Please choose from one of the categories below or scroll down to browse all SGR courses.
Administrative Assistant Series
Transitioning from Peer to Team Leader (2 hours)
Making the leap from peer to team or crew
leader is never easy. In addition to dramatic change, new team leaders
frequently struggle to balance their old co-worker relationships with
their new responsibilities. Participants will learn skills and
techniques to make this important transition a positive and productive
experience.
Flyer for Transitioning from Peer to Team Leader
Leading by Example (2 hours)
This course explores the concepts of leadership and helps the participant recognize leadership opportunities in the workplace. Participants will learn to identify characteristics of effective leaders, identify the role that personal values play in leadership, and recognize the dynamic relationship between leaders and followers.
Flyer for Leading By Example
Effective Listening Skills (2 hours)
Although all of us talk and listen to one
another, we may not be communicating effectively. Most of us are so busy thinking
of what we want to say next that we often miss important cues for
success. Participants will explore the process of listening more
effectively and learn specific tools to maximize interpersonal
communication.
Flyer for Effective Listening Skills
Building a Respectful Workplace (2 hours)
Building a respectful workplace is the
foundation for successful teams. Participants will explore the
principles for building a respectful workplace and steps to eliminate
disrespectful behavior. After discussing their own experiences, participants will observe a number of scenarios that challenge them to respond to various forms of disrespect in the workplace.
Flyer for Building a Respectful Workplace
Administrative Assistant Series
The Administrative Assistant Series is consists of three courses that focus on basic concepts that administrative assistants need to know in order to be effective and successful. Each of the courses is specifically focused on training administrative support staff in local governments.
Extraordinary Assistants: Understanding the Workplace (4 hours)
Understanding your workplace is the first
step in becoming a successful and extraordinary administrative
assistant. Those who know who they are, where they are, and what’s
expected of them will go a long way in effectively serving their
internal and external customers. Understanding your workplace includes having
a thorough knowledge of your workplace culture; understanding the
ethical expectations related to that culture; and taking the proper steps to
build rapport and win the trust of co-workers and customers. As
the first class in the Administrative Assistant Series, this class
provides the initial and basic concepts for becoming an Extraordinary
Administrative Assistant.
Flyer for Extraordinary Assistants: Understanding the Workplace
Etiquette Intelligence: Enhancing Your Professional Image (4 hours)
Want to empower yourself in the workplace?
It starts with making sure your professional presence projects
confidence and authority. Learn how your communication style matches
up with your boss and others and how that knowledge can create a
win-win situation. Understanding professional etiquette can make a difference.
In the
second class in the Administrative Assistant Series, you will practice
introductions and other fundamentals that make a good first impression, explore classic
mistakes to avoid when using tools such as voicemail and
email, and review professional
courtesies that can give you the edge in building positive business
relationships.
Flyer for Etiquette Intelligence: Enhancing Your Professional Image
Next Steps: The Art of Planning Ahead (4 hours)
Next Steps: The Art of Planning Ahead is a learning experience that encourages participants to think
one step ahead. Building on this foundation of strategic thinking,
students discover skills that can improve both communication and
time management in the workplace. As the third class in the
Administrative Assistant Series, this session serves to review and
extend the materials taught in the first two classes.
Flyer for Next Steps: The Art of Planning Ahead
The Customer Service Series consists of nine courses that focus on delivery of superior customer service.
Customer Service: Starting Strong (4 hours)
Customer Service Starting Strong
utilizes the DiSC© personality profile assessment, equipping customer
service representatives with the tools to identify and effectively deal
with personality differences. Often a customer will present his/her
primary temperament style within the first minute of conversation,
allowing the customer service representative to frame his/her responses
accordingly. The material presented in this course is especially
valuable as it relates to helping us understand and work effectively
with our coworkers and customers. This class is the foundational class
for all SGR customer service courses.
Flyer for Customer Service Starting Strong
Effective Communication Processes (4 hours)
This course will introduce and overview the process of communication and teach
students how to effectively use the listening/speaking differential by
narrowing the gap between intention and perception. Participants will
also learn appropriate and inappropriate uses of communication media,
stages of communication and the importance of consciously implementing
each stage, and purposeful listening regardless of the amount of
interference.
Flyer for Effective Communication Processes
Time Management (4 hours)
Even with cell phones, computers, and wifi
Internet access at their disposal, employees never seem to have enough time to
get the job done. This can lead to frustration, which can directly
affect relationships with internal and external customers. Time Management
is designed to teach participants to head into the day focused and
prepared for the tasks at hand. Participants will learn the importance
of prioritizing their work schedule, delegating various tasks to team
members, and maximizing use of every minute of every hour.
This course is based on Emotional Intelligence principles, taking the
participant through a much broader concept of time management than
traditional approaches.
Flyer for Time Management
Conflict Management (4 hours)
Conflict,
strife, and opposing points of view are part of the workplace and part
of life; this cannot be changed. However, we can change the way we
react and manage conflict when it occurs. In this course
participants will discover practical, proven alternatives that will
give them skills to not only deal with difficult and frustrating
situations, but to learn from them, thus creating a more productive and
less stressful work environment.
Flyer for Conflict Management
Learning the Language of Multiple Generations (4 hours)
Today, more
than any time in our history, different generations with diverse
outlooks are being asked to work together. Learning generational
language is tremendously valuable because it often explains the
baffling and confusing differences between generations that drive
our assumptions of each other. Understanding generational information
is critical to blending generations at work and making them work for
and not against an organization. In this workshop, students will learn
the secrets of successful organizations that accommodate employee
differences, create workplace choices, operate from a sophisticated
management style, and nourish retention to provide a positive and
productive work environment for all generations. Particular emphasis
will be placed on dealing with the elderly in the external customer
context and welcoming high school and college grads into the workforce
in the internal customer context.
Flyer for Learning the Language of Multiple Generations
Customer Service Made Easy (4 hours)
This session explores the myths surrounding municipal government service and
looks at the guiding principles of customer service quality.
Participants will identify and learn the difference between their
internal and external customers and discuss how the components of
Neighborhood Service Delivery help achieve superior customer service.
Flyer for Customer Service Made Easy
This course trains frontline personnel on how to create a productive, synergistic environment with their coworkers. The class reviews inclusive behaviors to implement, techniques to act as a "talent magnet," and a plan to put the information learned into action.
Flyer for Celebrating Differences
Customer Service: Making the Right Call (4 hours)
Statistics have shown that 55% of
the communication process involves body language. If that is true, then
we lose over 50% of our ability to communicate when on the telephone.
In some ways, it is like attempting a job with one hand tied behind
your back! If good communication is the key to getting the job done
right, then learning effective communication strategies on the
telephone is crucial to any organization’s ongoing success. During
Customer Service – Making the Right Call, participants will review basic phone etiquette; phone manners that make a good
business impression; the correct way to answer the phone; how to speak
effectively on the phone; phrases to avoid; how to deal with resistance and
disgruntled callers, and much more. If you make or receive even a handful of phone calls
each day, this training initiative will continue paying
dividends for years to come.
Flyer for Customer Service: Making the Right Call
The Supervisory Series consists of 11 courses that focus on basic concepts that supervisors need to know in order to be effective and successful.
Now That I'm a Supervisor (4 hours)
This course is the foundational workshop for a newly appointed supervisor. It is designed
to help the employee in transition from the peer to supervisor
relationship to understand the basics of this new role. This course
identifies the personal and professional transition elements involved
when moving into supervision and notes the critical factors of success
for new supervisors, laying a foundation for the remaining core
supervisory courses that delve into deeper detail in all areas.
Participants will learn the four major roles of a supervisor and how
supervision is carried out taking into consideration the workplace
environment and the shared and individual values of all employees.
Flyer for Now That I'm a Supervisor
Principles of Public Service (4 hours)
This course instructs participants in the importance of municipal employees being above reproach in adhering to ethical standards and codes. Principles of Public Service discusses current business ethics, identifies areas of risk, and reviews leaders' accountability for setting an ethical standard and holding both themselves and others accountable to that standard. This course includes group discussions about ethical dilemmas, guidelines for deciding what is ethical and not ethical in a local government context, and application of this six pillars of character.
Flyer for Principles of Public Service
Employment Law and Supervisory Practices (4 hours)
The purpose of Employment Law and
Supervisory Practices is to inform participants of the nuances of
multiple laws that can affect them as supervisors. The course also
emphasizes supervisors' responsibility to comply with said laws at the
leadership level. This requires open communication with the Human
Resources department when issues surface that fall within
supervisor/supervisee workplace relationships. If leaders do not allow
employees to benefit within the legal guidelines required, lawsuits can
ensue. A more important focus is how to stay out of trouble by using
solid supervisory practices that provide an equal opportunity work
environment and create a more positive workplace where the city will
benefit by avoiding costly lawsuits. The end result is higher
organizational morale and lower risk of litigation.
Flyer for Employment Law and Supervisory Practices
Effective Communication Processes (4 hours)
Effective interpersonal communication is
critical to the success of any organization. This session identifies
barriers to good communication, defines formal and informal channels of
communication, and teaches the importance of good listening.
Flyer for Effective Communication Practices
Hiring the Right Employee Begins with the Interview (4 hours)
Hiring the right person for the job is one
of the most important decisions supervisors make. Knowing what
questions to ask and how to ask them to obtain an accurate and overall
realistic perception of a candidate's abilities is a key interviewing
skill that participants will learn in this session along with how to
make legally defensible hiring decisions. The workshop covers planning
the interview location and content, managing the interview
conversation, and closing the process. Information concerning
interview details such as reviewing resumes, writing effective
interview questions, and selecting the most effective interview process
will also be covered.
Flyer for Hiring the Right Employee
Leading Teams (4 hours)
Understanding the dynamics of leading a
team, the characteristics of an effective team, and the different
team-player styles that make up a team is essential to any
organization's long term success. The challenge for leaders is to
understand exactly what comprises a team and then how to effectively
motivate and lead individual teams to organizational excellence,
sometimes in work environments that recognize and reward individual
accomplishment over team achievement.
Flyer for Leading Teams
Managing Change (4 hours)
For any change initiative to be effective,
the change process must be aggressively managed. This workshop trains
supervisory and management personnel to lead and manage change
successfully. The course starts with a personal "self check for
change," moves into a change management mode, and through case study
and practical discussion defines the components of an effective change
initiative. Participants plan the implementation of change facing
their work groups as the closing application exercise. Managing
Change offers individuals an interactive approach to understanding the
dynamics of changes great and small. Participants will gain a
heightened awareness into their own processes of adapting to
fundamental change while gaining tools in understanding and guiding
others through change.
Flyer for Managing Change
Managing Employee Performance (4 hours)
Meaningful performance management
maximizes employee performance by communicating areas needing
improvement, as well as areas of excellence, in ways that ensure the
employee understands what is being communicated and the
expectations. The employee knows that the supervisor cares about
helping the employee reach their potential. Performance management is a
process which begins while the new employee is still on probation,
continues through the career of the employee, and ends with the
retirement party. Successfully managing employee performance can be
challenging for many supervisors. The key to success is following a
performance management process. This course will teach participants
the steps in that process and provide tools to successfully implement
each step. You as a supervisor will then be better equipped to help
your employees maximize their full potential.
Flyer for Managing Employee Performance
Organizing and Delegating (4 hours)
This session focuses on organizing employees
in an effective manner to accomplish goals and maximize use of
delegation. Participants will learn the benefits of delegating, how to
overcome reluctance to delegate, and tools to avoid lower to higher
level delegating. At the close of this course, you should be able to
identify multiple ways to "work smarter, not harder," leading to lower
stress levels and higher morale.
Flyer for Organizing and Delegating
Today, more than any time in our history, different generations with broadly diverse outlooks are being asked to work together. Processing generational information is tremendously valuable because it helps explain the baffling and confusing differences between generations that often drive our assumptions of each other. Understanding generational information is critical to blending the generations at work and making them work for and not against an organization. Learn the secrets of successful organizations that accommodate employee differences, create workplace choices, operate from a sophisticated management style, and nourish retention to provide a positive and productive work environment for all generations.
Flyer for Understanding and Managing Generations
Pruning Negativity (4 hours)
Negativity is a crushing, poisonous
epidemic in the workplace! Do you know a negative person? Are you
afraid you might be one? This course teaches you to learn the signs and
how to deal with them; understand the symptoms, sources, and coping
strategies; and reminds you of the POWER of positivity. Our presenter
uses the analogy of "Pruning the Negativity Tree" to set your
organization on a positive path.
Flyer for Pruning Negativity
The Mid-Management Series consists of eight core courses (32 hours) that explore advanced concepts of leadership and management to help move employees from supervisory roles into leadership positions.
Strategic Visioning: Planning the Future (4 hours)
Strategic Visioning instructs managers in a five-step process: envisioning the mission, performing a strategic audit, identifying strategic goals and objectives, composing an action plan, and evaluation. The course includes exercises to improve participants' goal-setting skills, demonstration of the written format for a strategic plan, opportunities to develop a strategic plan step-by-step, and small group discussion of case studies.
Flyer for Strategic Visioning
Tools for Successful Leadership: Executive Book Review (4 hours)
Leadership is the process of developing mutual purposes and working to create real change. When managers are involved in influencing a group to meet its goals, they are involved in leadership. Tools for Successful Leadership instructs managers in using effective leadership competencies efficiently and effectively. The course includes a two-hour executive book review on a leading business book on the topic of leadership.
Flyer for Tools for Successful Leadership
Managing a Budget (4 hours)
Building an Effective Business Case (4 hours)
This course reviews the fundamentals of a business case, how to develop a winning project proposal, and how to build a business case and present it effectively. The workshop focuses on the ability to make better and more efficient decisions by using a business case to streamline problem solving, communication, and decision making. The goal of this workshop is for participants to be able to win approval for funding, resource allocation, and top management support.
Flyer for Building an Effective Business Case
Managing Employees (4 hours)
Performance management is not an event, but rather a continual process. Managing Employees instructs supervisors in learning and implementing the Performance Management Process model. The course includes effective coaching questions, methods to identify, define, and implement the city's goals for performance, and techniques for supervisors to provide ongoing feedback to their employees.
Flyer for Managing Employees
Reducing Cost in the Workplace: Lean Government (4 hours)
Reducing Cost in the Workplace focuses on powerful process improvement methods, tools and terms that have made a difference in countless organizations big and small around the world by identifying opportunities to drive cost out of your organization. Participants will learn how to see the end‐to‐end process and identify non value‐add activities and implement solutions that make sense to their organization.
Flyer for Reducing Cost in the Workplace
Persuasive Communication (4 hours)
Persuasive Communication instructs participants in essential skills designed to equip managers with the tools to achieve consensus toward a desired goal. The course includes practice role-play using realistic city council scenarios, examples of challenging questions and the appropriate way to interpret and respond in order to maintain focus on the end results, and real life examples for practical application.
Flyer for Persuasive Communication
Extraordinary Customer Service for Managers (4 hours)
As the pressure increases to keep citizens and business growing and thriving within our cities, it is more important than ever that managers know how to enforce customer service at the highest levels. Extraordinary Customer Service for Managers is designed to give the participants a broad overview of customer service, dealing with both internal and external customers. This workshop deals with topics including making great first impressions, professional phone etiquette, using email professionally, making successful calls, gathering information from customers, being respectful and responsive to customer needs, and dealing with difficult customers.
Flyer for Extraordinary Customer Service for Managers
The Management Series consists of nine core courses (36 hours) that explore advanced concepts of management to help move employees from supervisory roles into management level positions.
Tools for Successful Leadership (4 hours)
Tools for Successful Leadership
explores the concepts of leadership and helps participants recognize
leadership opportunities in the workplace and community. The course
also teaches participants to identify the characteristics of effective
leaders and the role that personal values play in leadership. Through
self-assessments, participants will learn more about themselves as
leaders and how different personality styles impact leadership.
Participants will also learn to recognize the dynamic relationship
between leaders and followers as they identify the difference between
management and leadership.
Flyer for Tools for Successful Leadership
Honing Your Emotional Intelligence (4 hours)
If leaders fail in the primal task of
driving emotions in the right direction, nothing else they do will
matter. Great leaders move their teams by igniting passion and
inspiring success. Honing Your Emotional Intelligence
acknowledges and applies the complex mix of social and interpersonal
behaviors that incorporate intuition, character, integrity, motivation,
communications ability, and relationship skills.
Flyer for Honing Your Emotional Intelligence
Building High Performance Teams (4 hours)
New approaches to management and
leadership have quickly taken hold in our dynamic business world. In
order to keep up with this fast-paced change and have the ability to
manage change effectively, we need a commitment to establish a greater
degree of teamwork among employees with more responsibility delegated
across the organization. Building High Performing Teams
focuses on the concepts of goal setting, empowerment, and measuring
productivity. These tools will equip you to meet today’s challenge of
doing more with less.
Flyer for Building High Performance Teams
Celebrating Differences: Inclusion in the Workplace (4 hours)
This session discusses how managers are
change agents for managing workforce diversity and the catalysts for
celebrating differences. This course facilitates a better
understanding of culture and diversity terms and teaches participants
to respect individuality and keep an open mind. Participants will
learn how to effectively and respectfully communicate with others.
Flyer for Celebrating Differences
Customer Service Made Easy (4 hours)
This session explores the myths surrounding
municipal government service and looks at the guiding principles of
customer service quality. Participants will identify their customers
and discuss how the components of neighborhood service delivery help
organizations achieve superior customer service.
Flyer for Customer Service Made Easy
Managing Conflict (4 hours)
Conflict, strife, and opposing points of
view are part of the workplace and part of life; this cannot be changed
But we can change the way we react and manage conflict when it
occurs. In Managing Conflict you will discover practical,
proven alternatives that will give you skills to harness in the most
difficult and frustrating situations.
Flyer for Managing Conflict
Problem Solving and Decision Making (4 hours)
Participants will gain understanding of
problem-solving and decision-making techniques and apply these
techniques either individually or as part of a team. Other topics
include: what makes problem solving difficult, the challenges of
working in groups, avoiding traps and pitfalls, and ways to stimulate
creativity.
Flyer for Problem Solving and Decision Making
Strategic Planning (4 hours)
This course instructs managers in a five-step process: envisioning the mission, performing a strategic audit, identifying strategic goals and objectives, composing an action plan, and evaluation. The course includes exercises to improve participants' goal-setting skills, demonstration of the written format for a strategic plan, opportunities to develop a step-by-step strategic plan, and small group discussions of case studies.
Flyer for Strategic Planning
Budget and Finance for Non-financial Managers (4 hours)
Participants will learn the basics of municipal
budgeting and finance, including how the process works, how to read
basic financial documents, and how to use basic financial and budget
tools. This workshop begins the process of transforming mysterious
financial language and concepts into tools that leaders, regardless of
level in the organization, can use to help them make more successful
operational decisions every single day.
Flyer for Budget and Finance for Non-Financial Managers
Compliance Courses are typically required for a large segment of your employee base to comply with various legal, regulatory or risk management laws and regulations.
Preventing Sexual Harassment (4 hours)
Today's world
can be a confusing place to determine appropriate behaviors when it
comes to relationships with coworkers and customers. This course educates
employees at all levels of responsibility on what the law says about
sexual harassment and what constitutes sexual harassment. It also
helps define what is and is not appropriate personal behavior in a
variety of specific situations and circumstances.
Flyer for Preventing Sexual Harassment
This course deals with the difficult issue of workplace violence. Employees at all levels will learn how to recognize and respond to situations which have the potential to escalate into violence, what to do about it when the potential for workplace violence exists, and how to deal with situations that arise.
Flyer for Preventing Workplace Violence
The American workplace is more diverse than ever before. Such diversity brings many benefits, but it also creates a responsibility for supervisors and employees to learn how to nurture and encourage healthy and vibrant interactions and teamwork in such a diverse environment. This course is about building bridges versus walls.
Flyer for Diversity Management
Drug and Alcohol Abuse Awareness for Employees (4 hours)
Any employee
who struggles with a drug or alcohol problem, or who comes to work
under the influence, puts his/her personal safety and other individuals'
safety at risk and creates significant potential for legal liability
on the part of the organization. Drug and Alcohol Abuse Awareness for Employees
teaches employees at all levels how to embrace leadership initiatives
designed to create an environment of prevention, recognize drug and
alcohol problems, and how to react appropriately when an incident occurs.
Flyer for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Awareness for Employees
Red Flag Rules / Identity Theft (4 hours)
Behavioral Interviewing (4 hours)
Behavioral Interviewing asserts that the greatest indicator of future performance is past performance in a similar situation. Have you ever interviewed a candidate for a position and thought they
were perfect for the job only to regret your decision several months
later? While not always the case, the culprit is often traditional
interviewing questions and techniques that only provide a partial
glimpse into a candidate’s skills and behaviors. Behavioral Interviewing yields a much more accurate overview of a
candidate’s performance potential by utilizing techniques that are easy
to learn and fun to implement.
Flyer for Behavioral Interviewing
In this introduction to project management, participants will learn basic tools for managing projects, explore opportunities for teamwork and problem solving through team building exercises, and acquire positive communication techniques that enhance project success.
Flyer for Successful Project Planning
Managing individual, team, or organizational goals requires managers to focus on key result areas and to set reasonable and achievable goals. This workshop will teach models of well-stated goals, pitfalls to avoid in setting goals, and how to strategically manage team goals.
Flyer for Hitting Your Target
Participants will learn to identify the necessary skills for managing meetings effectively, plan and organize efficient meetings, effectively conduct meaningful meetings, and interact appropriately in meetings. The course includes techniques to help you write effective agendas, time-saving tactics, efficient methods for keeping the meeting on task, and tips for making the meeting meaningful even when you are not in charge.
Flyer for Holding Successful Meetings
With the pace of life so fast, it seems as if being stressed out has become the norm. It has been estimated that more than half of all doctor visits are due to stress-related illnesses. When you do not have a healthy mechanism to deal with the stress in your life, it can lead to serious health problems. Many people tend to lose their sense of humor when they need it the most—that is, when they are stressed. People with a better developed sense of humor cope with stress better because they do not take their circumstances too seriously. The purpose of this workshop is to help you recognize the effects of stress and implement healthy ways to combat it.
Flyer for Humor and Stress Management
This session defines motivation in the workplace and explains its importance, identifies some of the classic theories of motivation, pinpoints some powerful needs that motivate people and how to relate motivators to them, and discusses how to develop motivational skills.
Flyer for On Your Mark, Get Set, Motivate
This workshop is designed for those who provide formal presentations and who want to enhance their presentation skills. Participants will explore skill building in using visuals and handouts effectively, managing presentation stress, and handling difficult questions and situations.
Flyer for Presentations with an Impact
This workshop is designed for those who prepare written presentations, letters, memos and emails and who want to enhance their writing skills. Participants will explore skill building in grammar, spelling, sentence construction and effective written communication of ideas.
Flyer for Business Writing Skills
Getting things done as a supervisor is all about dealing with people. This course will help supervisors be more effective in their jobs by being more effective in the way they deal with people, including employees, peers and their own supervisors, as well as citizens. This course will explore the unique individuality that each employee brings to the workplace, and then presents options that supervisors and managers can use to most effectively manage their relationships with individual employees. The purpose of this material is to improve communication and relationships, which will result in increased productivity and comfort in the workplace.
Flyer for Managing Relationships
This workshop is designed for those who are responsible for managing and administering various types of city contracts. Participants learn to evaluate contract compliance, communicate clear expectations to contractors, and resolve issues.
Flyer for Contract Management