Our Open Programmes and Conference Facilities

Self Esteem
Why is it that some people appear to have more confidence and presence in a room? This powerful half day workshop explores the interesting topic of self esteem in a supportive and productive environment.

Key Objectives:
• To recognise our current level of self esteem
• Identify contributing factors
• Remind ourselves of our unique achievements and qualities
• Learn valuable techniques to boost our self esteem and confidence

Customer Service
Do you know or work with a 'Customer Service Role Model'... someone who always seems to get it right? This punchy and engaging half day workshop will focus on improving those all important customer relationships.

Key Objectives:
• Communicate effectively to enhance the customer relationship
• Use appropriate language to better manage customer expectations
• Recognise unhelpful clichés and word patterns
• Deal with customer objections confidently

Assertiveness
Do you sometimes come away from an important situation wishing you'd been more assertive? Our thought provoking and fun half day workshop explores this interesting and much talked about topic.

Key Objectives:
• To recognise personal barriers to being assertive
• To use assertive communication in a confident way
• To display assertive body language
• Increasing our ability to say 'no' without feeling uncomfortable

Emotional Intelligence for Managers
Partners in a large accounting firm who scored high on emotional intelligence competencies added substantially more profit than those who lacked these competencies.
An analysis of 300 top executives from 15 global companies showed that it was emotional intelligence that distinguished the stars from the average performers.
Senior managers in a division of a large food and beverage company who had developed emotional intelligence competencies outperformed managers in the other divisions by an average 20%.
These are not fanciful headlines but are real findings from research conducted in the field of Emotional Intelligence over the last few decades.
Paper after paper has demonstrated a correlation between some/all of the emotional intelligence competencies and performance; and it continually appears to be a much stronger predictor of success than general IQ and/or past employment experience.
We have developed an emotional intelligence questionnaire and half day introductory workshop designed to help managers to start thinking about their current levels of competence and how they might develop emotional intelligence at work.

Key Objectives:
• To develop a clear understanding of the core components of emotional intelligence and the rationale for developing these competencies
• To complete the questionnaire and receive feedback on the implications of their scores
• To consider how they can develop their emotional intelligence and commit to development actions that can be undertaken within the workplace

Managing People in Times of Change
Change is now a way of life for many organisations, but the difficult trading conditions of the current recession further compound the need for organisations to downsize, re-engineer, merge, improve and renew.
What is often overlooked in the drive for organisation wide transformation is that change is a very human and intensely personal experience. For change to occur, each individual employee must think, feel or do something different.
Whilst going through the process of change, individuals will experience a range of emotions that may include confusion, anger, uncertainty, euphoria, disengagement, guilt and maybe even excitement. The particular mix of feelings and how they are expressed being unique to each individual.
The implications are clear. To effectively manage people in times of change, managers must have a good understanding of the human, and specifically psychological, aspects of change. They must also have a willingness to engage with employees as individuals and adopt appropriate person centred strategies as they guide people through the change process.

Key Objectives:
• To appreciate the psychological impact of change and the range of reactions to it
• To understand why people can resist change and what a manager can do to positively affect this
• To recognise the early signs of conflict and act to avoid this
• To reflect on the managers own reaction to the changes and how this might affect interactions with others
• To recognise survivor syndrome and be equipped with ideas to manage this

Effective Meetings
How often are the meetings you attend really useful and constructive?
How quickly do they help you reach decisions or actions?
Do they always run as you would like them to?
Meetings should always be useful, and can be too. Successful meetings do not just happen. You need to work at them and keep reviewing and improving.

Key Objectives:
• Understand the way effective meetings are run
• Be aware of the necessary preparation when organising a meeting
• Improve your skills in participating in meetings
• Understand the role of the Chairperson

Time Management
This highly participative half day workshop lets you take on the challenge of planning for one month in the life of a busy manager. This business simulation tests three key skills:
Prioritising, Planning and Delegation.

Key Objectives:
• How to prioritise using short, medium and long-term objectives
• To understand the difference between the urgent and the important
• How to plan a diary for maximum efficiency
• The key factors of good delegation
• To use your time more effectively

Feedback Skills
Managers often find giving feedback a bit of a problem. Yet giving good quality, constructive feedback is one of the quickest and easiest ways of improving performance, relationships and motivation. Helping managers acquire incisive and practical feedback skills will give them significant assistance.

Key Objectives:
• Establish better working relationships because of excellent interpersonal skills
• Develop the performance of staff naturally, because good quality feedback has a better effect on performance than poor quality feedback
• Become more credible as leaders, due to better relationships and team's performance

Employment Law
The participative workshop will give people some practical advice and guidance on employing members of staff. It will include a range of learning methods; including group discussions, exercises and activities.
The workshop will cover all aspects of employment legislation that apply through out the life cycle of employing members of staff.

Key Objectives:
• Recruitment and Interviewing - finding the right person for the job
• Induction - starting the member of staff
• Employment - looking after the member of staff when they are working for you
• Leaving - what to do if a member of staff leaves or they need to be dismissed

Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) Team Building
The Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI), based on Relationship Awareness Theory developed by Dr Elias Porter, is different from the MBTI which examines how a person prefers to be - their behavioural traits.

The SDI goes one step deeper by helping individuals to understand the inner motivational values (known as the Motivational Value Systems) that may drive their behaviour. When individuals achieve this, they take a major step forward in understanding both other people and themselves; essential to building effective relationships.

Finance
The aim of this course is to give those not yet involved in finance an insight into accounts and budgeting.

Key Objectives:
• To gain an understanding of how money works within a business and their role and responsibilities
• Be able to follow a basic set of accounts and understand basic financial issues such as cash flow and contingency planning
• Understand the importance of monitoring and reviewing a financial plan
• Be able to look at a financial plan as an integral part of the overall development plan