover the difference
between assertive and aggressive behaviour. They learn to
depersonalize issues keeping them in a professional context.
Role-playing real life situations whether at work, home
or in the community, allows practice of: selecting appropriate
strategies and methods to deal with problems, anticipating
a response, and keeping the lines of communication professional
and clear.
Participants will learn that issues must be treated objectively
even when assertion of authority may lead to confrontation.
The purpose is to present the criteria for developing and
maintaining a win-win relationship when negotiating difficult
problems.
Anger and Conflict Management
Fisher and Jury in their book, "Getting to Yes",
refer to conflict as a growth industry. Managing conflict
effectively is one of the essential communication skills
of the future. In the work place we need to capitalize on
the diversity and differing viewpoints of others to increase
group involvement, understanding and commitment.
The goals of this workshop are to identify the specific
changes needed to deal with conflict more effectively, make
use of communication strategies to achieve control over
anger, and to deal with angry and irrational people in a
calm and competent manner.
Participants
will learn to differentiate between language that fosters
co-operation and value-loaded language that increases the
potential for conflict. By applying common interest bargaining
strategies rather than power-based and oppositional bargaining,
we expand on the six steps of problem-solving to enhance
the results of the work group, and to foster co-operative
rather than competitive working relationships.
Effective Communication /
Building Co-operative Relationships
"How can I give negative feedback and still maintain
a positive relationship?" The purpose of this one-day
workshop is to learn the language of productive and respectful
communication, avoid power struggles, build co-operation
and promote understanding between colleagues, clients and
staff.
Certain
concepts are essential to the process such as: what the
barriers are to communicating with difficult people, and
understanding how individuals vary in their perceptions
and points of view. Recognizing that anger and power struggles
are counter-productive to effective communication, participants
are introduced to the methods of expressing anger, needs
and negative feelings in a responsible manner. As well,
they learn how to respond successfully to critical people.
Using
discussions, role-play, case studies and group work, participants
learn to: deal with difficult people, take charge of responses
to negative situations to produce a positive outcome, apply
problem-solving strategies to resolve current issues, and
set appropriate limits within relationships.
Job
Search Seminar
For entry level, administrative and hourly employees who
are affected by a company restructuring, we offer one, two,
three and four day workshops on how to run an effective
job search in today's market.
We endeavour
to build motivation through in-depth discussions of the
most relevant topics: "Change and Transition",
"Financial Concepts", "Career Planning",
"Resume Writing" and "Interview Skills".
Each participant will receive and begin working through
the 300 page hands-on workbook: "Career Transition
Manual". In addition, each person will also receive
a finished, definitive resume (50 hard copies plus disk),
cover letters, and research information.
This
seminar/workshop is highly interactive and can also include
one-on-one counselling as an adjunct.
Mediation / Conflict Resolution
(Corporate)
Mediation works best when communications are poor, hidden
interests hinder negotiations, deadlocks are occurring,
and/or negative behaviour is creating barriers.
Our
mediation services in the corporate sector reach across
all areas; from Management/Union disputes to workplace conflict.
With a highly qualified mediation team, representing various
professions, we are able to encompass: mediation, arbitration,
negotiation, conciliation, counselling and critical incident
stress debriefing.
This
team approach (in an interactive format) benefits all parties
by: avoiding expensive litigation costs to reach mutually
beneficial solutions, maintaining respect and dignity for
all, and reducing counter-productive factors of emotional
and physical stress.
Executive Career Coaching