Work Transitions
Workplaces change in response to changing markets, societal needs, legal regulations, leadership styles, and much more in order to be sustainable as a business, organisation, institution, government department, or other entity. We can assist with the management of the change process and the people resources in order to make it a successful and enduring transition.
Seminars
- Personality profiling using the Enneagram to enable the participants to see how they communicate through the filter of their personality;
- Learning techniques to create and participate in highly productive teams based on Enneagram results;
- Learning how to communicate more effectively with different personality types;
- Tools and strategies to prevent and resolve conflict based on personality types;
- Discovering techniques to bring out their strongest leadership skills;
- Developing strategies to work effectively through the areas that often cause derailment.
Learning Outcomes:
- Communicate with confidence to colleagues and clients at all levels;
- Learn to manage conflict at work and take responsibility for their contribution to a situation;
- Increase motivation in themselves and their team to increase performance;
- Learn how to really listen and develop empathy for clients and colleagues;
- Discover how to be more pro-active and anticipate problems;
- Learn how to capitalise on their strengths and work on their developmental areas;
- Develop thinking and decision skills.
If you are someone who is juggling a demanding job with a busy home life and are keen to learn how to keep enough fuel in your tank to manage the responsibilities in your life, then this workshop is for you. Demands of work, such as deadlines and meetings, can clash with the needs of raising children or caring for aging parents and you may feel like there’s nothing you can do to change it. This workshop will offer some practical strategies to alleviate the everyday stresses and help you gain a healthy work/life/family balance, hence providing you with renewed energy and lasting resilience.
Importance of Balance
Stress caused through lack of balance in our life can be hazardous to our physical and mental health. Recent discoveries in psychology have revealed practical strategies that are capable of reducing the effect of negative emotions, leaving us calm and in control. Some of these personal coping strategies such as CBT, Visualisation, Breathing, Meditation, Art therapy and humour can reduce the negative effects of a lack of balance in our life. With balance, healthy relationships can be developed, maintained and restored.
Download the Work/Life Seminar Brochure [PDF File size: 936KB]
Providing support to women in the workplace has many benefits to the organisation and to the individual. A study undertaken by Catalyst in 2004 found companies with a higher proportion of women in leadership performed better financially than those with low representations of women. Other positive business outcomes include; improved marketing strategies, new product development and a broader clientele. Furthermore, supporting women in the workplace can result in the attraction and retention of diverse staff and better staff morale.
Expected Learning Outcomes:
- Distinguish mentoring from coaching and training
- Describe different purposes for mentoring programs
- Identify the mentoring models
- Describe effective mentoring
- Distinguish the qualities of a good mentor
- Determine what makes a good mentee
- Identify the stages in a mentoring relationship
- Identify the code of ethics
- Understand the process for matching mentors and mentees
- Identify the pitfalls of mentoring partnerships
The program is a comprehensive tool. It includes:
- Information about mentoring, and about structured mentoring programs;
- A process for determining the goals and objectives of mentoring in your organisation;
- Consulting support for the coordinator of the program to plan, implement and evaluate mentoring;
- Comprehensive training for both mentors and mentees, to build their skills and understanding to make the most of the mentoring relationship;
- Assistance in matching of mentoring partners and coordinating and monitoring progress.
Using art to teach employees about the value of teamwork, this seminar is run by artists and psychologists to engage the participants fully. Whether it is painting on a canvas, or trying your hand at sculpting, your team will learn about team work whilst creating a piece of art for the office.
Importance of Teamwork:
People can often accomplish much more by working together than they can by working independently. This is called synergy. For good psychological health, it is important to feel useful and included, and from this perspective, it is also worthwhile encouraging people to work together rather than alone. An effective team can combine unique skills and personalities of individuals to achieve shared goals and objectives.
Organisations can reap significant benefits by providing a conducive environment where people can work together in teams. Understanding the importance of ground rules and shared values, the processes involved in working as a team, and the need for team action plans and follow up is essential in high performing teams in the workplace.
Download the Art of Teamwork seminar brochure [PDF File size: 208KB]
Participants will start with a survey to establish for themselves where they sit in terms of their own level of emotional intelligence. This awareness will be the foundation for developing further skills in managing and optimizing emotion in interactions at work.
Importance of Emotionally Intelligent Employees:
Emotional intelligence has been found to be more important than IQ in determining career success and satisfaction in life. Emotional intelligence is important to managers as unlike IQ which is innate, emotional intelligence is 50% innate and 50% learnt; so leaders in the workplace can have a significant impact on the development and productivity of their employees. Emotional intelligence at work is about having a set of life skills that helps employees be more aware of themselves and makes interacting with others more effective and fulfilling. The higher the level of emotional intelligence, the higher the morale, productivity, safety, retention, and ultimately, the bottom line. Topics include: recognizing and labeling feelings; emotional development; emotional conditioning; feelings in the subconscious; directing emotional behaviour; feedback through feelings; motivating through feelings; passionate about goals and managing emotional stress.
Using an experiential approach to learning leadership skills, participants will engage in a wide range of workplace scenarios that will give them an opportunity to emerge themselves fully in a work situation and then reflect and analyse on an outcome.
Importance of Leadership:
Research shows that leadership style affects many aspects of work such as morale, productivity, safety, customer satisfaction, and so forth. A warm and firm leadership style is based on respect rather than control and encourages healthy work relationships. There are times at work when leaders need to respond emotionally and express empathy to solve an issue and there are times when leaders need to be logical and rational and be open and firm about acceptable and unacceptable work behaviour. Understanding the nature of issues, whether emotional or rational, can assist greatly in the way a leader manages. Furthermore, when a leader can understand and appreciate the unique personality and temperament of each of their team members, then they are in a better position to optimize work performance, match roles to skills, resolve conflict efficiently and effectively, and much more.
Role model many different techniques used in expert psychological practice to understand employees and solve simple to complex emotional and social problems.
Importance of problem solving:
In order to achieve work outcomes, leaders and team members inevitably will encounter problems, conflicts and issues which will require resolution as work life involves many and varied interpersonal interactions on a daily basis. By learning how cognitive processes occur, participants will gain insight into the importance of the sub conscious and how it often drives decision making through social conditioning. Sub conscious processes such as perception and association, habits, traditions, beliefs, values, prejudices, expectations and blind spots will be analysed. Feelings can be an asset or a liability depending on how they are managed in the work environment. Sometimes people allow themselves to be hijacked by emotion, which requires more logic, and vice versa; sometimes people are not sensitive enough, which requires more empathy. Participants will gain an invaluable insight into how to increase awareness, regulation and optimization of emotion in their work relationships. Some decision making requires working with difficult people and resolving conflict. A process of conflict resolution will be taught through role plays. Leaders and team members can benefit enormously by learning some counselling and coaching techniques such as active listening, recognizing signs of mental health issues, and when to get outside psychological help.
By analyzing a variety of scenarios, participants will gain a wealth of knowledge and skills to optimize performance in the workplace.
Importance of Performance Management:
An effective performance management system links an individual’s performance, and in some cases, team’s performance as well, to organizational goals. A regular formal appraisal process is essential for clarifying expectations, time frames, skills and knowledge required for the job, resources, etc. but equally important is an ongoing feedback process which encourages open two way communication so that goals are reached and healthy relationships are maintained. Giving and receiving feedback is a powerful process that enhances communication and relationships. It is a process which involves assertion rather than aggression, emotional honesty rather than assumptions, empathy rather than judgment, cooperation rather than defensiveness, and much more. Stress can have a large impact on how feedback is given and received, and understanding how to strike a healthy balance of stress to stay motivated and to be in control is crucial to effective communication at work.
Ever wondered what really motivates people at work? In this seminar, participants will delve into the psyche and gain a thorough understanding of what makes each person unique and how to tap into that uniqueness.
Importance of Motivation:
Research shows that motivated individuals have a number of personal characteristics which include; self confidence, perseverance, resilience, accountability and adaptability. These characteristics are developed when there is a relationship based on trust rather than fear. Fear often disables people and stops them from achieving goals. Fear causes anxiety in the workplace, insecurity in a team, lack of cooperation, put downs, bitching, withdrawal (absenteeism), dogmatism (do it my way or the high way) and so forth. Motivated individuals are more likely to achieve goals and maintain healthy relationships with others in the work environment hence increasing work performance. In this module, each of these personal characteristics will be analysed and then applied to specific work situations.
Over 25% of the population in Australia will be over the age of 60 in the next 10 years. An ageing workforce brings unique challenges and opportunities for organisations. One of the opportunities is to establish an organisational Alumni so that employees transitioning to retirement can maintain their connectivity with the organisation through involvement in a mentor program. This has organisational benefits as organisations can retain valued employees on flexible work arrangements who have attained an expert knowledge base and extensive experience from years in the business. It also has unique personal benefits for the individuals who have the opportunity to continue employment flexibly whilst attending to other needs – family time, travel, “the bucket list”, care responsibilities and so forth.
Expected Learning Outcomes:
- Distinguish mentoring from coaching and training
- Describe different purposes for mentoring programs
- Identify the mentoring models
- Describe effective mentoring
- Distinguish the qualities of a good mentor
- Determine what makes a good mentee
- Identify the stages in a mentoring relationship
- Identify the code of ethics
- Understand the process for matching mentors and mentees
- Identify the pitfalls of mentoring partnerships
The program is a comprehensive tool. It includes:
- Information about mentoring, and about structured mentoring programs;
- A process for determining the goals and objectives of mentoring in your organisation;
- Consulting support for the coordinator of the program to plan, implement and evaluate mentoring;
- Comprehensive training for both mentors and mentees, to build their skills and understanding to make the most of the mentoring relationship;
- Assistance in matching of mentoring partners and coordinating and monitoring progress.
In life we don’t always have control over what happens, but we do have control over how we respond. Being resilient is a way of responding that leads to positive outcomes, such as healthy relationships, success and happiness. Knowing that resilience is a response that has such wonderful benefits, how then do we as parents and carers develop and encourage resilience in those we care about?
As people we care for grow, change and develop we find there is a need for a process that supports, guides and challenges them in a way that enhances their resilience to obstacles, transitions and setbacks in life. One way to increase resilience in those we care about is through coaching. Coaching is a process that is driven by the person who wants support. In longer term relationships, such as those between parents and their children, there are normally many interactions, thus providing more opportunities for coaching on resilience.
The seminar will cover the following areas:
Raising a Resilient child
Stress – Teaching children how to manage stress through preparation, personal control and relaxation techniques.
Developing networks and support for children – How to make and keep friends. What is bullying? What to do when your child is bullied. What to do when your child is the bully. How to talk to your child about bullying and other social/emotional issues; such as dealing with transitions and change, lowered self esteem, coping with challenges and obstacles in life, making decisions, coping with loss and grief, building efficacy and belief in themselves, achieving their goals, and much more.
Increasing your child’s emotional intelligence – The primary focus is on how to coach your child on the many and varied social and emotional encounters they experience as part of their day to day interactions with siblings in the family, friends at school, mates on a sports team, and so forth. The main skill gained from this seminar is coaching children, in particular active listening and powerful questioning. This process of coaching helps children learn to be resilient, accountable and be able to make and keep friends and enjoy healthy family relationships.
The seminar is suitable for parents/carers who have primary and teenage children.
If you already find that you are listening and talking to your 3 year old child each day and want to learn more about how to coach them really well, then come along.
If you have adult children who need your support, but you don’t know how to coach them on things like transitions in their career, separation and divorce, etc. then it’s never too late to learn.
Participants will receive a useful contacts list for community resources, a booklist with suggestions for great reads for children and resilience on a range of resilience issues as well as many tip sheets including: Striking a healthy Work/Life/Family Balance, Dealing with bullying at school, Parenting in culturally diverse families, Drugs and your teenager, Helping children cope with nightmares and fears, Making and Keeping Friends, Teaching kids to be considerate and grateful, Coping with grief, Talking about love, Helping a depressed or anxious family member/friend, Moving with children, Making a smooth transition to parenthood, Peer pressure and influence, Pros and Cons of rewarding children, Starting School, Separation, divorce, step families, Stop shouting at the children, Sibling rivalry, Parenting a shy child, Finding other strategies to manage children’s behaviour, Tackling Tantrums, Strategies to cope with a travelling Spouse.
Download the Coaching for Greater Resilience Brochure [PDF File size: 1.9MB]
Diversity at Work
This program is for those interested in encouraging diversity at work and in the community to ensure equity and harmony in the workplace through understanding and respecting different cultures, people’s choices, special needs, personal situations, and language capabilities. Organisations and individuals can achieve this by:
- Identifying unconscious bias in recruitment, career management, promotion and retention.
- Having transparent discussions that highlight the benefit of a diverse and inclusive workplace.
- Valuing individual skills that employees bring to the workplace including language, culture and international experiences.
- Ensuring flexible work options are available.
- Making arrangements for employees with special needs.
- Taking steps to prevent discrimination and harassment and bullying in the workplace.
Resources
Tip sheets
Bullying at work tip sheet [PDF File size: 154 KB]
Coping with a growing workload [PDF File size: 68 KB]