Workplace Learning
The best nonprofits are constantly learning.
The most impactful nonprofits actively drive toward being learning organizations. Our work with hundreds of nonprofit organizations over the years has afforded us a rich repository of best practices and compliance strategies that we believe can help you as you manage and lead your organization’s people function or augment your nonprofit’s existing training program.
Browse workplace learning experiences below to find the best fit for your organization’s needs.
Customized Learning
Have an immediate training need? Explore options that you can deploy across your organization today.
Maximizing Recruitment Strategies: Innovative Best Practices
This interactive training will focus on the recruitment process, the organization’s brand and the ways to maximize mission and brand to attract the talent needed to accomplish its goals.
Recruiters, HR Directors, HR Staff with talent acquisition responsibility
- Strategies to enhance and/or streamline recruitment process
- Strategies to decrease time and cost to hire, strengthening innovative recruitment methods
- Strategies to develop job advertisements and job descriptions that bolster the recruitment process
- Metrics to determine the effectiveness of recruitment strategies
- Understanding the importance and implementation of diverse recruitment practices
Attracting a Diverse Workforce: Winning Strategies and Practices
Through examining the current recruitment process, examining current culture, identifying opportunities for growth and clearly defining organizational needs, finding, attracting and retaining diverse talent will be unpacked.
Diversity champions, Diversity staff, HR team responsible for talent acquisition
- Understanding and assessing cultural readiness, the current recruitment process and its role in attracting a diverse workforce
- Strategies for attracting a diverse workforce
- Metrics to track the goal of attracting a diverse workforce and accomplishment of that goal
Harassment Prevention: Building and Maintaining a Respectful Workplace
In this course we will discuss what constitutes harassment in the workplace, as well as other behaviors that contribute to an environment of disrespect and incivility.
Staff and Supervisory Managers
- Recognizing unlawful harassment, as well as other disrespectful workplace behavior including microaggressions and bullying
- Understanding the process for reporting harassment and the resolution process
- Identifying a manager’s role in preventing and addressing harassment and how to build a culture of respect and civility
- Recognizing the role of bystanders in preventing harassment
Effective People & Performance Management: Feedback, Supervisory Skills and Difficult Conversations
Managing people effectively is a skill acquired through training and experience. In this session, those with supervisory roles will learn key skills needed to be successful, including effective communication, having career development conversations, delegation and motivation.
Supervisory Management
- Recognizing key skills needed for supervisory roles
- Identifying ways to ensure coaching, strong performance and development feedback, engagement and communication
- Implementing toolkit for addressing employee issues
Why Culture Matters to Mission
Investing in your organization’s culture shows employees that you care, which can lead to higher employee engagement and greater mission impact.
Social Impact Leaders (CEOs, Executive Directors, Organizational Leaders, Chief Talent/People Officers, CHROs, Directors of HR)
- Understanding why culture matters to mission
- Understanding why leaders need to prioritize workplace culture
- Five strategies for building a healthy, talent-focused organization
Developing a Talent Management Strategy for Your Nonprofit
The most effective organizations have a clear strategy for how they will impact the communities that they serve.
HR/Talent Leaders (Chief Talent/People Officers, CHROs, Directors of HR)
- Understanding the importance of a talent management strategy within your organization
- Aligning talent management strategy with overall organizational strategy
- Setting talent management goals and metrics that matter
Foundations of Compensation for Nonprofit Leaders
With a competitive market for talent it’s critical to understand what steps you should take to remain externally competitive and internally equitable.
HR or nonprofit leadership
This course will walk leaders through:
- The foundation of compensation (from cost of labour vs. cost of living, compensation lingo and the current economic trends)
- The importance of job descriptions
- What your organization’s compensation program must have to be successful
- Salary administration components (best practices around pay policies)
- Time for Q&A
Primer on Job Description Creation
How important do you think are well-written job descriptions are to your organization? No matter how small or large your organization is, every role should be defined.
In this live training, we will:
- Discuss the importance of job descriptions in support of your talent management initiatives
- Must-have job description components
- Job description writing activity
- Best practices for writing sustainable job descriptions
- Time for Q&A
Leadership Coaching
Learn how to use a coaching model in leadership development, professional and personal development plans, as well as performance management.
Anyone who leads and manages staff
- Understanding what it takes to create a culture of constructive collaboration and teamwork through leadership coaching
Building Trust, Managing Difficult Conversations and Conflict Resolution
Build trust through relationship building, honesty, recognition and follow through. Participants will gain a greater understanding of what gets in the way of building trust between leaders and their staff, and how to work through those barriers. As well, they will learn how to examine the fundamentals of conflict resolution, and work through a 6-step model for crucial conversation as well as reflect on the foundation of all trust-building and conflict resolution: transparency, clarity and empathy.
Anyone who leads and manages staff
Understanding:
- What it takes to build trust and what gets in the way
- What leaders can do to create trust in the midst of challenging circumstances
- What bias is and how to interrupt it
- Implicit bias and it’s impact in the workplace
- The power of crucial conversations
- Why they are important (how leaders can create a culture where people feel safe, seen, heard and respected)
- What they look like (following the 6 Step Process)
- How you approach them (the intersection of clarity and empathy)
- When they should happen (feedback/Check-In/1:1 Conversations)
- How transparency is a key behavior in building trust
- Empathetic leadership and how to build trust through relationship and connection
Change Management (Leading and Managing Through Change/Loss)
At the root of change management are the following topics: how to process change (EI); how to ensure the organizational culture is supporting staff through the change (building trust); and how to continue to help staff grow and develop during change (leadership coaching).
Anyone who leads and manages staff
- Understanding how a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world impacts your leadership style
- Understanding how to shift your leadership approach to inspire employees to do more
- Gaining techniques on how to effectively lead change efforts at your organization
Emotional Intelligence and Agility
Emotional intelligence (or, emotional quotient) predicts job performance 2 to 1 over any other skill. Far more important than IQ or job experience, EQ is the ability to manage emotions and relationships. In this two-part interactive workshop, leaders will explore the fundamentals of EQ, work on strategies to apply them in the workplace and do an assessment of their own EQ skills.
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Learning emotional hijacks or triggers (what happens and how to work through one)
- Understanding the four quadrants of EI (and the strategies/tools to implement them)
- Gaining self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management
Understanding Your Personal Leadership Style
Building an effective, high-performing team starts with assessing and understanding your personal leadership style, as well as the styles of those you lead—and how each style works together. In this workshop, we will work through each “letter” that is part of the Big Five Personality Traits, and use interactive exercises to explore how to function effectively as a team by understanding our individual styles and approaches.
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Understanding emotional intelligence (EI) and how this impacts our leadership style
- Debriefing your leadership style assessment results and how they shape your success as a leader
- Utilizing assessment results to better lead and build effective teams
Critical Thinking, Decision Making and Problem Solving
Become a more effective problem solver and meeting your organizational objectives. In this workshop, participants will develop critical thinking, decision making and problem solving skills by examining two models as analysis tools (SWOT and SOAR).
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Defining and grounding in critical thinking, decision making and problem solving
- Understanding how to use the SWOT and SOAR models to approach decision making and problem solving
Conflict and Stress Management
Manage stress more effectively by examining definitions, best practices and tools for conflict resolution and stress management. Participants in this training will also identify methods to improve their individual approach to conflict resolution.
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Examining definitions, best practices and tools for conflict resolution and stress management
- Thinking through ways to improve individual approach to conflict resolution
Customer Service Best Practices For Managers
Learn how to extend talent management practices through customer service in this training. Participants will examine best practices and tools for effective customer service to all types of customers and think through ways to improve individual and team approach to customer service (including hiring and training).
Anyone who manages or leads teams that provide direct service
- Defining “who is/are your customer(s)?”
- Examining best practices and tools for effective customer service to all types of customers
- Thinking through ways to improve our individual and team approach to customer service (including hiring and training)
Time Management
Looking for ways to improve individual and team approaches to time management? In this training, participants will examine common time management challenges, personally and as teams/departments at the organization, as well as review best practices and tools for effective time management.
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Examining common time management challenges, personally and as teams/departments
- Reviewing best practices and tools for effective time management
- Identifying ways to improve individual and team approaches to time management
Effective Communication Skills (Oral, Written, etc . )
In this training, participants will examine definitions, best practices and tools for the most effective ways to communicate (verbal and written), as well as think through ways to improve communication styles, individually and as teams.
All staff (individual contributors, managers, leaders)
- Understanding definitions, best practices and tools for the most effective ways to communicate (verbal and writte )
- Learning methods to improve communication styles, as individuals and across teams
Building and Leading High-Performing Teams
Foundational to building and leading high-performing and effective teams include understanding your personal leadership style and how to engage your staff, have difficult conversations and build trust. In this training, participants will learn the key leadership competencies and what it takes to be a great leader.
Anyone who manages or leads teams that provide direct service
- Thinking through employee engagement and inclusion
- Understanding how to integrate your team leadership styles, with SMART goals, to build a high-performing team
- Putting all of it together (team leadership styles, SMART goals and coaching) to create a culture of collaboration
The Art & Science of Strategic Leadership
Master vision setting and strategic thinking to create impact as a leader. In this course, participants will work to understand and build proficiency with critical thinking and strategic decision making.
Advanced Leaders (tenure and/or seniority)
- Understanding how to master strategic thinking to create impact as a leader
- Understanding your role in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion
Core Leadership Competencies
What does it take to be a great leader? Some key competencies include: communication, staff leadership, empathy, resiliency and compassion, conflict resolution, EI/EQ and time and priority management.
Anyone who leads and manages staff
Executive Presence and Communicating for Influence
Creating an executive presence begins with influencing and inspiring others through relationship building. In this course, participants will walk away with techniques for persuading others, gaining cooperation, leading with credibility and communicating ideas and results with confidence and skill to diverse audiences.
Advanced Leaders (tenure and/or seniority)
- Exploring techniques for creating your personal leadership brand, elevating your executive presence and influencing others
- Leading with credibility
- Communicating ideas and results with confidence and skill to diverse audiences.
Leading Change in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) World
Transformational leadership – what is it and how can you become a transformational leader and drive innovation? In this training, participants will learn how to plan for change by crafting a clear strategic narrative aligned with organizational culture.
Advanced Leaders (tenure and/or seniority)
- Understanding how a VUCA world impacts your leadership style
- How to shift your leadership approach to inspire employees to do more
- Learn techniques on how to effectively lead change efforts at your organization
- How to communicate change to stakeholders and team members
Allyship to Ownership
This training will allow staff to move beyond allyship (a first step on the anti-racist journey) to becoming a co-conspirator, a committed champion and an accomplice in support of people of color (and other marginalized groups).
All staff
- Exploring how you show up in cross-cultural relationships (core to brave space connection)
- Defining, identifying and acknowledging the personal experience of privilege
- Deepening awareness of how you can move from being an ally to being an accomplice to ownership in changing systems
Let’s Talk About Equity
As part of a commitment to becoming a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization, please join us for a highly interactive virtual session that will provide a comprehensive introduction to equity. The content will provide a foundation for deeper engagement and ongoing learning.
All staff
- Establishing a common language related to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging
- Participating in brave space conversations to build collective cultural competency, empathy and understanding
- Increasing awareness of how individual bias influences inequities within institutions
- Exploring steps to begin to integrate equity into your personal leadership practices and day-to-day interactions
Implicit Bias
Also known as implicit social cognition, implicit bias refers to the stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases ultimately shape how we engage others and make decisions in the workplace. The session provides an understanding of how bias shows up and to implement best practices on how to interrupt and mitigate bias and hold the organization accountable to inclusion.
All staff
- Uncovering how individual bias influences inequities within educational institutions
- Identifying opportunities to interrupt and mitigate implicit bias within organizational culture, policies and systems
- Gaining techniques to implement best practices in uncovering personal biases
Creating a Culture of Inclusion and Belonging
Organizational culture provides the norms and values of how people approach their work, how they interact with their colleagues and how they interact with people served by the organization. This session will define and explore inclusion and belonging to provide tangible ways that your organization can take to build an inclusive corporate culture or an inclusive institutional culture that promotes a sense of belonging.
Advanced Leaders (tenure and/or seniority)
Crucial Conversations and Microaggressions
In this workshop, we will spend time connecting how racial battle fatigue, frequently created by microaggressions, must be understood and addressed across the organization at all levels. This requires an acknowledgement of systems that work to create the conditions (i.e. White supremacy), and what organizations can do to dismantle them. But it also requires personal responsibility in owning, stopping and addressing microaggressions when they happen. Participants will learn ways to accomplish this through intentional inclusive conversations, creating space for critical discussion and sharing between diverse groups of staff.
All staff
- Understanding racial battle fatigue: What is it? What creates it?
- Establishing a working definition of “microaggressions” or “subtle acts of exclusion” (SAEs)
- Completing a self-assessment and discuss times and spaces where staff have experienced these acts of exclusion
- Utilizing a framework for creating accountability around microaggressions/SAEs
- Gaining awareness on how all organizational work, but particularly laying a DEI foundation, relies on staff’s ability to hold inclusive/crucial or critical conversations
- Identifying what conditions are necessary for inclusive conversations and practice a having critical and inclusive conversations
Applying a Race Equity Lens to Leadership
Race equity is when racial identity has no influence on how people experience and progress within an organization. Accomplishing race equity in the workplace requires transformative leadership and organizational change. This session will explore how senior leaders can and must play a critical role in building race equity into the culture of the organization through tangible actions and modeling race equity best practices.
Advanced Leaders (tenure and/or seniority)
Business Case for a Diverse Workforce
Organizations are often confronted with significant priorities related to achieving mission-centered objectives while also navigating complex workforce considerations. This session will explore well-researched and foundational considerations related to the connection between an organization’s bottom line and the benefits of intentionally creating a diverse workforce.
Anyone in a leadership role in an organization
Cultural (Global) Humility and Competence
As cultural competency is critically important, not only to internal organizational structure but also to the experiences of communities served by the organization, this session aims to enhance our understanding of cultural competency and its intersection with the principles of cultural humility. Additionally, we will spend time unpacking the ways that colonialism as a theory should inform our framing of cultural competency and cultural humility.
All staff
- Increasing understanding of cultural competency and cultural humility
- Identifying awareness of personal stages of cultural competence
- Understanding the continued impacts of settler-colonialism and imperialism today
- Gaining knowledge and skills to effectively navigate cultural difference
- Discussing how to bridge cross cultural communication barriers
Operationalizing Equity
As organizations strive to integrate equity into everything they do, those who manage others have an important role to play. Supervisors must lead by example and model inclusive behavior and empathy. Being successful in this space will supervisors to lead with a lens of equity. Join us for an interactive session to explore your leadership role in building an inclusive team, creating equitable systems & processes and generating organizational accountability to equity.
Anyone who leads or manages staff/teams
- Exploring best practices for creating an inclusive and culturally responsive work environment to integrate transparency and power sharing
- Identifying techniques to interrupt and mitigate implicit bias and microaggressions within team culture, and implementation of day-to-day HR practices
- Engaging in brave space conversations to explore how the team can hold the environment accountable to interrupting bias that may be showing up within the organization