Professional Development

Click on a link below to skip to the section of interest:

• Facilitator-led Training
• Videos
• Class Schedule

Facilitator-Led Training

Below is a list of in-house Professional Development Classes offered on a quarterly basis or are available at special request - Contact Sarah Hart at shart@utsystem.edu for more information:

Creating Stellar Customer Relations - cost: $180 per participant (eligible for up to 16 hours of CPE credits)

Creating Stellar Customer Relations is a two-day, facilitator-led training program for frontline service providers.  The goal of the program is to help participants develop the mind set and skills of stellar service providers by identifying and applying behaviors that build strong customer relationships. This two-day training program includes 4 four-hour modules:

Reaching For Stellar Service: Reaching for Stellar Service provides the framework for the workshop and helps participants understand the role of the frontline service provider in delivering stellar service.  Participants focus on using four key service qualities (seamless, trustworthy, attentive, and resourceful) to evaluation and improve the service they deliver.

Caring For Customers: Caring for Customers focuses on basic skills and techniques that help service providers meet customer’s needs in the human dimension.  These skills and techniques are based on the two principles of attentive, caring service: demonstrating your interest in and concern for customers and communicating the customer’s value to your organization.

Healing Customer Relationships: Healing Customer Relationships focuses on skills that help service providers serve customers who are angry or upset as the result of a service breakdown.  Participants learn and apply the HEAL process for service recovery: Hear out the customer, Ease the tension, Act to improve the situation, and Leave a positive impression.

Dazzling Your Customers: Dazzling Your Customers explores how to surprise customers with pleasing and unanticipated “extras.”  It focuses on applying three steps: spotting an opportunity to dazzle, considering the possibilities, and offering the dazzling action.

Brains! Harnessing the Power of Emotional Intelligence - cost $40 per participant (3 hour program) (eligible for up to 3 hours of CPE credits)

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is making a significant contribution to people and organizations across the globe. For the first time, the world is discovering the precise way in which our brain processes emotions and the impact this has on our performance and success.
Brains! Harnessing the Power of Emotional Intelligence is based on the video Brains!, an informative and entertaining illustration of EQ created by a company called Talent Smart from California.

FISH! Catch the Energy, Release the Potential - cost $25 per participant (2 hour program) (eligible for up to 2 hours of CPE credits)

FISH! is a way of life. It's a set of simple, interconnected principles that everyone can tailor to their own life and work. No one else can live these principles for you. When you choose to make these principles a part of your life, no matter what is going on around you or where you are in your life's journey, you will notice a positive difference in your relationships and within yourself.
FISH! is an old wisdom for each new day. It reminds us of what we often forget when we're busy, stressed-out and self-absorbed. In people who are living FISH! principles already, it supports and reinforces them. FISH! behavior often starts with one person and attracts others. When a community of people commit it together, the effect is powerful, creating a higher quality of life at work.
Who are you being while you're doing what you're doing?

Cultural Leadership - cost $10 per participant (3 hour program) (eligible for up to 3 hours of CPE credits)

As a team, common threads help us relate to each other more easily.  But what is unique about each of us also adds to the team and makes it better and stronger than if we were all exactly alike.  The professional development class, Cultural Leadership, takes the perspective that each employee, regardless of race or gender, is unique and can make a singular, irreplaceable contribution – as long as that uniqueness is sought out and celebrated.

Off-Site training and professional development classes are often advertised through the Employee Services News. If you are in need of specialized training not offered here, contact Sarah Hart at (512) 499-4660 to find more options in and outside of Austin.

Videos

Professional Development Videos are also available. You can check them out, or request a special class. Contact Sarah Hart at (512) 499-4660 for more information. **All videos are eligible for up to 1 hours of CPE credit - Contact Sarah Hart for details

How Leaders Boost Productivity (Stanford Executive Briefings)

There are three things that make the difference in becoming a leader and being led: product quality, customer service, and productivity. Having made significant increases in product quality and customer service, the biggest challenge facing managers today lies in improving the productivity of their organization. A leading authority on organizational change and high performance systems, John Zenger discusses practical methods to help an organization shed its past, raise its standard for higher performance, and give employees specific tools required to excel in their workplace.

Fear of Feedback (Stanford Executive Briefings)

Giving feedback to your subordinates can improve their performance, and make you more effective as a leader and manager. Receiving feedback can enhance your career and make your job more rewarding. Yet, in most organizations, there is a two-way conspiracy of silence that subverts honest feedback. Myra Strober and Jay Jackman detail a four-step plan for actively pursuing the feedback you need, and methods for giving feedback that allow you to feel comfortable and in control, whether the message is negative or positive.

Nurturing Innovation (Stanford Executive Briefings)

Based on lessons learned in several successful and highly innovative companies, Judy Estrin describes how to create an environment in which innovation can flourish, in businesses large or small. Challenging the prevailing notion that "time to market" is the greatest good, she explains that innovators must be allowed to fail; that pushing to scale a product to early can be a mistake; and why it's usually necessary to plan for leadership change once the innovation matures.

The People Side of Great Business (Stanford Executive Briefings)

Great businesses begin with great ideas, but they are sustained only through the dedication and passion of great people. Libby Sartain speaks from experience about unleashing the power of your company's foremost asset - its employees - to create lasting value.

The Mastery of Speaking as a Leader (Stanford Executive Briefings)

Today's leaders must connect with their audiences in substantive ways that go far beyond the giving of information. Terry Pearce explores and demonstrates ways in which a leader can speak to both the minds and hearts of an audience, and in the process, elevate a public speech into a more powerful and ultimately more productive experience for the speaker and the listener.

How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary results with Ordinary People (Stanford Executive Briefings)

How do you get the most out of your employees? Charles O'Reilly challenges the prevailing wisdom that companies must chase and acquire top talent in order to remain successful. he argues instead that the source of sustained competitive advantage already exists within every organization. O'Reilly's prescription: abandon the obsession with hiring high-priced stars and instead, motivate ordinary people to build a great company and achieve extraordinary results.

Assertiveness Skills: A Guide to Positively Successful Communication (Rockhurst Audio Conference Series)

Success at work - and in life - depends on your ability to win people over and get them to support your ideas. IN other words, it demands that you assert yourself! In this program, renowned speaker and consultant Crystal Jonas Bevans helps you develop a game plan for making yourself heard, so you can gain greater respect and become more valued part of your organization. Even if assertiveness is not part of your nature, you can use the skills you learn to become a more powerful and effective communicator in all areas of your life. Assertiveness is more than just a style; it's a key to greater satisfaction and success in all areas of life.

Employee Retention: Seven Tactics Smart Managers Use to Keep Good People (Ready-Set-Go! Desktop Training)

Some turnover is unavoidable. But in many cases, it can be prevented. The fact is, employees don't leave companies - they leave their boss. When a team suffers from high turnover, it's usually because the supervisor or manager isn't doing his or her job.

This training video will reveal:

• The four ways turnover costs you money
• The #1 management belief - by a mile - that keeps good employees from looking for another job and influences employee retention
• The top 7 retention tactics that make your best performers want to stick around
• And, how to maximize your retention "moments of truth" with employees

Class Schedule

Please check the schedule for classes below that will be of interest to you and help you achieve your personal and professional goals.