Custom Training
We can help you:
- identify your training needs,
- deliver training, and
- assess the results.
Instructors
Our instructors and trainers typically possess advanced degrees and/or specialized training in their areas of expertise, combined with a record of successful training and experience.
Training Locations
We can provide on-site training with flexible scheduling to accommodate your production and operating hours. Classes can also be held in the Plecker Workforce Center at the Weyers Cave campus, the Augusta Center at Augusta Health, and the Harrisonburg Center.
Pre-employment Training
We can also work with your Human Resources team to provide training and orientation activities to help you hire the right people.
Customized Training Topics
Below are some of the seminars offered through Blue Ridge Community College's Workforce Training area. Any one of these can be tailored to your needs in terms of focus, length, timing and location.
Looking for a training program that's not on our list? Simply contact Training Coordinator Mary Sullivan at 540/453-2320 or sullivanm@brcc.edu.
The Art of Negotiating
Study “getting to yes” in the management of people, sales contracts and disputes. Topics:
- Positional bargaining “win-lose” framework
- Principled negotiation “win-win” outcomes
- Alternative communication “negotiator’s dilemma”
- Difficult people choices “getting past no”
Building High Performance Teams
Discover how to get the most from your employees and the teams they work with. Application is most effective when supervisors and co-workers attend this workshop. Topics:
- Increase efficiency to strengthen your business and increase profits
- Improve individual and team performance
- Discover tools that improve group decision-making
- Learn why some groups fail while others succeed
Business Writing That Works
Effectively communicate your ideas in the workplace by clearly stating your message. This seminar will help you:
- Make grammar work for you
- Organize memos, reports and e-mails
- Understand the secrets of editing and proofreading
- Cope with writer’s block
Coaching for Improved Performance
This seminar will introduce participants to the principles of coaching/counseling employees and will provide an opportunity for participants to build coaching skills. This seminar will help you understand:
- You cannot coach attitudes, only actions and behaviors
- How to identify the right behaviors, before coaching
- The optimal approach to the employee
- How to create a performance contract
- How to talk to the employee using power language
Command Spanish
Command Spanish is a language program for non-Spanish speaking professionals in a variety of occupations. This seminar will:
- Introduce participants to Command Spanish
- Explain how professionals can effectively communicate with Spanish-speaking employees, clients, and customers
- Introduce a Spanish vocabulary of approximately 30 useful phrases
Communicating Across Power Lines
Learn how to develop the valuable skill of being able to communicate clearly, tactfully, and effectively with all levels of employees in an open communication environment. Topics:
- Demonstrate good listening techniques
- Recognize when to use different methods to be effective
- Develop an awareness of your audience and learn how to craft the message appropriately
- Learn techniques for keeping control of the situation
Communicating with Confidence
- In the professional world, communication competence is a prized possession.
- Uncover what you can do to improve your delivery skills
- Discover how to overcome stage fright
- Learn how to use effective presentation organization and delivery skills
Conducting Effective Performance Reviews
Learn and practice the rules of the road for conducting reviews. Find out how to separate this event from yearly raises and how to connect the review to the coaching process. Bring a sample of your company's form, if you have one. Frequency and format(s) for the Performance Reviews will be discussed. Topics:
- Preparation, the key to a successful Performance Review
- How to set the stage with the employee to ensure success
- Making the vital "coaching for improved performance" connection
- How to make sure the employee doesn't see the review as criticism
- Structuring the conversation effectively
Dealing with Difficult People
Learn to achieve win-win outcomes in your interpersonal relationships. Topics include:
- Approaches to problem-solving, decision-making, and resolving disputes
- Emphasis on listening, setting limits, and responding to interpersonal conflict messages
- Application to relationships in the workplace, family, and community
Designing Eye-Catching Brochures & Newsletters
This seminar will introduce you to design and layout concepts to improve the effectiveness of brochures and newsletters. Theoretical and practical aspects of print communication will be discussed. Topics:
- Layout design basics
- Using images for visual effect
- Utilizing type to sell your message
- Digital imaging and layout software
- Preparing files for printing
Effective Communication Skills for Women
Understanding how we are perceived and the differences and similarities in how we communicate are helpful tools in the workplace. This seminar will help you learn how to use:
- Gender awareness: How we communicate differently and how to better understand each other
- Communicating effectively through a professional image
- Powerful vs. Powerless communication
- Strategies to become more assertive
Effective Interviewing
Many employment problems can be avoided by knowing how to conduct an effective interview. This seminar will help you:
- Understand the skills needed to make critical hiring decisions
- Avoid potential losses of legal action or subsequent dismissal of unqualified employees
- Know what to look for in building a strong workforce
Effective Listening
Most business managers cite listening as one of the most important communication skills to possess in the workplace. Participants will learn how to:
- Separate listening as an active skill from hearing as a passive activity
- Explore effective and ineffective listening behaviors
- Learn more about how to listen across cultural contexts
Effective Workplace Communication
When people don’t get the right message in a form that they can understand, and on time, problems result. The focus of this seminar will be on effective communication that helps instill trust and efficiency.
- Organize messages that people can understand
- Improve the flow of communication in an office
- Create an “open communication” environment
- Overcome the myth that more messages equal better communication
Enhancing Customer Service
Employees are one of the first connections customers have with a business; therefore, it is critical that the customer/employee interactions are positive so that customers will continue to return. This seminar will help you:
- Create a positive communication environment
- Understand effective communication: both speaking and listening
- Deal with difficult personalities in the workplace
- Promote professionalism in the workplace
First Line Supervision
Whether you are a novice or an experienced supervisor, this seminar will help you discover some of the most effective supervision techniques.
- Explore ways to orient, train, coach, and manage employees using self-assessments
- Discover the effectiveness of using action plans and relevant work examples
- Gain the skills and techniques needed to get the job done
Handling Ethical Issues
This seminar will introduce participants to a method for successfully interacting with others whose ethical values and choices cause difficulty. Topics:
- Analyzing yours and another’s point of view
- Conflict management styles
- Communication strategies
- Promoting a win-win philosophy
How to Be an Effective Team Leader
Getting groups of people to collaborate to achieve a goal is essential to the workplace. Leading groups of people in collaborative work and assuring that the goal is achieved is the responsibility of team leaders. This experience-based interactive seminar will provide guidance for:
- Leading teams effectively
- Assigning work
- Getting and keeping support
- Knowing where you are with a project
- Identifying and resolving problems that put the goal at risk.
How to Conduct Performance Reviews
Learn and practice the rules of the road for conducting reviews. Separate this event from yearly raises and connect the review to the coaching process. Bring a sample of your company’s form, if you have one. Topics include:
- Preparation, the key to a successful Performance Review
- How to set the stage with the employee to ensure success
- Making the vital “coaching for improved performance” connection
- How to make sure the employee doesn’t see the review as criticism
- Structuring the conversation effectively
Improving Productivity
Learn how to improve productivity by planning and using personnel more efficiently. Topics:
- Identifying causes of non-productive time
- Planning and scheduling
- Organizing the project for productivity improvement
- Effective communication and record keeping
Intergenerational Communication
The workplace is filled with at least 4 different generations and with this mix of values and people comes conflict, misunderstanding and frustration. This seminar will:
- Examine the types of generations in the workplace
- Identify the myths about different generations
- Examine what they value, what motivates them and what doesn’t motivate them
- Provide communication skills and tips for helping improve the overall workplace experience.
Leadership Skills for Managers
This seminar focuses on leadership for managers in a variety of settings. This seminar will help you understand:
- If you lead, administer, follow or abdicate
- The difference between charisma, power and technique
- How to create successful outcomes - even when you can't
- Way to explore approaches that have worked for other people in different places
- Techniques for managing conflict
Louder than Words: Using Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication and body language exist 100% of the time we are with others. People cannot be nonverbally silent.
- Learn to read the silent messages of others
- Learn how to send the messages you want to convey
- Discover the impact of environment, facial expression, posture, gestures, touch, dress and appearance
Making the Transition to Supervisor
Supervisors can be instrumental in making or breaking an organization. Learn some of the skills that help make them successful and valuable. Topics:
- Discover and study the 12 major traps that keep supervisors from becoming true leaders.
- Identify the 5 key obligations every supervisor/leader has to the people they lead.
- Develop a specific plan to meet these obligations, both personally and as a leadership team.
- Practice specific language to utilize in the exercise of our obligations as supervisors.
Management Styles that Motivate
The challenge of motivating team members, while ensuring that team processes are profitable for the organization, can be a daunting task. This highly interactive seminar will help you discover ways of building motivated teams that enhance workplace success. This seminar will help you understand that:
- Management and leadership are important workplace partners
- Easily applicable ideas can immediately be used in the workplace
- There are ways to be uniquely motivational
Managing and Achieving Organizational Goals
Managing today’s dynamic workplace demands leaders who are visionaries, change agents and coaches. And that is just the beginning! Join us for some insight into your challenging, changing and rewarding leadership role.
- See the big picture without losing focus on your corner of the world
- Make informed decisions
- Motivate yourself – and your employees
- Learn what to do when things go wrong
Managing Your Business Impressions
Impressions you make on clients, colleagues and supervisors is a skill that can pay dividends in securing a contract, meeting key executives, working toward a promotion, and many other aspects of business life. This seminar will focus on business etiquette skills and tips including
- The art of introductions, making small talk, and helping others feel at ease
- Proper etiquette for e-mails, teleconferencing and phone calls
- Meeting etiquette and behaviors
- Business dining tips and blunders
Morale: An Essential Element to Organizational Success
Organizational morale is one of the key ingredients to successful production. This seminar will cover:
- The impact(s) of organizational morale
- Assessing organizational morale
- Improving morale at all organizational levels
- The dividends of having high morale in your organization
Navigating Change Successfully
Coping with an ever-changing workplace requires a combination of both people skills and technical savvy. Positive, effective leadership is never more critical than in the midst of organizational redesign. Topics:
- Set specific goals for implementation of change
- Plan/execute a communications strategy to support and enhance the change process
- Engage employees at all levels for a successful transition
- Establish effective systems for measuring progress
Performance Management
This seminar provides a training opportunity for Human Resource professionals, Managers, and Frontline Supervisors who face the challenges of Performance Management. Discussion focuses on:
- Setting Performance expectations/standards.
- Writing performance reviews and their function in performance management.
- Rewarding and recognizing outstanding employee performance.
- Confronting and resolving performance issues.
- Dealing with “real-life” performance management situations and outcomes.
- Roles in performance management – Supervisor, Manager, HR.
Planning for Marketing Success
A successful marketing plan comes from deliberate thought, careful planning and thorough implementation. A suggested process for developing a formal marketing plan for a product or service will be provided. Topics:
- The 4 P's of the marketing mix (Product, Price, Promotion, and Place)
- Strategic planning and market research
- Identifying target markets through segmentation techniques
- Branding and image positioning
- Customer service
Planning, Preparing & Delivering Effective Presentations
The ability to make effective presentations is a key for business success and personal achievement. Learn how to:
- Present your ideas clearly
- Organize your presentation for maximum understanding
- Support your ideas convincingly
- Deliver your presentations confidently
Positive Leadership Development
Leaders make things happen. Understanding the nature of leadership, the importance of communication, and the impact of leadership styles will increase your effectiveness in working with groups. This seminar will help you:
- Understand why people work
- Discover the effectiveness of your leadership style
- Learn how to get to the truly high performance teams
- Keep a balance between tension versus productivity
- Know two secrets of production increases
Problem Solving and Decision Making
Good leaders solve problems and make good decisions every day. This seminar will cover:
- How to identify problems, find their causes, and determine solutions
- What is included in a good decision
- Individual verses group decision making
Presentation Skills for Managers
The ability to make effective presentations is a key for business success and personal achievement. Topics:
- Present your ideas clearly
- Organize your presentation for maximum understanding
- Support your ideas convincingly
- Deliver your presentations confidently
Profiting Through Quality Improvement
- Learn to increase profits through improved performance. Topics:
- How quality performance affects profits
- The importance of employee empowerment and teamwork
- Important tools for improving organizational and departmental performance
Project Management
Understand and apply basic business management functions to successfully complete a project. You will learn the importance of:
- Getting an idea going as a project
- Understanding the assignment
- Getting support
- Staying on schedule
- Staying within budget
- Coordinating and communicating within the project
Sales Techniques that Work
Learn the key components of the selling cycle and how to take full advantage of the entire process. Topics include:
- Understanding how each step of the selling cycle can be utilized for successful selling
- Learning how to prospect effectively, bringing yourself closer to the sale
- Discovering how to overcome objections and properly submit proposals
Situational Leadership
This seminar focuses on the development of characteristics necessary for successful leadership in a variety of settings. This seminar will:
- Explore frameworks for creating win-win outcomes in various leadership situations
- Review Stephen Covey’s seven principles of highly effective people
- Cover communication principles required for successfully managing conflict in a variety of contexts
Strengthening Your People Skills in the Workplace
In today’s organizations, employees must be skilled at relating to one another, to vendors and most importantly, to customers. Discussion will cover:
- Working effectively with people
- Making others feel valued
- Diplomatically handling tough situations
- Establishing yourself as a respected leader
Time Management in Stressful Times
Using time wisely has never been more important. Learn how tested techniques can help you be more effective and take stress in stride. Discussion will cover:
- Getting organized
- Determining priorities
- Fighting procrastination
- Delegating effectively
- De-stressing your work day
Working with Diverse Cultures
As our area’s demographics change, this topic becomes increasingly important. This seminar focuses on maximizing an organization’s most important asset, its people. Topics:
- Working with new immigrant workers
- Examining the role of culture in the workplace
- Discovering how to deal with “cultural clashes”
- Learning cross-cultural communication skills
Workplace Investigations
This training opportunity is for Human Resource professionals, Managers, and Frontline Supervisors who face the challenges of conducting internal workplace investigations. The seminar qualifies for PHR/SPHR certification credit and focuses on the “how-to” of internal workplace investigations:
- How to structure an internal investigation
- How to interview witnesses
- How to document your internal investigation
- How to arrive at a fair and defensible conclusion
See what our clients are saying about us!
"Energizer-ASR, Private Brands Group, has worked with Blue Ridge Community College developing and executing many of our training needs. Most recently, the staff at BRCC developed a customized Excel training course for our Shift Managers and Department Managers. The training targeted the specific areas of Excel our team desired to become more proficient Excel users, which in turn, has helped them perform their daily tasks more effectively and efficiently. In addition, BRCC accommodated our request of conducting the training sessions at our facility. The entire program could not have worked out better, and everyone had an excellent learning experience. We are very fortunate to have BRCC as a local training resource that understands our business requirements and works to accommodate our particular training needs."
Andy Breeding
Human Resources Manager
Energizer-ASR, Private Brands Group
“Virginia Panel Corporation has been coordinating training through BRCC for several years now and we could not be happier. Being in a very competitive field of business, it is important to keep all of our employees up to date on the most cutting edge training and BRCC is hands-down the best training option in the valley. BRCC makes the entire training process simple and streamlined, from the customization of the training for our company, all the way down to the little things, such as providing surveys about how our employees feel about the training they are receiving. BRCC will continue to be VPC’s first choice in training our employees!”
Rachel A. Haley
Human Resources Manager
Virginia Panel Corporation
“ComSonics, Inc. is extremely competitive with our manufacturing, product and service businesses. Finding and keeping skilled electronics workers is getting much more difficult. Blue Ridge Community College has worked with us over the past several years to provide quality electronics and manufacturing skills support and has also provided a variety of driver safety training programs which were custom designed for our positions. These valuable training programs have specifically addressed the unique job requirements and skills needed by our company. Such training has helped and will continue to help ComSonics retain qualified employees and remain competitive and grow. BRCC and their staff provide a high degree of excellence in developing and delivering customized training programs to fill gaps in our workforce capabilities which will enable us to keep up with the changing dynamics and competiveness of the global business climate.”
Pam Snyder
SPHR Director of Human Resources
ComSonics, Inc.
