Spring Learning Plan for Supervisors

Whether you are a new supervisor, or looking to brush up your skills, our training and development specialists recommend completing the following learning plan: 

• Employee Management & Compliance Essentials
• Highly Effective Manager
• Crucial Conversations

Managers Academy: Employee Management and Compliance Essentials

The Employee Management and Compliance Essentials course provides a comprehensive overview for managers and supervisors of legal guidelines, campus policies, and CU-Boulder practices related to employee management and development.

The core curriculum includes:

• Pre-employment essentials (position management, compensation, and recruitment).
• Employee development guidelines and strategies (onboarding, performance management and progressive discipline).
• Special topics in employee management (federal and campus policies and procedures related to discrimination and harassment; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the Family Medical Leave). In addition, participants will select two elective sessions from the following topics; Bystander Intervention, Writing Effective Interview Questions, Service Animals and the ADA, and Managing Difficult Employees

Managers Academy: The Highly Effective Manager

The 'Highly Effective Manager' (HEM) course provides foundational knowledge and skills to managing others. The content focuses on best practices in supervising staff and begins with helping participants gain a better understanding of their own management style. 

Participants will:

• Understand the role of a supervisor
• Identify strategies to engage employees
• Identify and explore their own management styles with regards to motivation, delegation and development through the use of the DiSC Management behavioral assessment
• Recognize the importance of a manager’s role in communicating with employees and leadership on campus
• Discover supervision practices that promote inclusion and an appreciation for diversity
• Identify strategies for navigating workplace conflict
• Develop skills to foster team work and problem solving

Crucial Conversations Workshop

Crucial Conversations is a two-day course that teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics – at all levels of the organization.  By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you’ll surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on your decisions with unity and commitment.

The CU Boulder Department of Human Resources has teamed up with VitalSmarts to offer this important course to CU Boulder employees. Based on the national best-selling book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High, the Crucial Conversations course teaches participants to speak persuasively, not abrasively; foster teamwork and better decision making; build acceptance rather than resistance; and resolve individual and group disagreements. See the attached document for a detailed description of the course.

Cost: $250 (The course fee includes a Crucial Conversations Toolkit, cue cards for each lesson, a Crucial Conversations model card, a copy of the New York Times bestselling book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, the Crucial Conversations audio companion MP3 download, and a course completion certificate).