Focus: Leadership is an identifiable set of skills and practices that are available to all of us, not just a few charismatic men and women. Leadership is also a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. Your leadership development journey begins with this one and a half day program that focuses on learning and mastering the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership™ based on the Leadership Challenge model by Kouzes and Posner. You will have a unique opportunity to obtain and analyze 360 degree feedback from chosen observers based on the five practices as well as create an individual development plan to immediately apply what you learn.

Major Topics:
- Understanding the five practices of exemplary leadership
- Assessing leadership behavior: Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)
- Analyzing and interpreting feedback
- Identifying leadership strengths and opportunities for improvement
- Creating an action plan

Format: program uses assessment, video model, lecturettes, group discussions, and individual coaching.

Length: One and a half days

Audience: Supervisors, Managers, Directors and Administrators

Focus: Participants learn and practice techniques that effectively deal with a range of potentially awkward situations that may occur during the appraisal meeting. The class concentrates on structuring the appraisal meeting to maximize employee/supervisor communication in a manner that is mutually beneficial.

Major Topics:
- Preparing for the appraisal meeting
- Creating the right environment
- Managing the meeting "invisibly"
- Using praise as a motivational tool
- Using self-appraisal to discuss sensitive issues
- Handling sub-standard performance

Format: This course uses role-plays and video models to supplement instructor lecturettes and group discussions.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and administrators who are responsible for evaluating staff at all levels.

Focus: This course covers the major responsibilities and activities of the manager or supervisor in establishing and maintaining "First-Rate" customer service within departments of UMDNJ.

Major Topics:
- Identifying customer needs and expectations
- Developing a service concept
- Setting standards for service performance
- Motivating staff to achieve customer service goals
- Identifying and removing obstacles that hinder "First-Rate" customer service
- Developing departmental goals for establishing and maintaining "First-Rate" customer service

Format: This course uses discussions, video, practical exercises, group activities, and simulations.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and administrators responsible for department and units that provide service internally and/or externally.

Focus: The Essentials of Management is a development program designed to provide managers (new to UMDNJ or newly promoted to management) with the essential skills and knowledge for their new role.

Major Topics:
- Understanding the various roles of the manager
- Assessing your management skills
- Building productive work relationships
- Maximizing talent
- Charting your course for success

Format: This course uses personal assessment inventories, small group activities, lecturettes, video, and interactive discussions.

Length: 2 days

Audience: Directors, Managers and Administrators (This program is mandatory for all newly-hired and newly-promoted directors, managers and administrators.)

Focus: Frontline Supervision is a leadership development program designed to provide tools, techniques and information essential for successful performance by the first level manager.

Major Topics:
- Transitioning roles - Setting the stage for success
- Examining different leadership styles
- Exploring motivational techniques for you and your staff
- Defining methods of delegation and making staff assignments
- Setting goals and objectives for optimal time management
- Using a variety of tools in the work planning process
- Understanding the steps to effective problem-solving and decision-making

Format: This course uses small group discussions, videos, case studies, lecture, written exercises/assessments and a variety of experiential activities.

Length: 3 days

Audience: Any staff member in a frontline supervisory position. This program is mandatory for all newly-hired and newly-promoted supervisors.

Focus: Participants explore how to plan, conduct, and evaluate selection interviews, and gather the information needed to make the right hiring decision.

Major Topics:
- Preparing for the interview via a five step process
- Identifying the components of an effective interview
- Developing behavioral interview questions to elicit specific skills
- Examining legal and illegal pre-employment questions
- Evaluating a candidate's qualifications through the resume review and effective questioning techniques
- Learning to screen candidates for a customer-focused orientation
- Reviewing the hiring process at UMDNJ

Format: This course uses discussions, video, role-plays, and practice exercises.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors and administrators involved in making hiring decisions.

Focus: Only about one-third of all major organizational changes are successful. The other two-thirds don't meet either all or some of the intended objectives. This course covers key elements to incorporate into a change effort and provides tools for application to both current and future change projects.

Major Topics:
- What most successful changes have in common
- The Change Cycle
- Building a case for change
- Overcoming Resistance
- Sustaining Commitment

Format: This course utilizes lecturettes, discussion, tools and mini-case studies.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Any staff member that is, or will soon be, in charge of leading large or small change efforts - this can include changes you are trying to make in your own team or work unit.

Focus: This mandatory three-day program will provide new managers and supervisors with the essential information they need as they transition into a new leadership position at UMDNJ.

Major Topics:
- Overview of UMDNJ's values and your role in the organization
- Expectations and responsibilities of managers regarding compliance, preventing harassment, supporting workplace diversity and other legal matters
- HR policies - why we have them, where to find them and how to use them
- Managing Performance and the staff appraisal system at UMDNJ
- Introduction to labor relations and managing staff in a union environment
- Panel discussion of pertinent management issues presented by representatives from key University offices
- Building relationships to maximize performance

Format: This course uses lectures, panel discussions, small group activities, case studies, and questions and answer segments designed to provide an interactive approach to learning.

Length: 3 days

Audience: Managers, supervisors and administrators.
- This program is mandatory for all newly-hired and newly-promoted managers, supervisors and administrators.

Focus: This video-based course focuses on twelve different manager-employee interactions for analysis. The situations pose the types of problems supervisors and managers encounter on a regular basis: absenteeism, employee performance, motivation, grievance handling, substance abuse, work assignments, troubled employees, staffing, sexual harassment, goal setting, discipline, conflict resolution, to name a few. Participants identify key management issues and develop appropriate responses to each situation.

Major Topics:
- Reviewing video vignettes of manager-employee interactions
- Discussing management's perspective in each interaction
- Identifying key issues in each of the twelve difficult situations
- Developing responses to the immediate problem
- Evaluating the most effective management response in each situation

Format: This course uses video-based manager-employee interactions, small group discussions, and lecturettes.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors.

Focus: This workshop offers strategies for managers to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills for addressing workplace conflicts that stem from culture, age, disability, gender, national origin, sexual orientation and other diversity-driven issues. The session explores typical work-place challenges occur due to diverse staffing, and identifies applicability of organizational anti-harassment and discrimination policies in relationship with managing differences.

Major Topics:
- Discussing benefits and challenges of organizational diversity
- Exploring strategies for managing difference (age, race, religion, disability, gender, etc)
- Reviewing and practicing behavioral protocols for addressing differences, and supportive UMDNJ anti-harassment and discrimination policies

Format: Video, role-play and case scenarios

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Professional, managerial and supervisory staff

Focus: This course, which is targeted for managers and supervisors, addresses the often difficult responsibility of confronting employee behaviors that interfere with job performance. It emphasizes specific counseling techniques for communicating your expectations and offers an opportunity to practice conducting effective performance discussions with staff.

Major Topics:
- Setting and communicating performance expectations
- Overcoming fear of giving constructive feedback
- Taking corrective action and documentation procedures
- Focusing performance discussions to increase commitment
- Understanding the intent and process of progressive discipline
- Preparing and delivering disciplinary action

Format: This course takes a hands-on approach to skill development through the use of case studies, role-plays, group discussions, and mini-lectures.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors and administrators.

Focus: Participants identify and explore the issues and competencies required to effectively maximize team performance in a business environment which increasingly depends on teams as key units for decision making and learning.

Major Topics:
- Recognizing the environmental changes that lead to the need for work efforts
- Discussing the stages of team development
- Identifying key components of effective teams as compared to work groups
- Assessing individual team facilitator style
- Exploring techniques for building effective teams

Format: This course uses lecturettes, self-assessment, experiential and small group activities, and class discussion.

Length: 1 day

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and administrators responsible for implementing self-directed teams in the workplace.

Focus: Providing first-class customer service is crucial to successful organizations. It shapes reputations, influences outcomes and helps improve staff morale. Learn how to help your staff deliver service excellence and build a service mind-set in order to accomplish the greatest impact for your unit or department.

Major Topics:
- Discuss strategies on how to hire people who "love to serve"
- Identify your role in motivating employees to provide outstanding service
- Establishing performance standards, accountability and monitoring progress
- Implementing customer service initiatives and action plans

Format: This course uses group discussions, lecture, assessment exercises and role-plays.

Length: 4 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors and administrators.

Focus: Participants will examine the management performance appraisal process and review the criteria-based and the non-criteria-based forms currently used within the University. Emphasis will be placed on how to complete the forms and effectively utilize the tools to evaluate staff and support performance goals.

Major Topics:
- Defining expected performance levels for staff
- Writing clear, realistic performance standards
- Examining the rating guidelines
- Setting performance and project goals for continued development
- Communicating performance standards and expectations to staff
- Reviewing samples of completed forms and the evaluation procedure from start to finish

Format: This course uses a combination of lecture and discussion.

Length: 3 hours

Audience: Managers, supervisors, and administrators who are responsible for evaluating staff at all levels.