Training Courses

TRAINING

OUR TRAINING COURSES:

We specialise in developing training that is bespoke to your company at rates you can afford.  All our topics can be delivered as virtual training via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or on your premises or other venue. Our most popular workshop topics include:

People Management and Leadership

  • People Management  – new and aspiring managers
  • Coaching skills for managers
  • Recruitment, Selection and Induction
  • Performance Management  – including appraisals and employee engagement
  • Getting it right –  Disciplinary, Grievance and Capability procedures
  • HR Masterclasses for Managers – key topics for positive employee relations
  • Leadership Skills
  • Managing Change

Effective Communication Skills

  • Communication  – developing skills and confidence to communicate effectively
  • Honest conversations and feedback
  • Customer Service – developing excellence
  • Persuade, influence and negotiate for great results
  • Presentation skills and confident public speaking

Self Development and Team Work

  • Positive psychology
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Team work
  • Assertiveness skills
  • Introduction to Neuro Linguistic Programming
  • Resilience

Don’t worry if the topic you are looking for is not listed – these are simply our most requested topics. We can work with you to understand your learning and development need and create fantastic solutions for you.

Below you will find examples of the workshops we have created – but don’t forget, we have many more and can tailor content and delivery style to suit your needs.

Assertiveness

Duration:  ½ day workshop

 Why would you benefit from attending this workshop?

 This is a practical and supportive course which will help you feel more confident in your ability to handle difficult situations and communicate clearly. You will learn how to act more assertively in a variety of work settings, and with both colleagues and customers.

  • Be confident when interacting with colleagues, managers and customers
  • Become more effective at making requests of others
  • Be able to say ‘no’ to unreasonable demands and yet maintain good relationships
  • Influence even if you are not in a position of authority

 By the end of the course participants will be able to:-

  • recognise the key distinctions between passivity, aggression, manipulation and assertiveness
  • identify the kinds of beliefs that can help or hinder assertive behaviour
  • be aware of the situations that can trigger passive or aggressive responses in themselves
  • use assertive behaviour when making and refusing requests, disagreeing, responding to criticism or praise, and giving bad news
  • handle non-assertive behaviour from others
  • contribute assertively in team situations and projects – making your contribution while demonstrating respect for other views and ideas.

Building Resilience

Duration:  ½ day or full day workshop – content adapted to suit

Why would you need this workshop?

Resilience: “The quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and to come back stronger than ever”.

Resilience is far more than stress management – by acknowledging, understanding and building our mental and emotional resilience we can tackle stress, even learn to frame elements of stress more positively.  We can deal with long term issues and positively stretch ourselves in order to achieve our goals. Reaching and fulfilling our potential is an ingredient to a positive and happier life.

About the workshop:

A relaxed, participative and informative workshop packed with practical tools and techniques to get to grips with growing and expanding your resilience.

Gain a broader understanding of what undermines your resilience.  Take your power back for good.

We will cover:

  • Limiting beliefs, those thoughts that hold us back, create fearfulness and a sense of being stuck, and how to overcome them
  • Emotional control – how to maintain it and use it to enhance your performance and wellbeing
  • Being mindful, to be more present and gain perspective to avoid being overwhelmed
  • Listening and paying attention to our mind/body
  • Stretching ourselves and building new neural pathways to enable learning and growth
  • Creating realistic and achievable goals
  • Learning simple and effective tools for a more resilient you

Coaching Skills for Managers

Duration:  Full day workshop (half day awareness workshop can be adapted)

Why would you need this workshop?

There is no big argument about the power of using coaching as a management approach to support and improve performance.  There are plenty of studies that support this and if you have experienced a coaching approach of management you will be fully aware of the powerful impact it can have. 

This workshop looks at the skills, benefits and relevant uses of coaching to get great results from your team.

Coaching as a management style reaps performance rewards. It requires a shift in mindset, from managers being the centre of knowledge and power, to become the facilitators of growth and development of their team.  This is an ideal and extremely useful workshop for managers of people who want to improve motivation, engagement and work towards high performing teams.

 

About the workshop:

You will gain a sound knowledge of what coaching is (and what it isn’t) and the benefits of using a coaching approach as a manager.  This participative workshop will develop your transferable coaching skills and enhance your communication skills.  It will enable you to utilise your coaching skills to support your team in more structured review situations, in one to one’s or team meetings and, importantly, in every day on- the-job management. 

 

Course content will include:

  • Understanding the purpose and benefits of coaching
  • Coaching landscape – what is coaching and what is not
  • The power of unlocking potential, raising awareness, response”ability”
  • Goal orientated – an overview of the GROW model
  • Barriers to coaching and potential solutions
  • Where coaching can be used in the workplace
  • Personal action plan to support your coaching practice

Honest Conversations and Feedback

Duration:  ½ day workshop

Why would you benefit from attending this workshop?

Sometimes you must have conversations that are challenging or difficult for you.  Often these can be closely linked with emotions – ours and the potential emotional response of the other person.  As a manager, this might relate to the performance of a colleague or team member- the impact of not having the conversation could be long lasting and damaging to many.

Develop your skills and learn some structured methods to having these “honest” conversations to support you in the future.

Feedback is not just developmental, very often it should be positive and recognise the achievements of others.  How well do you do give feedback to others?

This workshop will dive into why, when and how you give feedback and support you in getting the best from others in a confident, genuine, assertive and hugely supportive way.

About the workshop:

Workshop content will include:

  • Why, when and how to give feedback
  • All about feedback – tips, guidance and how to frame it
  • Effective use of questions to gain understanding
  • Performance issues and what can impact on employee performance
  • A structure for honest conversations
  • Self-management tools
  • Communication tips to support effective delivery of feedback

Introduction to People Management

Duration:  2-day face to face workshop with up to 12 participants the option of virtual delivery through shorter workshops and with a smaller group.

About the workshop: This two-day participative and engaging workshop aims at preparing new managers more effectively for the role and responsibilities of being a manager. 

Managing people is highly rewarding, supporting peoples career progression, performance improvement and personal growth, and often a role that people are not as well prepared for as they could be.  The impact and influence of a manager is wide reaching and therefore vital to build competence and confidence in new managers to build and develop their team and individuals, manage performance, communicate, motivate and lead their teams.

Why would you need this workshop? This course is designed for those new to people management or wanting to refresh and improve their skills.  This is a relaxed and informative learning opportunity with an experienced manager, trainer and coach.

What will you learn? This is a great introduction to many key themes of management, allowing you to appreciate the role of a people manager.

Course content will include:

  • Core behaviours, characteristics and skills valued in a manager
  • Management Styles – Adapting and flexing your approach
  • Developing people and empowering people – situational leadership
  • Delegation essentials
  • Working with differences, identifying and maximising strengths
  • Developing a team and identifying potential dysfunctions
  • Motivation and engagement
  • Agile performance management
  • Constructive challenge
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Your personal development – action planning

Managing with Emotional Intelligence

Duration:  A one day face to face workshop with options for additional personality profiling or short virtual modules designed with your needs in mind.

Why would you benefit from attending this workshop? This learning will give you a greater understanding of yourself and others, helping you to recognise when and how you can adapt your approach for improved results.  Focusing on key elements of emotional intelligence and making a useful connection to practical day to day management and leadership.

Your impact and influence are wide reaching and what you do sets the scene and the culture within your team.  Increasing your self-awareness can lead to an improved understanding of how you lead and manage others, your reactions to challenge, pressure and stress.   This learning will help you understand your emotional reactions and their impact and importantly develop the ability to manage yourself for effectively.

About the workshop: This day is a relaxed, informative and participative learning opportunity.  The better we understand and develop emotional intelligence, the easier it becomes to understand our impact and modify our actions for improved results.  This insight can improve our relationships both personally and professionally, enhance wellbeing, increase confidence, reduce frustration and misunderstanding, potentially helping you avoid conflict and build on your appreciation of difference.

Workshop content will include:

  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Characteristics and impacts of Emotional Intelligence
  • Recognising and handling emotions
  • Derailers and how you lead
  • Strategies for behavioural change
  • Inter and intrapersonal communication
  • MBTI – Delving into personality
  • What this means for leading and managing effectively

Performance Management

Duration:  1, 2 or 3 day course depending on depth of content required

Why would you need this workshop?

 

Do you manage people? If so, you will know it is vital to create an environment in which people thrive, receive timely feedback, and the support to improve.  It is also important that conduct and performance issues are dealt with promptly and fairly.

About the workshop:

This is a masterclass in people management for those responsible for supervising and managing people.  You will leave with a higher level of knowledge about relevant employment law and how to apply it to those tricky cases.

But more than that, you will leave inspired to engage and lead your teams for higher performance. Led by an HR professional of 20+ years experience, this will be an interactive workshop where you will be encouraged to share and learn from the experience of all on the workshop, build new skills and gain new insights.

Course content will include:

  • Motivating and engaging people in your team
  • Developing an open and learning culture
  • Giving feedback with confidence
  • Appraisals and performance reviews
  • Recognising great performance
  • Managing poor conduct or performance
  • Formal investigations, disciplinary, grievance and capability procedures
  • Tips for preventing people management issues

Recruitment, Selection and Induction

Duration:  1 or 2 day workshop – content adapted to suit

Why would you benefit from attending this workshop?

If you are responsible for recruiting people into your organisation then you need this workshop. Good recruitment is vital for every organisation. It ensures that your team has the right skills and abilities for your organisation’s current and future needs and has an impact on the long-term success of the business. With the cost of recruitment starting at £5,000, much more if you count management time, lost productivity and time taken for new recruits to become productive, geting it right is essential.

About the workshop:

Workshop content will include:

  • Understanding the importance of getting it right
  • Recruitment and the law
  • Getting it right from the beginning – how do we know we are recruiting for the right skills for the job?
  • Top tips for creating useful job descriptions and person specifications
  • Finding candidates and shortlisting for interview
  • Avoiding discrimination and bias
  • Designing interview questions and exercises that will find you the right candidate – using handy models like C.A.R.L
  • Interview skills – manage yourself and the candidates to get the information you need
  • Key induction steps for a successful start

Remote Management

Duration:  Varied learning options available and the team can bespoke this workshop to suit your needs.

About the workshop: This workshop is an introduction to supporting your team remotely and will look at skills, behaviours, and approaches for the effective management of a dispersed or remote team.

Why would you need this workshop? With remote working likely to be the norm in the future, organisations will benefit from ensuring a manager’s role clearly leads on the people front and prioritises connecting, coaching, collaborating and team engaging.

Managing a team takes effort, making each person feel valued and important takes thought, attention and action and doing this remotely requires added skill and confidence.

This workshop will set the scene and support you in building current and future management capability, awareness, and skill around remote management. It’s not something that should be left to chance, your people are too important!

 Course content will include:

  • Understand the barriers to working remotely and how to overcome them
  • Appreciate the skills and behaviours required for effective remote working (both as a manager and a member of staff)
  • Recognise potential for own unconscious bias to impact team dynamic
  • Appreciate the emphasis required on communication and enhance your communication toolkit
  • Understand the different preferences that individual team members may have and how this affects the team dynamics
  • Have a set of tips and tools to make remote management more effective
  • Have a personal action plan for further development of skill set

 

Unconscious Bias

Duration:  ½ day workshop

Why would you benefit from attending this workshop?

On average our brains receive 11 million pieces of information per second – however, we can only capture around 50 pieces of information and actively process about 7.  So, we take short cuts.

Unconscious bias is an example of such a short cut – it allows us to make quick judgements, quick decisions and take action. This is obviously very helpful in life or death situations where you must quickly decide what to do or whether to trust the person in front of you or not…. not so helpful when making strategic decisions, assessing client need or making recruitment decisions! Our background, personal experiences, societal stereotypes and cultural context all play a part in shaping our perceptions of others and therefore our unconscious biases.

This half day interactive workshop will help you understand how our biases are formed, how we can become more aware of them, our triggers, and how as individuals and a team you can reduce the impact of bias on the outcomes for your colleagues and customers and improve your decision making.

By the end of the course you will be able to: –

  •  Identify what Unconscious Bias is and why it happens
  • Recognise common forms of Unconscious Bias
  • Recognise how you, your colleagues and customers can be affected by Unconscious Bias
  • Identify steps to manage Unconscious Bias in your workplace decisions