Learn the Secrets to Building a Happier Workforce
Update, Sept. 1, 2022:
This limited workshop series has ended!
If you want to get more details than those listed here or elsewhere on the blog, then I can recommend 2 options:
Download the free 1-pager, 4 Keys to a Happier Workforce.
Purchase the 44-minute video training, The Business Owner’s Guide to a Happier Workforce.
Of course, if you have questions for us, we always welcome them! Contact info@chantillymediator.com or schedule an appointment.
Our new series of online workshops teaches five keys to a happier workforce.
Join us to learn practical tips to combat turnover, raise morale, and increase your team's productivity. Once a month, from October 2021 through February 2022, we'll hold public workshops diving into five essential topics for leaders.
*Updated 10/25/2021
What are the keys?
There are four keys to building a happier company culture:
Purpose, Engagement, Resilience, and Kindness (PERK).
Our fifth topic is conflict management - because disagreements can happen even in close-knit groups.
In fact, nearly 30% of workplace stress is caused by other people. The other issues reported most commonly by workers across industries are managing one’s workload and juggling work with other life commitments (family, friends, self-care, hobbies, etc.). All of this stress can be alleviated through really great management - especially if you, as a leader in your company, commit to taking the time to learn how to do things better.
Now you can learn about Purpose, Engagement, Resilience, Kindness, and Conflict Management - the essential elements for a strong, positive work culture. We're devoting one, hour-long workshop to each topic, starting October 14, 2021.
What will I get in these workshops?
These workshops are designed for employers. That means that, whether you are a small business owner, a head of HR in a mid-size or larger firm, or just someone managing a team - you will walk away from each workshop with practical tips for immediate use to impact your own life and those of the people who work for you.
Using these tips will:
Increase productivity
Decrease stress (for you AND your team)
Create a learning environment of committed employees who WANT to work for you!
Of course, our online workshops are always a highly interactive experience! (That’s why we don’t call them “webinars.” No talking heads! Questions and interruptions are welcome! We actually (gasp) interact via the Zoom chat and at least one additional tool - Mural, Google Slides, etc - learn more about our tools.)
Workshop #1
Kindness at Work: An Employer’s Guide
Thursday, October 14, 12pm Eastern
We had a GREAT time connecting and learning in an intimate online setting... don't miss the next one!
Being kind to each other at work matters. Behaving with compassion, humor, & gratitude leads to happier workplaces. When we behave kindly to others we interact with on a daily basis, we lower stress levels and build human connection - what we all want.
Then there are those moments when you go just a little bit beyond the everyday: The next time you see a coworker struggling with something, take a few minutes to ask them what’s going on, and really concentrate on listening to them. Just listen to understand. It is a kindness and may help you both feel like the day is a little bit brighter.
There are a couple difficult things about kindness at work.
Challenge #1:
Kindness to others is often the first thing that goes out the window when we're stressed - and there are SO many reasons to be stressed at work! How do you maintain calm and focus on problem-solving instead of personal attacks? We’ll talk about this in the workshop.
Challenge #2:
Moving beyond the interpersonal: How can employers build kindness into their policies? It IS possible to mix kindness into compliance - this workshop will help you figure out how to do just that. As why to do that, well, have you ever worked a job where you loved the people - and everyone loved to complain? It’s fairly common occurrence. And often, it is reflective of policies that err too much on the side of compliance, order, and consistency, ignoring the reality that different people need different things.
Workshop #2
Engaged Employees: Your Response to the Great Resignation
Thursday, November 11, 12pm Eastern
There are ONLY 14 spots left; reserve your spot now!
Engagement is such a buzz word, getting tossed around in HR and recruitment and culture circles. Leaders in the field including consulting firm Gallup, Society for Human Resource Management (SRHM), and probably every human resources information system and polling company.
Across these groups and across various industries, engagement gets defined in many different ways. What does it really mean? And why should YOU care about it?
Essentially, engaged employees care about their jobs, actively, while doing it - not in an abstract way or because without it they wouldn't be able to pay rent/mortgage.
Managers often struggle with engagement levels because, at its core, to engage workers means to trust them to get their work done, even if it means doing it in a new or different way. It means trusting people to rise to a challenge and still supporting them if they fail. It means supporting employees when they need help and getting out of their way when they know what they’re doing. It means finding ways to help them focus and connect.
Believe it or not, there ARE a few simple, tried-and-true tricks to boost engagement. We’ll cover what engagement really means, ways to measure it, and ways to impact it. Don't miss this opportunity to learn the tips and ask the hard questions!
Workshop #3
No More Burnout: An Employer’s Guide to Resilience
Thursday, December 9, 12pm Eastern
There are ONLY 12 spots left; reserve your spot now!
During this ongoing pandemic, I’ve been asked about burnout more than ever. The truth about burnout is that a management training about the topic doesn’t have much impact. Burnout happens because of a variety of reasons compiling into a perfect storm: workers don’t feel cared for; their task list seems neverending, to the point where using PTO feels impossible; they’re expected to be always available, even for non-urgent tasks; and, when something does go well, there’s little or no recognition or celebration.
Burnout is an important factor in the current “great resignation.” Resilience means having the ability to bounce back after a setback or failure - it is NOT the ability to keep going without being recognized, compensated, or in spite of mistreatment and discrimination. It’s also vital if you want to build an engaged, happier, innovative work culture.
Workplaces that cultivate growth mindsets - the idea that even if you fail, you will have learned something, and that makes the difficult thing worth doing - tend to be more resilient. This means you have to allow people to fail, to take true breaks from work, and to be encouraged to share unpopular opinions. These are difficult for a lot of managers.
When you come to our workshop on burnout and resilience on December 9, you’ll be part of a blunt discussion on failure and challenges, and get practical tips to increase resilience - your own and your employees’. Your participation is unlikely to change the entire culture in which you work, but it can help YOU and turn you, as a people leader, into part of the solution.
Workshop #4
Why Are We Here? An Employer’s Guide to Purpose
Thursday, January 13, 12pm Eastern
There are ONLY 14 spots left; reserve your spot now!
Feeling happy at work requires knowing your purpose. Purpose has nothing to do with money. It’s not about a paycheck or profits. It’s knowing that what you do makes a difference in the world.
Purpose does not have to be about doing “good” like working for a nonprofit or to feed hungry people. One’s purpose can be highly individual; it may be about social status or power or something relatively insignificant - like - I make things people can store stuff in, which helps people organize and have a clearer head.
When you can can easily connect your purpose at work to dearly-held personal values, you are even happier. While many of the solopreneurs I know have no problem here, those who then start to hire people may wind up with workers who are there for the paycheck - not the purpose.
There are simple ways to combat this as a leader, and we’ll talk about them together in our January workshop.
If you are someone who shows up to work just for the paycheck, it’s not necessarily time to find a new job - spend some time thinking about your personal values, about everything you do in your job, and consider ways an outsider might view your job - perhaps a happy customer, for instance. Think about ways to connect your values with the benefits your job provides to others.
Workshop #5 - Managing Conflict: An Employer’s Guide
Thursday, February 10, 12pm Eastern
There are ONLY 13 spots left; reserve yours now!
As a mediator, and a former community/political organizer, I’ve learned a lot about conflict - of all types. I founded Chantilly Mediation and Facilitation because Americans spend more time working than doing anything else - and we deserve to be happy at work.
Conflict, while inevitable among humans, can be handled in ways that actually increase happiness.
I know, that sounds wild! Yet it is true. When we have multiple ideas that are in opposition to each other, there may be conflict - or you may be on the verge of something really innovative! In one hour, we'll talk about how conflict can be good (or not), and how to approach it in healthy and productive ways.
Leaders set the tone for how conflict is best handled. It’s important to recognize how you usually feel when disagreements happen, how you usually handle conflict, and that many “conflicts” can be reframed as conversations - join us for this workshop to learn how!
If any of the topics here feel like things you want to have others in your organization trained on, you may be a great candidate for a customized client training. Schedule a free consultation now.