Workshops

General Description:

A four week, 2 hours per session seminar held on Thursday evenings from 6pm - 8pm at HCC -  Davis Island (Center for Continuing Education, CCE) teaching you how to set the set the foundation to create, build, and maintain the the retiement plan of your dreams.  Each module is outlines below:

Module 1: Building the Foundation  

You will envision the retirement you want and how you will finance it based on current and future retirement trends.  We will cover some financial basics and budgeting for retirement.  You will start to see how what you already have will contribute to the retirement you want.

Module 2: Creating & Protecting Wealth

You will begin to look at how to prepare before retirement to generate income during retirement. You will look at investment risk, investment strategies, retirement expenses, and several sources of retirement income.  

Module 3: Establishing Your Retirement Income Stream

Building on what you have learned so far, you will discover how to structure a retirement income stream to address your retirement wants and needs. We will examine the risks that could impact your retirement funds, how to manage assets to help provide lifelong income and what government programs cover and what they do not cover.

Module 4: Making the Most of What You Have

You will review the benefits your employer offers, together with other benefits for a clear understanding of how they fit into your retirement plan.  We will look at the basics of estate planning, wills and trusts. And a film made exclusively for retirewise by best-selling author and coach Richard Leider will help you reconsider what a satisfying and meaningful retirement looks like for you.

Learning Objectives:

The objective of the class is to teach you:

"       How to plan for retirement

"       How to prevent running out of money

"       How future health care costs can impact wealth

Dates: Thursday evening from 6pm - 8pm, October 7, 2010 through October 28, 2010.

General Description:
Though businesses increasingly rely on technology, technological skills alone do not guarantee success in the workplace. You must still develop your ideas, express them clearly, and persuade others of their viability. This course offers effective strategies to sharpen your writing skills by structuring your ideas logically, exercising diplomacy in letters and reports, and shaping your arguments.

Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Organize and write clear and concise email and instant messages that are appropriate to your company's business culture.
• Write effective business communications.
• Write letters that are clear, precise, and appropriate to your audience.
• Organize and write a business proposal, complete with visuals, and an executive summary that employ effective strategies of persuasion.

General Description:
To avoid the peaks and valleys of productivity created by high stress and burnout, you need employees who know how to balance the urgent demands of work and personal life without sacrificing either. Participants gain important insights into how stress in one life area impacts other areas, how coping resources in one area can be used to decrease stress in another, and how stress coping resources, and overall life satisfaction are closely related.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover individual stress issues
• Capitalize on coping strengths to manage stress
• Learn to minimize or eliminate common, daily stresses
• Identify areas for coping skills improvement
• Develop flexibility in responding to change
• Communicate more effectively to improve problem solving
• Build mutually supportive relationships
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General Description:
Customers expect suppliers to keep them well informed on long-range, as well as current initiatives underway that benefit their goals and objectives. Effective communication requires a range of formats and venues. Participants will learn recently developed communication tools and techniques they can directly apply to enhance customer relationships and build new ones.

Learning Objectives:

• Select and specify customer communications for specific corporate objectives
• Design and plan successful customer communication initiatives
• Develop convincing rationale for launching specific customer communication initiatives

General Description:
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to accomplish so much more than others in the same number of hours without appearing to work any harder? Maybe the answer is they work smarter by managing their time more effectively. This program is designed to equip participants with the tools necessary to effectively manage their time.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the basic principles of personal time management
• Identify personal strengths and weaknesses in time management practices
• Identify top time wasters, their causes, and work-related contributors
• Practice time management principles of personal objective setting, establishing priorities, delegating, eliminating, integrating, recreating, collaborating, and counter-procrastinating
• Develop methods for preventing crises on the job
• Practice methods for minimizing interruptions
• Develop a personal contract for reducing time wasters on the job

General Description:
You learned the rules of grammar in school, but now you'd like to refresh and refine your grammar usage for your professional life. You need to articulate your ideas clearly and succinctly in written communications and present yourself in a professional manner. In this course, you will review the rules of grammar, identify common grammar errors, and refine your business writing style.

Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Examine nouns, pronouns, and verbs.
• Identify adjectives and adverbs.
• Identify prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
• Identify some important rules of grammar and some commonly made grammatical errors.
• Identify grammar rules regarding correct punctuation.
• Identify problematic sentence fragments, run-ons, and comma splices, as well as effective methods of rewriting sentences so that they are clear and complete.
• Identify methods for improving word choices.
• Identify methods for building effective sentences.
• Identify methods for editing text effectively.
• Identify methods for avoiding some common errors made by overzealous writers who create hypercorrections in their own work.

General Description:
While Power Point is arguably one of the best tools in a speaker's toolkit, in the wrong hands it can spell boredom. In this workshop, you will learn how to avoid the common mistakes presenters make.  Whether you are presenting face-to-face to a live audience, teaching in a virtual classroom, conducting webinars, or creating asynchronous e-learning experiences, this introductory class will set your stage for success.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the secrets to engaging your audience
• Learn the best ways to use Power Point ... and how not to Power Point!
• Develop new techniques for delivering your message with impact
• Discover new ideas for creating useful handouts your audience will appreciate 

General Description:
Become a proactive advocate for your company by developing skills in communication, planning, organizing, and relationship building. You will learn how to be a more valuable asset by supporting the goals of the boss and the business. As a participant in this innovative and intense program, you will gain practical skills that will help to improve your daily tasks and interpersonal skills.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop keys to successful time management
• Learn techniques for setting goals and priorities
• Maintaining the proper attitude and perspective
• Understand the importance of dress and appearance
• Essential communication skills

Class Dates: 7/16, 7/23, 7/30.

Time: 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM

Total Hours: 21

Note: Must attend all class sessions in order to receive a Certificate of Completion.

General Description:
This course concentrates on managing your responsibilities with tact, poise, and polish. It will also explore how to get your point across with a positive, professional image.

Learning Objectives:

• Maintaining the proper attitude and perspective
• The importance of dress and appearance
• Essential communication skills
• Social etiquette
• Personal resource management
• Organization and time management
• E-mail/voice-mail best practices
• Importance of planning
• Problem solving attitudes
• Presentation development

General Description:
To provide the type of exceptional service that creates true customer loyalty, service providers need not only robust interpersonal skills, but also a positive can-do attitude, an understanding of the larger organizational context in which they work, and a commitment to making excellence their everyday service standard. Participants who attend this class have a greater appreciation for the role of customer service in a business, and the role they play toward this end.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the challenges of delivering stellar service
• Describe the importance of their role in building customer loyalty
• List key moments of truth in customer interactions
• Describe how customers define stellar service
• Plan for their own success in delivering the five service qualities customers expect

General Description:
This course teaches how to recognize that a conflict is escalating and how to minimize damage by using the most appropriate resolution tactic regardless of which stage a conflict is in. Managers also learn the true cost of conflict to an organizations and techniques for handling even the most challenging conflict-related discussions effectively

Learning Objectives:

• Effectively resolve workplace conflict and enhance productivity, efficiency, and morale
• Help others take responsibility for resolving workplace conflict
• Reduce the negative effects of workplace conflict on individuals, groups, and the organization

After completing the workshop presentation, you will be able to:

• Achieve better results through effective planning and clarifying objectives
• Spend more time working toward your high-value goals
• Refuse unreasonable requests Keep things in perspective
• Gain a balance between professional goals and personal time
• Set goals and prioritize them to determine if activities are goal-directed
• Manage resources more efficiently

Lost time is never found again. - Benjamin Franklin

Handouts (PDF format)

• PowerPoint Presentation
• Time Management Log
• Time Awareness Chart

Web Resources

• Top 10 Time Tamers
• Time Management by Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First.

General Description:
This program uses a practical approach to understanding and working with diversity in human nature. It is designed to provide insights and strategies that can be integrated into daily management style. These techniques will enhance effectiveness in supervision and build flexibility in taking advantages of the diversity in today's workplace and corporate environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe three types of interpersonal relationships
• Identify cultural factors that influence behavior
• Apply methods of encouraging cooperation from others in managing diversity
• Develop a personal action plan
• Define and describe the process of valuing diversity
• Recognize the dimension of diversity
• Describe common perceptions and reactions to issues of difference

General Description:
This course provides valuable insights for turning conflicts in the workplace into productive working relationships. Learn techniques to be more productive and improve your everyday interactions with others. Based on the book, Working With You Is Killing Me, by Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster, participants will learn to free yourself from emotional traps at work.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognizes attitudes and behaviors that create conflict
• Learn how to handle workplace stress and deal with toxic relationships
• Resolve conflict with controlled confrontation and positive resolution skills