Special Topic Workshops
State and local governments often face critical training needs that require customized programming for many different levels of employees. To meet these needs, the Institute offers a wide variety of special workshops—from business grammar reviews to conflict management and negotiations to strategic planning—that are tailored to specific client requests.
Meet your government's particular training needs with these interactive and engaging workshops. Develop a customized curriculum by combining several related workshops, and design the format for a one-, two-, or three-day training session conducted onsite. Training can also be directed to different levels of employees. Please use the contact information above to inquire about pricing.
Find out how your government can benefit from special topic workshops.
Local government supervisors can gain the fundamental tools and knowledge they need to achieve the goals of their teams in this training. Topics include the supervisor’s job in a changing environment; supervisory leadership; planning work and time; selecting, orienting, and training employees; evaluating performance; communicating, counseling, and mentoring employees; resolving employee grievances and complaints; working with the budget; and ethics in the workplace.
Consider the Institute's five-day Succeeding as a Supervisor course for a more in-depth approach to developing supervision skills.
Managers and supervisors learn techniques for effectively implementing change in their organizations during this workshop. Participants will review change management theory and discuss the impact of change on employees. Strategies for addressing change resistance are discussed and practiced. This course utilizes class discussion, case studies, role plays, and video learning techniques.
In targeting specific interpersonal, written, oral, group, and organizational communication skills for improvement, this course demonstrates to managers how to maintain positive workplace relationships through communication. They learn solutions for achieving more effective communication in the workplace, benefitting both management and the individual employee. Practical and interactive exercises provide participants with the opportunity to reflect on their communication skills and become more effective communicators at work.
Supervisors, managers, administrators, and other team leaders can hone their skills in resolving and avoiding conflicts between employees in this course. Participants will learn about effective use of conflict management tools and strategies in the context of a supervisory relationship. The course focuses on resolving personality conflicts and more substantial conflicts. It also addresses assessment, preventive approaches, and appropriate responses.
Cultural Diversity and Sensitivity
This unique course provides participants with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to communicate and cooperate effectively across cultural barriers. Participants discuss the advantages of having a diverse workplace and how best to incorporate individuals with different talents and experiences into their teams. The course is held in an inclusive and enriching atmosphere in order to encourage open conversation about sensitive issues.
Customer Service for Employees
Local government employees in this course come to understand how providing excellent service to external customers relies on a structure of internal processes. This course examines internal customer relationships as supervisors and managers work to break down barriers between divisions and departments. Employees learn how to examine the needs of internal customers to allow for better internal working relationships and more efficient processes, ultimately resulting in seamless services provided to external customers. In addition, techniques for handling difficult customers are addressed.
Customer service managers will find in this program the tools they need to effectively lead a customer service team—a task that is becoming increasingly demanding. Participants learn the skills necessary to create, manage, and maintain a productive, customer-focused climate. The course addresses the requirement to manage the team and to provide coaching support for the individuals.
Managers in this workshop discover techniques for handling potentially difficult situations when discussing work performance, giving negative feedback, and disciplining team members. This class provides the tools necessary to dramatically reduce problem behaviors and performance issues.
Elected Officials and Staff Relationships
By exploring their different roles and perspectives, this workshop can help reduce friction and miscommunication between county or municipal officials and local government staff. Participants will look at ways of finding commonality between the two groups, resulting in improved public service delivery. The distinction between policymaking and administration and other council/commission-staff related issues is explored using exercises, case studies, and group discussion.
Local government leaders examine the importance of ethical conduct in the administration of their public duties in this essential course. Participants gain knowledge about state ethics laws and regulations that apply to employees. They also discuss ethical dilemmas that often confront government employees and the value of strong local ethics ordinances.
Managers and human resources specialists in this course can acquire critical interviewing skills that will help them ask the right questions and make the right decisions. Participants will sharpen their abilities in open-ended questioning, active listening, and reading body language. They will learn to apply these techniques to various types of business interviews, from hiring and coaching to assessment and termination. They will also receive clear guidance on key legal issues and specific do's and don'ts.
This course addresses the essential skills of successful leadership that go beyond technical expertise, such as the ability to inspire and direct others. Participants in the course will evaluate their own leadership perspective—how they see life, analyze problems, negotiate issues, make decisions, and interact with others. They will also explore the value of good communication and the importance of maintaining relationships.
Leading during Difficult Times - New!
Organizational leaders will delve into the effects of declining economic conditions in local government in this workshop and discuss how to mitigate the uncertainty and anxiety these conditions can create. Participants will explore ways in which the possibilities of cutbacks, reorganizations or restructuring, job reassignments, and radical changes in service delivery can be opportunities for making positive change. They will also learn how to address the possibilities of declining employee morale and productivity. This course applies current economic realities to best practice examples, case studies, and interactive discussions intended to give participants the necessary tools and confidence to successfully lead their teams through periods of limited resources.
Elected officials and managers will get training in an important skill for leaders in today’s world—interacting adeptly with the media and getting across their organization’s message effectively. This course helps participants understand the motivations of journalists and how best to communicate with them. Participants will learn how to best prepare for interviews, how to answer questions carefully and succinctly, and how to stay on message.
Managers and supervisors in this workshop will address what truly motivates today’s workforce and learn low- and no-cost methods to reward and recognize staff. Participants will learn how to build and harness their influence to motivate their teams and explore the powerful role of informal leaders. They will discuss the difficulties of maintaining morale when organizations are having to do more with less and how to keep a focused staff during major organizational changes.
Managers in this workshop discover ways to reap significant returns through improved performance and employee retention by investing time and resources in their people. This course is designed to deliver outstanding workplace tools in order to build return on investment (ROI). Managers will learn the essence of coaching high performance teams, coaching for succession planning, and improving crucial communication skills to support the mission of the organization.
Performance Appraisals for Managers
Managers learn to refine and maintain their systems for effective employee management in this workshop by setting and tracking goals to meet community and personal objectives. Managers learn how to conduct performance appraisals, and they discover techniques to effectively coach, train, and support their team members to top performance.
Managers learn how to maximize the potential of their team by evaluating performance in their employees in this course. Training covers different types of performance measures, and participants learn to identify what they need to measure and how to go about doing it by writing a comprehensive set of workload, efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity measures. They will also explore benchmarking as a strategy to improve services.
Organizational leaders in this workshop will focus on techniques for maintaining their authority and producing results by transforming their power into influence. They will discuss ways of selecting an appropriate influence strategy and acting assertively. Studying power and influence will allow subsequent discussions of ethics.
Managers can learn to use a variety of thinking styles, methodologies, and creative processes to achieve their organization’s mission through this training. They discuss strategies for enhancing their critical thinking skills and finding creative solutions to problems. Participants learn to leverage their personal thinking preferences using tools and techniques based on cutting-edge technologies.
Managers can enhance their decision-making strategies in this course by adopting quantitative and qualitative techniques to evaluate alternatives and recommend the best choice. They will conduct a task analysis in order to generate a network diagram, Gantt chart, and Risk Analysis. Given project tasks, cost data, and resource information, they will analyze all resource conflicts and develop the project budget.
Participants in this one-day course will learn how to better convey their messages when speaking to groups and presenting ideas, concepts, projects, recommendations, and reports. Participants will gain skills in developing presentation content and delivering an effective presentation, and they will receive tips for dealing with the media. The course explores different speaking styles and varying preparations required for neutral, friendly, and hostile audiences. All participants will have the opportunity to make a presentation during the class session.
Line-level employees or managers and mixed groups of participants in this sexual harassment workshop learn the potentially devastating consequences of offensive behavior, both to the organization and to the offender. When combined with a widely distributed sexual harassment policy and an effective reporting system, the Sexual Harassment Prevention program may provide valuable protection to the organization under the "reasonable care" standard. The workshop incorporates instructor-led discussions, role-plays, video vignettes, and small-group exercises into a comprehensive treatment of this important topic.
Participants will learn a system for establishing a common direction for their organization to help guide future activity and plan for long-term health. This course will introduce participants to the principles and methods of strategic planning for organizations and will make them aware of various types of plans and planning terms. They will also learn to critique existing plans and design a planning process for their organization or a case study organization of their choosing.
The tools and techniques in this course will help participants understand and diagnose the stress in their lives, identify the stressors that can and cannot be controlled, and assess their readiness to make changes. There are methods to help participants develop a systematic approach to eliminate stressors, manage their time, and implement short- and long-term coping mechanisms.
Upper and middle managers in this course will have an introduction to the concepts behind succession planning and their role as managers in it. They will learn the importance of training and developing future leaders so that their organization has “bench strength,” ready when it is needed.
Managers and supervisors in this class will become versed in the appropriate uses of teams in the workplace. In understanding how to promote cooperation, trust, and cohesiveness, they will be better able to advance the goals of the organization. Participants will be exposed to current literature and best practices concerning the successful development of teams and become comfortable giving other team members feedback.
In this course, participants gain the personal insight and practical skills to develop and implement a framework for successful time management. Participants will adopt proven tools and techniques to make better day-to-day choices about investing their time and achieving their goals, improving both employee output and organizational competitiveness.
Personnel conducting internal training in their organizations discover the conditions and ways in which adults learn best in this course. Trainers will develop instructional techniques tailored to their content. They will also demonstrate their teaching style, which will be evaluated during practice sessions. Finally, they will discover ways to assess learner needs and to establish evaluation criteria for training.
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