HR Professional and Organization Development Resource Center

The Human Resources Department is pleased to offer this online certificate program for new and aspiring managers. This program offers managers the opportunity to acquire and develop knowledge, skills and competencies essential to supervision and management. To achieve certification, managers are required to complete specific courses in the following categories: Best Practices for Managers (2 courses), Communicating Effectively (3 courses), Relationship Building and Conflict Resolution (3 courses), Strategic Thinking (1 course), and Diversity and Inclusion (2 courses). The Effective Manager Certificate will be issued upon the successful completion of all 11 courses. The average completion time to complete all courses is approximately 10.5 hours.

A complete list of the required courses and course descriptions follow below.

Category: BEST PRACTICES FOR MANAGERS

First Time Managers: Understanding a Manager's Role

SkillSoft course ID: mgmt_16_a01_bs_enus

Overview/Description

New managers frequently believe the skills and methods that helped them get into management, will help them succeed in management. Often, however, the skills needed for success as a manager are very different. This course describes common myths about management, what managers really do, and ways to overcome first-time manager mistakes. Managers are given the opportunity to grow professionally by learning how to effectively create and maintain partnerships with their superiors.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Establishing Goals, Roles, and Guidelines

SkillSoft course ID: team_03_a02_bs_enin

Overview/Descriptions

Successful teams are characterized by having a clear direction, trust among team members and effective communication. In the early stages of team development, managers can foster these qualities by laying a proper foundation of goals, roles, and guidelines. In this course, managers will learn how to lay this foundation. They will be instructed on how to actively collaborate with team members in creating results-focused goals, assign team roles through matching skills to task requirements and define specific guidelines that minimize conflict and optimize performance.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Category: COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY

Setting and Managing Priorities within an Organization: Communication

SkillSoft course ID: lead_11_a04_bs_enus

Overview/Description

Managers are responsible for ensuring that their teams are focused on the organization's mission and goals. However, in order to engage employees, managers must know how to effectively communicate what the priorities are and why they are priorities. This course explains communication techniques specific to organizational priorities. It gives guidelines for listening and how to prepare and develop a message that will resonate with the entire team.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Fostering Effective Communication and Collaboration

SkillSoft course ID: team_03_a05_bs_enus

Overview/Description

After bringing the team together, new managers need to ensure their team members will communicate effectively. This course outlines the manager's role in facilitating successful team communication and collaboration. It covers techniques and favorable communication styles, and introduces managers to collaboration strategies centered on shared ownership and team orientation.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Business Writing: How to Write Clearly and Concisely

SkillSoft course ID: comm_19_a02_bs_enus

Overview/Description

The ability to write clearly and concisely is a skill that requires great effort to master. Yet, learning how to write well is one of the best investments managers can make, especially when writing for readers, who have little time and patience for wordy e-mails and reports. This course aims to sharpen managers' writing skills. Specifically, it covers the importance of using short, familiar words, concrete and specific language and transitional words. It also explains best practices for organizing content and using active/passive voice.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Category: RELATIONSHIP BUILDING & CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Creating and Maintaining a Positive Work Environment

SkillSoft course ID: lead_07_a01_bs_enus

Overview/Description

Managers play a key role in fostering a positive work environment. Managers can help counteract negativity through honest and respectful communication, and through maintaining an uplifting attitude. This course introduces some best practices for creating a positive work environment. Managers learn about a positive work environment's attributes, concrete steps they can take to establish one, the signs of negativity and how to take corrective action when they appear. Lastly, managers will be able to practice through a simulated scenario.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Receiving Feedback and Criticism

SkillSoft course ID: comm_29_a03_bs_enus

Overview/Description

Good managers must be able to receive feedback and criticism appropriately. Feedback can help managers better understand their colleagues' concerns, calm potentially heated exchanges, and solve issues efficiently. This course starts by exploring the reactions that typically occur when a person receives corrective feedback or criticism. It then provides approaches that help people receive feedback in a productive manner. Finally, managers are given a chance to practice receiving feedback via simulation.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Dealing with Conflict

SkillSoft course ID: team_03_a07_bs_enus

Overview/Descriptions

Team conflict may frequently occur during the early stages of team development. For this reason, it is vital for new mangers to understand how to quickly recognize conflict, diagnose its cause, and use strategies to resolve the issues. This course presents on the causes of team conflict, best practice for resolving conflicts and facilitating negotiation. By learning these principles and strategies, managers will have the skills needed to steer their teams away from destructive patterns of conflict and keep them on track to achieve their goals.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Category: STRATEGIC THINKING

Developing the Strategic Thinking Skill of Seeing the Big Picture

SkillSoft course ID: stgy_08_a02_bs_enus

Overview/Description

Big-picture thinking generates ideas and possibilities, and helps managers make decisions based upon how anticipated outcomes will impact the organization as a whole. This course illustrates systems thinking and how it can elevate a manager's perspective. It explains how to develop big-picture thinking through aligning department goals with those of the organization, considering how decisions may affect a variety of stakeholders, and identifying and analyzing external factors.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Category: DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Diversity on the Job: The Importance of Diversity and the Changing Workplace

SkillSoft course ID: pd_07_a01_bs_enus

Overview/Description

Without diversity in the workplace, organizations run the risk of becoming a monoculture and viewing things from a very limited perspective. This course dispels some common myths that surround the topic of diversity and discusses barriers and challenges that must be overcome to create a diversified and inclusive working environment.

Average Completion Time: 1.0 hr

Developing Workplace Diversity Simulation

SkillSoft course ID: PD007A

Overview/Description

In this simulation, you are employed as an account manager for NGF Integrated Products, a US-based circuit board manufacturer. As a result of expansion into new sales territories, the manager's company has been broadening its workforce, and employee diversity is beginning to be addressed more formally. As a participant in the new training initiative, you've been sent to a diversity training seminar.

Average Completion Time: .5 hrs

If you experience any technical issues as you complete this program, please contact SkillSoft directly at http://onlinesupport.skillsoft.com.

For more information on USF's SkillSoft training opportunities, please visit: http://www.usfca.edu/hr/resource_center/.

For general questions on this program, please contact Michele Centrella in Human Resources, via email at: mcentrella@usfca.edu, or by phone at extension 2833.

1. Go to the website: http://is002.skillport.com
2. Enter your User Name, which is your USF email address
3. Enter your password, which is: usf
4. Click on the Catalog tab to the left, and you will see the USF course folder
5. To see the courses, expand the folder by clicking on the little plus sign
6. If a course interests you, please place your cursor on that line, and click on “Show Details” to see a full explanation of the course
7. If you decide to take the course, using your mouse, drag and drop the course into the “My Plan” box
8. In “My Plan” you can set timing goals and send yourself reminders; your progress will be recorded in the box called “My Progress”
9. To begin the course, place your cursor on the line, and click on “Launch”
10. You can leave the course at any time and return via “Launch.” The spot you left off will be bookmarked for you (“Return to Bookmark”)

To be assigned a course through LawRoom, please email Michele Centrella at mcentrella@usfca.edu. In your message, please include the name of the course you wish to take.

Supervisor/Manager Courses:

• Accommodating Workers with Disabilities 
• Anti-Harrassment, -Discrimination, & -Retaliation  
• Duty to Prevent Violence 
• Employment Law Bootcamp 
• Hiring I - Identifying Candidates
• Hiring II - Interviewing & Selecting
• Leaves and Absence Management  
• Wage and Hour Training
• Workplace Investigations

General Courses:

• Bullying in the Workplace
• Diversity: Skills for Collaboration
• Ethics & Code of Conduct
• Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act
• HIPAA Basics
• Illness & Injury Prevention Program
• Prevent Workplace Violence
• Red Flags: Identity Theft
• Social Media & Your Job

Held at USF on Thursday, August 2 

Run time: 55:17

Here is a scenario that's only too familiar in recent years: your retirement plan's quarterly report arrives by e- or snail-mail. You note with concern that the performance of financial markets has driven down your account balance. Your reaction may be to: (a) ignore the bad news, do nothing and stay happy; (b) do nothing and mope; (c) give in to gloom and shift all invested positions to a money market fund, and then mope; or (d) resolve somehow to take advantage of the situation. 

For you action-takers who picked (d), and for anyone else who wants to get more confident in this arena, this workshop will provide practical examples of a system to help your contributions become reliable generators of fund growth during your working years. Hear Joe Crowley explain the how and the why of a method he calls a: “10-minute tweak that puts your nest egg on a higher peak.”