HR Essentials – May

Learn the ins and outs of your new career!

You’re new to Human Resources, now what? Understanding the role of HR, understanding your role within HR, understanding your organization’s culture, how decisions are made, and how things get done are daunting tasks for the newly minted HR professional. Add to that the Herculean task of building trust with your supervisor and internal clients and building skills to influence others, and you have what this program is all about! This session is about thriving, not just surviving, in your new role or organization.

This knowledge-building session gives you the chance to:

• Explain what Human Resources encompasses
• Describe the delicate balancing act that is the role of Human Resources
• Define how decisions are made in your organization and HR’s role in decision-making

Maximizing the value of your health and welfare benefits, a comprehensive guide for employees

Designed as an overview, this course provides a survey of benefits concepts and definitions, mandatory offerings, compliance issues, leaves of absence, benefit plan management, and a look at current trends in health and welfare programs. The program unmasks the alphabet soup that is the benefits world and the myriad of regulatory impacts on health & welfare programs.

This knowledge-building session gives you the chance to:

Best practices for hiring, managing, and developing employees

How can you attract, retain, and manage employees without understanding the position’s responsibilities? Job analysis, job descriptions, and job evaluations form the foundation of many HR practices, including compensation decisions, training and development, performance management, and creating reasonable accommodation controls. In addition, they are used as a tool for recruiting and providing a solid foundation for legal compliance.

This skill-building session gives you the chance to:

Creative strategies for building a strong and diverse workforce

A pandemic, worker shortages, wage wars and a host of other factors have complicated process of attracting and retaining talent. This course provides an up-to-the-minute review of what your competitors are doing, national trends, innovative approaches, and innovations in recruitment. We’ll look at how HR should manage the process and investigate how talent acquisition isn’t an event or just a process but a strategic approach to keeping your organization fully staffed and growing.

In this knowledge-building session, you’ll get the chance to:

• Engage in workforce planning to move talent acquisition from an event to a strategic process
• Describe the latest sourcing vehicles and trends in acquisition and retention
• Identify changes to your interviewing process and content to maximize effectiveness

A practical guide to hiring the right candidate every time

While Talent Acquisition doesn’t begin or end with interviewing, it is the pivot point around which the process revolves. Identifying individuals who match your culture, have the requisite skills to perform, or have the potential to succeed in your organization depends on your organization’s ability to discern the wheat from the chaff. This program is about the skills required to ask the right questions, listen (and see) the right answers, and match what you see and hear to what your organization requires. You’ll leave this class with a roadmap to effective behavioral interviewing and an understanding that interviewing is not the art of asking the right questions but the science of translating what you see and hear into a decision.

In this skill-building session, you’ll get the chance to:

Learn the steps to establishing policies and procedures

This class explores “Why should I have an employee handbook” and “What does it do for my organization?”. You’ll learn how your handbook is your calling card, a contract between your organization and your employees, and a critical defense component in a legal action. A properly constructed employee handbook is a work of art in communicating mutual expectations, company policies, and your code of conduct.

In this knowledge-building session, you’ll get the chance to:

• Describe the key components of a practical employee handbook
• Identify the benefits of a properly constructed employee handbook
• Review how policies are incorporated into the handbook
• Evaluate your current employee handbook against the standards discussed

Establish best practices for maintaining accurate and compliant employee files

While there are many options for how personnel records are established and maintained, they are essential on a wide number of fronts. In this program, participants will explore the kinds of records required, electronic options, maintenance, proper documentation, and the regulatory environment affecting personnel records.

This knowledge-building session gives you the chance to:

Simplifying the process of setting goals, providing feedback, and evaluating employee performance

Managers despise them, employees dread them, and HR is left to make it happen! If that describes your organization’s performance appraisal system, this course is for you! We’ll look at how you can overcome the reluctance of all involved, how a systematic approach to appraisals can work for your organization, and how HR can ensure consistency and quality in appraisals. We’ll explore how the formal appraisal is simply a culmination of a communications process that keeps employees informed of their status, expectations and consequences.

Guidance on handling employee performance issues

Telling an employee that they are failing on the job is something most leaders dread. Telling them they’ve lost their job is worse. This session focuses on what happens when improvement doesn’t materialize after coaching. You’ll learn why these conversations are so difficult and how our own values and the organization’s culture and discipline policy influence our decision-making. We’ll review conflict and communications basics and provide ground rules for these difficult discussions. You’ll practice in real-world situations to build your skills.

This skill-building session gives you the chance to:

• State communication and conflict basics to prepare for difficult discussions
• Recognize why these discussions are so difficult for both the leader and the employee
• Illustrate risk management by applying applicable laws to scenarios
• Prepare for those worst-case-scenario conversations