Workplace Learning

Organized around Northwestern's seven-step recruitment process, this workshop provides great tools and resources for expediting the hiring process and making good hiring decisions.

Key Points

• Navigating Northwestern's recruitment and hiring process
• Opening and posting a position
• Advertising and networking
• Screening candidate resumes
• Preparing for and conducting interviews and phone screening
• Hiring and onboarding new employees

Participants are provided a slightly condensed version of the Performance Excellence for Managers I and Performance Excellence II workshops. In Part 1 of this highly interactive workshop, managers learn how to initiate the University's Performance Excellence Process and receive valuable guidelines and tools. Participants are asked to bring copies of the formal descriptions of their jobs and of those of the employees they directly supervise. In Part II, managers learn how to complete the Performance Excellence yearly cycle. Discussions and exercises focus on five key leadership responsibilities.

Build the skills of others on your team through smart delegation and coaching, and watch your own effectiveness as a manager increase remarkably. Taking full advantage of delegation means preparing direct reports for new assignments and following up with useful coaching, both of which require managers to handle their own time effectively. In this way, time management paves the way for successful delegation and follow-up coaching. In this session, participants will systematically review their use of time, identify a delegation opportunity, plan the delegation, and think through the follow-up coaching to ensure success. Each part of the module will features skills and working knowledge to help the participants approach these aspects of management in a practical manner. 

Workshop description for new Part 5 of the Leadership & Management series coming soon.

A leader has many jobs; among them is included the responsibility to help team members build strong working relationships with one another. Because a leader sets the tone for a cooperative and positive work environment, this session will answer the following questions: How do I get my team moving together in one direction? How can I foster trust and collaboration? How can my team make decisions in an effective and efficient way?  How can I help the team surface and resolve conflicts? How can I promote the values of diversity and inclusion?  This highly interactive session will help you to: navigate the phases of team development; resolve team conflicts; set your team up for success; model and embrace diversity; and practice inclusion.

The successful management of people who haven’t been getting the job done is often the biggest challenge for leaders. Personal problems, emotional difficulties, and poor attitudes can affect performance. The Dealing with Performance Problems half-day workshop helps managers to effectively diagnose the cause of a problem and take constructive action. Special attention is given to employee discipline and coaching in turn-around situations. University policy and resources are also considered.

In the Taking Leadership to the Next Level final session of the series, participants get an opportunity to come back together and discuss what insights they’ve had and skills they’ve acquired throughout the series. It’s a time to ask questions and get assistance about how to take those skills to the next level and transfer learning back on the job. It’s a celebration! This workshop is held in the afternoon following Dealing with Performance Problems.

Audience: Northwestern supervisors and managers with at least one direct report.

Crucial conversations take place every day in our work. You know the type -- conversations where there are high stakes, differences of opinion, and strong emotion. The difference between mediocre and top performance lies not in strategies, hardware, or even in processes, but in how people handle those difficult conversations. At the heart of all problems in a team or organization are conversations that are either not being handled, or not being handled well.

Key Points

• Identify the conversations that are keeping you from your desired results
• Speak persuasively not abrasively, no matter the topic
• Make it safe for others to share their honest opinions
• Deal with people who either clam up or blow up
• Gain control of your own emotional responses
• Disagree without being disagreeable
• Influence without exerting force
• Improve teamwork, productivity and effectiveness

This practical and powerful two-day workshop is based upon a top-ten best-selling business book, Crucial Conversations.

This workshop provides an understanding of Northwestern University 's compensation philosophy and how the Office of Human Resources Compensation Division partners with schools and departments to manage and administer a fair, equitable and competitive pay program for staff employees.

This workshop is for supervisors and managers with direct reports, and people who are responsible for the administration of HR policies in their units.

Key Points

• Structuring a job description
• How jobs are evaluated and the use of salary surveys
• How performance relates to merit increases
• Salary ranges: how they're developed and how to use them for salary administration
• When to ask for additional pay

An employee who is having performance issues shares with you that he has trouble concentrating because he has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). How do you respond?  

1. Become his confidant?
2. Refer him to Perspectives (NU’s Employee Assistance Program)?
3. Share with your HR Consultant and/or your manager (in confidence) that he has ADD?
4. Tell him he needs to figure it out and improve his performance?
5. None of the above

The answer is E) none of the above. ADD is an issue that is protected under the law as a disability. Once we are aware of some employee issues, we are legally placed on notice and must respond appropriately. Does that mean employee performance can’t be managed in these situations? Come learn how to respond to difficult employee issues like these and take the guess work out of knowing the right thing to do, when the right thing isn’t so obvious. You’ll leave this session with the skills and tools needed to face difficult situations without fear or reservation and respond appropriately every time.

This workshop is for supervisors and managers with direct reports, and people who are responsible for the administration of HR policies in their units.

In order to attract and retain the best employees, NU offers a variety of policies and programs that help staff members integrate the competing demands of work and personal life.  Whether or not your employees are able to use these programs depends largely on your knowledge, awareness and willingness to support them. Work/life strategies aren’t a nice-to-have perk; they play a pivotal role in the engagement, motivation and performance of your staff. Come learn how to inspire high performance by implementing strategies at the department/team level that enhance work/life integration.

This workshop is for supervisors and managers with direct reports, and people who are responsible for the administration of HR policies in their units.

This interactive workshop instructs supervisors and managers on the basic requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its impact on the workplace.

This workshop is for supervisors and managers with direct reports, and people who are responsible for the administration of HR policies in their units.

Key Points

• Understand the definition of a disability
• Identify employees who are protected
• Learn about employer requirements, University policy and procedures
• Determine appropriate responses to performance deficiences that may be linked to a disability
• Determine appropriate responses to requests for accommodations