Virtual Resources

April

• Goal-Setting conversations - SMARTER GOALS

  Date: Tuesday, April 21st
  Time:  1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online by Zoom

  A Goal is a Target…

  If you were learning archery but had no target, your progress would probably be slow; you have nothing to aim at. Having a goal is essential for high performance. It gives you a target to shoot at and immediate feedback on the accuracy of each shot.

  Overview 

  •  This interactive online 90-minute workshop covers the nitty-gritty of setting goals that draw you towards them as a magnet does. The secret lies not in will power, but in well-proven techniques that can help you become a high performer and that means achieving more for you….by you.
  • Identifying and creating balance/synergy between roles and goals

  What you will learn

  • Important ingredients of SMART & SMARTER goals
  • Developing an empowering goal statements
  • Creating a framework for goal setting and review                                     
  • Key components of effective goal setting
  • Techniques to improve your scheduling skills

  Facilitator:

  Diana Kawarsky, MA, CCP, President, The Soft Skills Group

  Register

• Working in and leading a virtual team

  Date:  Thursday, April 23rd
  Time:  10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online by AdobeConnect

  Overview 

  Take your virtual teams from 50 to 200 kph!
  Remember when you first learned to drive?
  You got in your car, turned on the ignition and you were off!  
  You felt pretty confident, right? 
  That's how many of us feel about using technology and online information to get going.
  But how well would you do if I gave you the keys to a high performance racing car, and asked you to race without giving you the specialized know-how and skills to prepare, avoid costly errors and navigate obstacles?
  It’s the same for teams working virtually. While tech basics and online articles can get them in gear, teams that have been skilled in virtual teamwork outpace and outperform.
  This session can help you power-up your team leaders and participants with lasting, best practice know-how, and skills training.

  What you will learn

  • MIT and Bell Lab study looking at how Distance impacts Communications
  • Review the 2 elements of what makes a virtual team successful and discuss how to incorporate these best practices
  • How do you build credibility when you virtual?
  • How do you show that you are reliable in a virtual environment?
  • How do you build trust when you are not face-to-face?
  • How to ensure your virtual team is provided timely information and kept in the loop
  • Techniques to manage from a distance
  • Case study
  • Managing Virtual Team Challenges including:
    • Building Relationships
    • Building and maintaining trust
    • Defining our common goal
  • How will these strategies help your virtual team be more successful?
  • Create a personal action plan

  Who Should Attend?

  This online session will benefit virtual team leaders and team members who work in and lead a virtual team.

  Facilitator:

  Deb Fletcher, Virtual Teambuilders

  register

• Managing me at home

  Date: Monday, April 27th
  Time:  9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online by Zoom

  Overview 

  In this highly practical 2 hour webinar, you’ll learn self-management practices to help you stay focused, productive and engaged while working at home.

  • Intro: Lessons Learned. Examining the potential benefits and pitfalls of working at home.
  • Planning our work-at-home day. Setting ourselves up for success in a situation where we don’t have our normal work structures in place.
  • Kickstarting our work-at-home day. Getting the day started with a positive, productive state of mind.
  • Self Managing ourselves through the work-at-home day (where there’s no one else around and it’s easy to get distracted). Tips & best practices to help us stay focused, energized, “connected” and handle the unique distractions of working at home

  Facilitator:

  Doug Heidebrecht, Managing Me

  register

May

• Resilience: Thriving in Times of Uncertainty & Change

  Date: Tuesday, May 5th
  Time:  2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online

  Do any of the following statements resonate with you?

  • Is the constant state of change, uncertainty, and complexity making it hard for you to be resilient?
  • Do you find it hard to bounce back from even small setbacks?
  • Would you like strategies to boost your resilience?

  Why this workshop?

  Even before we had the Coronavirus, today’s climate was often referred to as “VUCA times” - an environment of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.  Developing a capacity for resilience, regardless of the situation, is not only essential but critical.  Thriving means being able to constantly bounce back from challenges and uncertainty as well as periods of adversity.

  Fortunately, resilience can be learned and developed. The brain can rewire itself for greater resilience and adaptability.

  What you will learn:

  • What resilience is and why it’s so critical – especially at this unprecedented time
  • How the brain can be rewired for greater resilience
  • Discover factors making you more resilient that are easily within your control
  • Access research-proven strategies to improve your resilience
  • Create a resilience action plan

  Facilitator:

  Wendy Woods, Watershed Training Solutions

  Register

• Emotional Intelligence

  Date: Thursday, May 7
  Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
  Location: Online
  Target audience: All faculty and staff

  The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being.” However, although psychological health has increasingly been recognized as a key component of our overall health status, it continues to receive less attention than it merits.

  This session will emphasize skills, strategies and approaches to enhance emotional intelligence, given its strong links to psychological well-being. Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of, control and effectively express your emotions while communicating with others in empathetic, respectful and supportive ways. Motivation, morale and job performance is enhanced for all of us when we are working with colleagues and people leaders who are high in emotional intelligence. Furthermore, fostering our own emotional intelligence skills leads to enhanced levels of happiness and reduced levels of negative emotions, including anxiety and depression. 

  In this session, you will learn how to enhance your overall sense of psychological health, wellness and resiliency, both in and out of the workplace. You will obtain an overview of common signs and symptoms of psychological health issues, and learn effective, evidence-based strategies for managing your psychological health from a cognitive and behavioural perspective. Participants will identify the range of common stressors they currently face, and develop a behavioural change plan to target a key stressor in their life.

  Learn how to:

  • Enhance your personal and workplace skills by building on important core elements of emotional intelligence (EI).
  • Recognize the important role of core emotional intelligence skills such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, and how to enhance them.

  Facilitator:

  • Dr. Joti Samra, COE and Founder, MyWorkplaceHealth.com

   REGISTER

• Change at Work - PROSCI & ADKAR in Action

  Date: Tuesday, May 12th
  Time:  1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online by Zoom

  Change is changing too…

  Consider that when a group changes, it is not only the organization that changes but rather the behaviours of individuals. New behaviour results and different professional or business outcomes are achieved. In other words, organizations don't change, only people within organizations

  Overview 

  This interactive online 90-minute workshop covers how you can better equip yourself to respond to the rate and pace of change changing, in addition to the specific change itself. It is a valuable resource as we all engage and manage change(s) every day.

  What you will learn

  • Create clear understandings of what choices, controls, and influences you have over change
  • Learn what to do when you successfully identify group development stages
  • Understand the value of the PROSCI approach
  • Apply ADKAR to your own on-the-job examples of change
  • Steps of effective change identification and overall management

  
  

  Facilitator:

  Diana Kawarsky, MA, CCP, President, The Soft Skills Group

  register

• Documenting Process and Procedures

  Dates:  May 14th, May 21st, and May 28th
  Time:  10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Online by Zoom

  Overview

  This course provides industry-wide design standards for structuring information, integrating text and graphics effectively, and making their documents more readable. Participants learn to improve their documents while reducing total writing time. 

  Participants will be provided with the tools and conventions to write documentation on an organization’s processes and procedures that is readable, easy to navigate and complete.

  Learn how to:

  • Apply a standard writing process to documents on processes or procedures
  • Explain the role and nature of process and procedures documents
  • Use the principles of each phase of the writing process
  • Apply specific guidelines for determining requirements for compliance and analyzing the audience
  • Organize descriptive and procedural information
  • Practice the documentation process with hands-on examples
  • Revise your documents for grammar and style.

  Facilitator:

  • Stephen De Paul, PhD

  REGISTER

• Psychologically Safe Leadership

  Date: Thursday, May 21
  Time: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. 
  Location: Online
  Target audience: managers only

  The National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace underscores the importance of organizations equipping their people leaders with the skills, strategies and approaches to engage in psychologically safe leadership, with the aim of enhancing overall workplace psychological health and safety. In this session, you will:

  • Learn about what psychologically safe leadership is.
  • Obtain an overview of the Psychologically Safe Leadership Assessment and how to build an action plan to enhance your psychologically safe leadership skills.
  • Obtain concrete takeaways on how to start to embed psychologically safe leadership skills, strategies and approaches into your day-to-day work.

  Learn:

  • Evidence-based strategies across the following five domains of psychologically safe leadership:
    • Communication and collaboration.
    • Social intelligence.
    • Problem-solving and conflict management.
    • Security and safety.
    • Fairness and integrity.

  Facilitator:

  • Dr. Joti Samra, COE and Founder, MyWorkplaceHealth.com

  REGISTER

June

• Virtual Team Meetings - NEW

  Date: Tuesday, June 2
  Time: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. 
  Target audience: All employees
  Location: Online by Zoom

  Overview

  Take your virtual teams from 50 to 200 kph!
  Remember when you first learned to drive?  You got in your car, turned on the ignition and you were off!  
  You felt pretty confident, right?  That's how many of us feel about using technology and online information to get going.  We are at least partially comfortable.

  How well would you do if you were given the keys to a high-performance racing car and asked to race against professionals on a pro track without being given any specialized know-how or skills training that would help you avoid road obstacles, avoid costly errors, and win?

  It’s the same for teams working virtually. While tech basics, video’s, and online articles can get you in gear, teams that have been skilled in virtual teamwork will outpace and outperform.

  This session can help you power-up your team leaders and participants with lasting, best practice know-how, and skills training.

  Content Covered During the Session

  The risk of multitasking and disengagement to the organization and team.

  Strategies to implement before the meeting

  • Turn on the video
  • Use your meetings wisely
  • Create a graphical depiction of the team
  • Statement of achievement

  Strategies to implement during the meeting

  • Build a collaborative agenda
  • Build relationships and connect people
  • Provide a play-by-play commentary

  Strategies to implement at the end of the meeting

  • Provide a summary
  • Conduct an evaluation
  • Strategies to overcome meeting challenges including:
    • Lack of non-verbal cues
    • Multi-tasking/distractions
    • Gaining participation in meetings
    • Technology limitations
  • How will these strategies help you with your virtual team meetings?
  • Create a personal action plan

  At the end of the session the participants will be able to:

  • Identify nine techniques to improve your virtual meetings
  • Discuss challenges to conducting an effective virtual meeting and develop solutions to those challenges
  • Create a workplace environment in which remote team members feel equally engaged as their face-to-face counterparts
  • Build relationships from a distance
  • Manage feelings of disengagement and isolation among virtual team members
  • Use language to promote engagement

  Facilitator:

  Deb Fletcher, Virtual Teambuilders, https://virtualteambuilders.com/

  Register

• Cultivating Values-Based Living in Light of the Existential Crisis Posed with Covid-19

  Dates:  Wednesday, June 17
  Time:  2 p.m. - 4 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  Overview

  The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is having myriad impacts on our psyche and overall sense of well-being – and for many is leading to a pervasive sense of an existential crisis. The global scale of the pandemic we are facing can make it extremely difficult to manage our own anxieties and can raise many philosophical and broader questions about meaning and purpose. In this session, attendees will learn ways to cultivate a values-connected life – and place focus on those domains of life which are within their control as a way of enhancing overall psychological health, wellness, and resilience.

  Facilitator:

  Dr. Joti Samra, COE and Founder, MyWorkplaceHealth.com

   REGISTER

• All Things Google

  Dates:  Wednesday, June 24
  Time:  10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Googlemeets

  Overview

  This Google Workshop presentation will share and demonstrate the findings of implementing sustainable, innovative, and cost-effective collaboration solutions that meet the diverse needs of a fast-paced and ever-changing university landscape.

  Key challenges with the university community include user adoption and unclear business requirements. To overcome these challenges a well-designed process was created to help frame requirements and understand end state goals for each department and faculty. We use cloud-based technology and in-house tools to provide more opportunities for collaboration across the university community.

  •  Learn how Ontario Tech leverages cloud applications like G Suite for Education to deliver value add collaboration capability.
  • Leverage Google Meet to deliver online lectures to classes with up to 250 students or to connect with your teams.
  • Learn how to store, share, and collaborate files and folders from any mobile device, tablet or computer using Google Drive.
  • Learn about Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms.

  Facilitator:

  Ron Robertson, Ian Doyle

   REGISTER

July

• Building Successful Teams Using the Purest Form of Motivation
  Date: Thursday, July 9th
  Time:  9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
  Target audience:  All Employees 
  Room: Google Meet 

   

  Why this Workshop

  In this webinar, we will explore intrinsic motivation and how it impacts team culture, performance, and outcomes. Whether it’s a collegiate sports team competing for a National Championship or members of a marketing team working to launch a top campaign, the variables are the same. Success is in the approach.

  Learning objectives:

  • Learn the key ingredients to creating and facilitating a high performing team culture
  • Discover how individual motivation influences team dynamics and outcomes.
  • Uncover the leadership secrets to effective leaders. ​

   Facilitator:

  Women’s Soccer Head Coach: Audra Sherman

  Bio: https://goridgebacks.com/staff.aspx?staff=219&path=wsoc

  Register

   

• Building Resilience

  Dates:  Monday, July 13
  Time:  1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  Overview

  Resilience is the capacity to bounce back physically, mentally and emotionally from adversity. The great news is that all of us have it, it can always be enhanced, and researchers know more about how we can do so than ever before.

   This 2-hour workshop on ways to strengthen our capacity for resilience uses current research to answer such questions as: What are the psychological and behavioural foundations of resilience? How can I maintain a resilient outlook? What is post-traumatic growth? How can I move from being a victim of circumstances to a survivor to a change-maker in my life?

  Learning Objectives

  As a result of attending this workshop, participants will be able to: 

  • Understand the psychological and behavioural foundations of resilience
  • Learn a variety of simple, practical ways to enhance their own individual resilience
  • Learn how to promote resilience among the members of any group they belong to (family, work, community)
  • Learn about the exciting research on the phenomenon of post-traumatic growth
  • See how to take an empowered and proactive stance in response to adversity

  Facilitator:

  David Clarke, Durham Mental Health Services

   REGISTER

• Returning to Work and Life in the Era of COVID-19

  Dates:  Wednesday, July 15
  Time:  2 p.m. - 4 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  Overview

  As Canada begins to slowly open up and lessen the restrictions on physical distancing, many people will be expected to go back to work and regular routine, requiring them to leave the comfort and safety of their house. Having to go back to work during these times can leave many with understandable and increased feelings of stress and anxiety. In this session, attendees will gain useful skills and knowledge for dealing with stress and anxiety about going back to work, and will gain knowledge about how to effectively communicate and manage their concerns – both personally and in the workplace.

  Facilitator:

  Dr. Joti Samra, COE and Founder, MyWorkplaceHealth.com

   REGISTER

• Strength, Positivity, Grit and Resilience
  Date: Monday, July 20th
  Time:  10 a.m. – 12 p.m. 
  Target audience:  All Employees 
  Room: Google Meet 

   

  Why this Workshop

   We are going through a very challenging yet unique time. Adversity and stress are unavoidable. We are facing an unprecedented situation that requires strength, positivity, grit, and resilience. We are facing these challenges in our personal and professional lives. It is important to find ways to ensure that we do not fold under these pressures and obstacles as they occur.  Join this session to learn strategies to use personally, and that you can share with your colleagues and family.

  This short workshop will help us to recognize that we all go through tough situations in life, and also provide us with strategies to bounce back during these times.

   What is covered?

  • What is Resilience and how resilient are we?
  • How do we respond to adversity and stressful situations?
  • How being resilient can help us during these challenging times?
  • How can we help our family members, our colleagues, and student athletes to be more resilient during these unprecedented times?

   Facilitator:

  Men’s Soccer Head Coach: Ramin Mohammadi

  Bio: https://goridgebacks.com/coaches.aspx?rc=537&path=msoc

  Register

• Handling Difficult Situations

  Dates:  Thursday, July 30
  Time:  10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  This program provides tools and skills with which to manage the difficult people and circumstances we encounter throughout our workplace, whether we are dealing with students, co-workers, peers, or different departments.

  Challenging situations and interactions require the ability to defuse others’ emotions and can result in a successful outcome for all. 

  Participants in this program will achieve this by:

  • Developing effective relationships with other departments, co-workers and students
  • Understanding how communication impacts our relationships
  • Recognizing how our emotions impact our ability to positively engage others
  • Learning an effective process to use when we encounter difficult situations/internal customers/students

  Facilitator:

  Deb Fletcher, Virtual Team Builders

   REGISTER

August

• Cultivating a Healthy and Positive Workplace Culture for Remote Teams

  Dates:  Wednesday, August 12
  Time:  2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  Overview

  A healthy and positive workplace culture is one of the cornerstones for most businesses. But that workplace culture can change drastically when people are no longer able to come into work or see each other face-to-face. Engagement, morale, and productivity can all be impacted when our traditional work environment transitions to a remote team. In this session, attendees will gain useful skills, strategies, and approaches to cultivate a positive and engaged workplace culture for remote workers.

  Facilitator:

  Dr. Joti Samra, COE and Founder, MyWorkplaceHealth.com

  
  REGISTER

• Suicide Awareness

  Dates:  Wednesday, August 19
  Time:  9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
  Target audience:  All employees
  Room:  Zoom

  Overview

  This presentation aims to provide the audience with information outlining the facts surrounding suicide in Canada. This course examines the statistics of suicide as well as potentially high risk categories of individuals. This training is not an intervention skill building course, however, it will examine the simple direction to take if you believe someone is experiencing thoughts of suicide.

  Facilitator:

  Jack Veitch, Manager of Community Engagement and Education, CMHA

  
  REGISTER