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BUSINESS SEMINARS

Employers must rely on their employees to fuel growth and sustain a competitive advantage in the workplace. To help meet that need, BRCC’s Workforce Services and Continuing Education Division  offers the business seminar series in the new Plecker Workforce Center on BRCC’s main campus in Weyers Cave. Held between  September and May, all seminars meet Thursdays from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

For schedule of current (September to April) class offerings, click here.
To inquire about offering any of these, customized to your employees, click here.

Titles and descriptions:

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 speakers in a variety of occupations.  This seminar will:

  • Introduce participants to Command Spanish®
  • Explain how individuals can effectively communicate with Spanish-speaking employees, clients, and customers
  • Introduce a Spanish vocabulary of approximately 30 useful phrases

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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

 

Compensation, Benefits, and Market Pricing

The seminar is designed for those new to the compensation and/or benefits field and human resource generalists with limited exposure to the compensation and benefits functions.  The seminar provides:

  • An overview of the regulatory requirements of a compensation program and methods and processes which support job analysis, job documentation and job evaluation

  • A review of the fundamentals of employee benefits programs and an overview of employee benefits plans typically offered by employers and the types of plans available

  • An overview of market pricing methodology and terminology, steps necessary to conduct market pricing in a competitive environment and factors to consider when selecting a market survey

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

 

Conflict Resolution

Participants will examine conflict in interpersonal and small group interactions.  Discussions focus on:

  • Problem-solving, listening, and framing in difficult interactions

  • Emphasis on managing conflict using proven techniques for achieving win-win outcomes

  • Application to personal and business contexts

Creative Problem Solving

The ability to creatively solve problems allows people to continuously improve their work processes and eliminate stumbling blocks to their performance and satisfaction at work.  This workshop covers a step-by-step problem solving process, from defining the problem to creatively identifying necessary solutions.  The tools covered in this workshop can help both teams and individuals to

  • Overcome barriers to creativity

  • Visualize a process

  • Pinpoint problems

  • Find their causes

  • Determine the necessary solutions

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

Delegation that Works

Proper delegating skills not only reduce a manager’s workload, but help to motivate employees by enabling them to take responsibility.  This is an interactive approach and will cover how to

  • Know what should be delegated

  • Implement the delegation process

  • Use reverse delegation

  • Use listening and language skills

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

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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

Finance Essentials for the Non-Finance Manager

Gain knowledge that will enhance a company’s competitive advantage by taking the guesswork out of ensuring a better bottom line.  Included in this seminar will be the language of financial terms; the application of accounting processes; and the conventional guidelines regarding income statements, balance sheets, and the statement of cash flows.  Learning to read and interpret financial statements will enhance a manager’s ability to:

  • Analyze profit ratios

  • Assess financial risks

  • Track trends

  • Identify business opportunities

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

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Group Dynamics & Effective Meetings

During this seminar, we will explore group dynamics, how groups and meetings can be effectively organized, and how team processes can be sensibly managed. Bring your team and

  • Join in group exercises and simulations

  • Enhance your participative skills

  • Learn to improve organizational teamwork

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 four 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

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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

 

Millennial Marketing

Discover successful strategies for differentiating markets and understanding multi-segment approaches to reaching customers.  You will learn:

  • The 4 P’s of the Marketing Mix

  • Generational Segmentation Techniques

  • Targeting the Boomers, Xers, and the Millennials

  • Using the Buyer Decision Model to your advantage

  • Effective Branding Strategies

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

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

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Contact WSCE
(540) 453-2215
213-7022
941-3742
(888) 750-2722 ext 2215
wsce@brcc.edu
 
Blue Ridge Community College
One College Lane, Box 80
Weyers Cave, VA 24486

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