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Overview: In this webinar, we will learn the reasons onboarding is important today. We will learn that the terms orientation and onboarding are not interchangeable. We will learn that orientation is in reality just one step in the onboarding process. We will learn that the onboarding process begins before the hire is made. Why should you Attend:
Statistics show that half of all hourly employees leave the job within four months of hire and half of all salaried employees leave their jobs within 18 months. This turnover is expensive. Much of this turnover can be prevented by a proper onboarding process. Orientation, the process of making someone an employee, is no longer sufficient. When so much of a company's success is dependent on the intellectual property that employees produce it is critical to make sure that the employee is fitting in and succeeding.

This is what a successful onboarding process accomplishes. Those companies that do not do this successfully suffer lower productivity, potential loss of customers, and of course the eventual loss of the employee and the resultant replacement costs.

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • The cost of turnover
  • The steps involved in onboarding
  • Before the hire
  • During the hire
  • The first day
  • The first week
  • The ongoing process
  • What potential activities are included

Who Will Benefit:
  • HR Managers
  • Office Managers
  • Supervisors
  • Managers
  • Company Owners
Marcia Zidle is a board-certified executive coach, business management consultant and keynote speaker, who helps organizations to leverage their leadership and human capital assets.

She has 25 years of management, business consulting and international experience in a variety of industries including health care, financial services, oil and gas, manufacturing, insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitality, government and nonprofits.

She brings an expertise in strategy and alignment; social and emotional intelligence; executive and team leadership; employee engagement and innovation; personal and organization change management.

She has been selected one of LinkedIn Profinder’s top coaches for the past 5 years.

Overview: Finding the time to write your organization's technical reports, procedures, instructional guides, project updates, and even email can be a challenge. Getting employees to actually read and pay attention to them is even more of one. In addition, any technical document bearing your organization's name must be absolutely error-free. Even a careless mistake in an email can damage a leader's reputation and can make an entire work group look bad.

The secret to a workday writer's success is segmenting the prewriting, writing, and rewriting phases to produce shorter, clearer, more meaningful documents. Participants really can learn to "Write It So They Read It," even with technical documentation.

Areas Covered in the Session:
Write It So They Read It:
Technical Writing for Subject Matter Experts
During this highly interactive technical writing class, participants will learn and practice preparing technical documentation in a reader-focused error-free manner, including:
  • A proven technique for writing crystal-clear reports, including good and bad examples
  • How to describe a complicated subject in clear and concise terms
  • What to do when you can't avoid using technical jargon
  • How to eliminate clichés, wasted words, and "smothered verbs" in technical writing
  • AUDIENCE FAVORITE: The five new guidelines for using bulleted lists in your message
  • Language guidelines for better receptivity such as non-inflammatory language, gender-neutral references, and attention to tone
  • How to distinguish among the prewriting, writing, and rewriting phases for reports and projects
  • How to make sure technical documents with your firm's name and seal on them are absolutely error free

Who Will Benefit:
  • Human Resources Professionals
  • Engineers
  • Knowledge Professionals
  • SMEs
  • Administrative Professionals
  • Employees being asked to do more writing on the job than Expected
  • Training Specialists
  • Learning and Development Specialists
Mandi Stanley With more than 16 years of experience on the seminar circuit, Certified Speaking Professional Mandi Stanley works primarily with business leaders who want to boost their professional image and with people who want to be better speakers and writers.
In 2003, Mandi was designated a CSP, Certified Speaking Professional. Fewer than 9 percent of all worldwide speakers have earned this designation, and Mandi is the first Mississippian in history to receive this honor through the National Speakers Association.

She's a summa cum laude graduate with concentrations in English, communication, and management, and served as a faculty member of the American Management Association for five years. Mandi is the author of The No-Panic Plan for Presenters, which was named a Finalist in the Career category at the Independent Book Publishers Awards in New York. Audiences appreciate her platform enthusiasm, interactive style, and content-rich messages.

Overview: With the current coronavirus scare, employers are taking active steps to ease the spread of the disease by allowing workers who are able to work from home. Join this webinar to learn several research based tips on how how to successfully manage employees who are working remotely. Though this recent trend of remote working has continued to increase, having a majority of your workforce working from home can be daunting. Especially when leaders and managers have firm deadlines to meet. This webinar will also review the benefits of allowing employees to work from home while providing managers with the tools they need to get the performance they expect from their teams.

Why you should Attend: Do you worry about employees actually getting work their done if they are not in the office? Or how the team is going to collaborate on important customer deliverables if everyone is not in the office? Or if they will get distracted by laundry and kids? Or if they are job hunting on LinkedIn since you’ve given them the option of telecommuting?

By attending this webinar, you will learn how you can mitigate the potential lost productivity of having employees working from home. Discover how to keep employee trust, bonding, collaboration and accountability happening when you can’t see your employee working in the office each day. After attending this webinar, you will change your mindset and skillset for how to manage remote workers, not only during the current crisis, but for the future as well.

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Potential pitfalls of having employees work remotely
  • Signs of possible employee disengagement
  • Creating a culture of trust and sharing
  • What a manager can do to establish trust and accountability
  • How to use technology to bridge the gaps
  • Balancing face to face, telephone and remote work
  • What to “measure” to make sure work is getting done and employees are putting in the hours you expect
  • Benefits of a remote workforce
Should you allow employees to work from home when the crisis is over?

Who Will Benefit:
  • CEO’s
  • VP’s
  • Middle Managers
  • Supervisors
Dr. B. Lynn Ware, Ph.D. , President and CEO As CEO of Integral Talent Systems, Inc. (ITS) based in Silicon Valley, California, Dr. Ware is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist who has practiced for over 25 years in the talent management field with a strong focus on how to increase employee productivity for the benefit of achieving business goals.

Dr. Ware has created a process to build, measure, and improve an organization’s employee engagement program. This process has helped to increase engagement, productivity, and organizational commitment.

Dr. Ware has consulted on the creation of employee engagement surveys for several of the top Fortune 500 corporations. She has frequently been quoted on trends in talent management strategies in numerous publications such as the Associated Press, Computer World magazine, Network World and the San Francisco Chronicle, and has been featured several times on CNN as a national talent management expert.

Overview: Let's face it - we are all managing projects every day! They may be simple or more complex, but undoubtedly you are managing projects within your role. You don't need to be a project manager to learn how to manage your projects effectively and efficiently. This interactive presentation will provide the basics of managing projects - regardless of their size or complexity. Webinar attendees will be provided a variety of tools, techniques, and best practices to enable them to manage the projects they are assigned and the projects they want to undertake, including how to socialize initiatives to get buy-in from others. This webinar will provide a simple step-by-step process for managing your projects. Attendees will learn how to use a variety of documents - scope statements, communication plans, risk management plans, risk registers, and change management plans - in order to better manage their initiatives. Additionally, the importance of socializing initiatives as well as managing stakeholders to ensure commitment to initiatives and support needed to achieve goals will be discussed.

Challenges in managing projects will be covered as well as how to best address those challenges to keep your project moving forward. Other topics covered in this webinar to enable increased effectiveness in managing projects and meeting project goals include: developing the project business case, effective project planning with the team, five stages of team development, driving decision-making from stakeholders, and facilitating effective team meetings.

Leave this webinar with a better understanding of how project management can assist you in performing your role in your organization.

Why should you Attend: By attending, you will understand how to do even more effectively:
  • Scale Project Scope Statements
  • Develop the business case for your own projects
  • Identifying and managing stakeholders
  • Develop your Project Plan
  • Itemize your Work Breakdown Structure and activity list
  • Enhance your Communications Plan
  • Identify, plan and manage project risks
  • Manage changes to the project
  • Report on status
  • Drive decisions from the team and from key stakeholders
Would you like to get more (or all!) of the projects you manage on time and on a budget?

Are you concerned about people on your project teams not knowing enough about how to effectively manage a project? What about you?

Would you like some help managing your projects more?

Would you like to manage others' expectations?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you should join us!

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Project Scope Statements
  • Developing the business case for your own projects
  • Identifying and managing stakeholders
  • Developing your Project Plan
  • Itemizing your Work Breakdown Structure and activity list
  • Enhancing your Communications Plan
  • Identifying, planning, and managing project risks
  • Managing changes to the project
  • Reporting on the status
  • Driving decisions from the team and from key stakeholders

Who Will Benefit:
  • CEO
  • Senior Vice President
  • Vice President
  • Executive Director
  • Managing Director
  • Regional Vice President
  • Area Supervisor
  • Manager
Chris DeVany is the founder and president of Pinnacle Performance Improvement Worldwide, a firm which focuses on management and organization development. Pinnacle's clients include global organizations such as Visa International, Cadence Design Systems, Coca Cola, Sprint, Microsoft, Aviva Insurance, Schlumberger and over 500 other organizations in 22 countries. He also has consulted to government agencies from the United States, the Royal Government of Saudi Arabia, Canada, Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom.

He has published numerous articles in the fields of surviving mergers and acquisitions, surviving change, project management, management, sales, team-building, leadership, ethics, customer service, diversity and work-life balance, in publications ranging from ASTD/Performance In Practice to Customer Service Management. His book, "90 Days to a High-Performance Team", published by McGraw Hill and often accompanied by in-person, facilitated instruction, has helped and continues to help thousands of executives, managers and team leaders improve performance.

He has appeared hundreds of times on radio and television interview programs to discuss mergers and acquisitions (how to manage and survive them), project management, sales, customer service, effective workplace communication, management, handling rapid personal and organizational change and other topical business issues.

He has served or is currently serving as a board member of the International Association of Facilitators, Sales and Marketing Executives International, American Management Association, American Society of Training and Development, Institute of Management Consultants, American Society of Association Executives, Meeting Professionals International and National Speakers Association. Chris is an award-winning Toastmaster's International Competition speaker. He recently participated in the Fortune 500 Annual Management Forum as a speaker, panelist and seminar leader.

Chris has distinguished himself professionally by serving multiple corporations as manager and trainer of sales, operations, project management, IT, customer service and marketing professionals. Included among those business leaders are Prudential Insurance, Sprint, BayBank (now part of Bank of America), US Health Care and Marriott Corporation.

He has assisted these organizations in mergers and acquisitions, facilitating post-merger and acquisition integration, developing project management, sales, customer service and marketing strategies, organizing inbound and outbound call center programs, training and development of management and new hires, and fostering corporate growth through creative change and innovation initiatives.

Chris holds degrees in management studies and organizational behavior from Boston University. He has traveled to 22 countries and 47 states in the course of his career.

Overview: Gain the insights and skills to know where your business stands today and where it's heading tomorrow. In today's unpredictable business environment, strategic leadership is not just for top management alone. It's for:
  • Managers who want to increase their competitive advantage by anticipating their customers' priorities, needs, and expectations
  • Managers who want to distinguish operational data from strategic data, creatively develop sources of information and increase their staff's flexibility and responsiveness
  • Managers who want to broaden their perspective, improve flexibility without compromising quality and increase their department's value to the organization
  • Every manager who wants to anticipate, initiate and manage change for maximum competitiveness!
If you want to move from being a good manager to being a great manager, you can't afford to miss this seminar. Because strategic leadership is a blending of attributes that every superior manager requires in today's unpredictable business environment.

Here's where you'll learn to anticipate, initiate and manage change for maximum competitiveness...stay on course while constantly redefining and refocusing your department's goals in order to hit a moving target and determine where your unit is headed, as you take into account the multiple groups your decisions will impact.

Prepare to make a transition. Instead of being buried in your department's ongoing activities, you'll become an innovator able to add value to your organization, its customers, and stakeholders. This course will provide you with the skills required to move your team or department forward decisively.

Why you should Attend: By participating, you will be able to do even more effectively:
  • Inspire and direct your team to greater readiness and competitiveness
  • Add value to your organization by understanding the needs of your customers
  • Anticipate, create and encourage change
  • Spot opportunities for successful strategic alliances
  • Become an innovative, visionary leader
  • Establish a strategic culture
  • Identify the strengths and weaknesses in your work unit
  • Keep your unit moving forward
  • Take risks with confidence
Would you like to inspire and direct your team more effectively?

What about being more able to anticipate, create and encourage change?

How about becoming an innovative, visionary leader?

Would you like your team to improve performance?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then come laugh, listen, and learn as Chris DeVany leads us all through those important topics, key questions, and answers we all need to be able to address effectively to improve our team members' and team’s performance!

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Crossing the line to strategic effectiveness
  • Learning the strategic leadership approach
  • Vision and strategic leadership
  • Becoming an effective leader
  • Building influence through communication
  • Understanding the role of teams
  • Managing change with action-oriented skills

Who Will Benefit:
  • CEO
  • Senior Vice President
  • Vice President
  • Executive Director
  • Managing Director
  • Regional Vice President
  • Area Supervisor
  • Manager
Chris DeVany is the founder and president of Pinnacle Performance Improvement Worldwide, a firm which focuses on management and organization development. Pinnacle's clients include global organizations such as Visa International, Cadence Design Systems, Coca Cola, Sprint, Microsoft, Aviva Insurance, Schlumberger and over 500 other organizations in 22 countries. He also has consulted to government agencies from the United States, the Royal Government of Saudi Arabia, Canada, Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom.

He has published numerous articles in the fields of surviving mergers and acquisitions, surviving change, project management, management, sales, team-building, leadership, ethics, customer service, diversity and work-life balance, in publications ranging from ASTD/Performance In Practice to Customer Service Management. His book, "90 Days to a High-Performance Team", published by McGraw Hill and often accompanied by in-person, facilitated instruction, has helped and continues to help thousands of executives, managers and team leaders improve performance.

He has appeared hundreds of times on radio and television interview programs to discuss mergers and acquisitions (how to manage and survive them), project management, sales, customer service, effective workplace communication, management, handling rapid personal and organizational change and other topical business issues.

He has served or is currently serving as a board member of the International Association of Facilitators, Sales and Marketing Executives International, American Management Association, American Society of Training and Development, Institute of Management Consultants, American Society of Association Executives, Meeting Professionals International and National Speakers Association. Chris is an award-winning Toastmaster's International Competition speaker. He recently participated in the Fortune 500 Annual Management Forum as a speaker, panelist and seminar leader.

Chris has distinguished himself professionally by serving multiple corporations as manager and trainer of sales, operations, project management, IT, customer service and marketing professionals. Included among those business leaders are Prudential Insurance, Sprint, BayBank (now part of Bank of America), US Health Care and Marriott Corporation.

He has assisted these organizations in mergers and acquisitions, facilitating post-merger and acquisition integration, developing project management, sales, customer service and marketing strategies, organizing inbound and outbound call center programs, training and development of management and new hires, and fostering corporate growth through creative change and innovation initiatives.

Chris holds degrees in management studies and organizational behavior from Boston University. He has traveled to 22 countries and 47 states in the course of his career.

Overview: In today's workforce environment, the way you handle and document a nonperforming employee is critical to your success or failure. When a non-performing employee exhibits a negative behavioral characteristic that affects other employees, documentation is critical. This webinar will teach you what to do, when to do it, and how to handle documentation pertaining to a nonperforming employee. Why you should Attend:
You will gain a better understanding of how to handle and document a non-performing employee's behavioral issues during this webinar. Additionally, you'll get the opportunity to practice memorizing the following steps for dealing with a non-performing employee:
  • What should you document regarding a non-performing employee?
  • When is the proper time to document a non-performing employee?
  • Why is it necessary to handle a reissue employee?
  • How to prepare a method of action for a non-performing employee?
You will have some takeaways for tools and resources to assist you in tracking and recording the performance of a non-employee

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • When is it the proper time to address the performance issues with a nonperforming employee?
  • How to prepare documents for discussion with a nonperforming employee
  • What is needed in documentation history of a nonperforming employee?
  • Why is it necessary to document an unacceptable behavioral of a nonperforming employee?
  • What happens when you decided to avoid dealing with the issues of a nonperforming employee?
  • What actions are needed if a nonperforming employee has improved or has not improved their behavioral?
  • How to keep your conversation focus on the current matter when discussing a nonperforming employee behavioral?
  • Why is it critical to use the employee’s handbook when dealing with a nonperforming employee matter?
  • How to protect the company from being in a lawsuit concerning a termination or an unfavorable dismissal of a nonperforming employee?
  • How to avoid the blame game of discrimination or harassment when addressing a nonperforming employee?

Who Will Benefit:
  • Employee Management
  • Performance Management
  • Small Business Owners
  • Leaders
  • Managers
  • Team Leaders
  • Department Heads
  • Supervisors and anyone in Leadership Role
Carolyn D. Riggins Carolyn D. Riggins founded CDR Consulting Services, LLC, a consultancy firm focusing on helping businesses and organizations enhance their performance and leadership teams for success. With Ms. Riggins' 35 years of experience in the financial industry working with businesses and 24 years of experience in management roles, her consultancy service provides invaluable insights and expertise to clients looking to improve their business and leadership capabilities.

CDR Consulting Services offers a range of services, including training, coaching, team development, and critical gap detection. Ms. Riggins works with CEOs, business leaders, and managers to identify areas of improvement within their organizations and provides customized solutions to address these areas. Her training and coaching programs are designed to help individuals and teams develop the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in their roles.

Ms. Riggins' team development services focus on creating a culture of collaboration and communication within organizations. Through her team-building programs, she helps teams develop a shared vision, enhance their problem-solving abilities, and increase their productivity. Her critical gap detection services enable clients to identify and address gaps in their business performance and leadership teams, ensuring that their organizations are well-positioned for growth and success.

With CDR Consulting Services, clients can benefit from Ms. Riggins' extensive knowledge, experience, and expertise in the financial industry and leadership development. Her consultancy service provides customized solutions that help organizations build strong, successful leadership teams, and achieve their goals.

Overview: Successful leaders know that the survival of our organization during this uncertainty depends not just on the technical skills within our team, but also on their ability to deal respectfully and collaboratively with their colleagues and customers, and remain energized at the same time. We all have people who push our buttons and create drama in our lives. Within our team, these interactions can drain our energy, take us off track, and infect the other areas of our life. By focusing on effective ways to work with negative and difficult people, you will be able to increase productivity, collaboration, customer service, and overall engagement.

Negativity Costs. Many of us have learned to avoid, rather than deal with the bullies, know-it-alls, and other difficult people on our team, because it is easier than confronting the source of the problem. But, overlooking the problem is the worst thing we can do.

We have more impact than we might think. Under stress and surrounded by uncertainty, some people are simply more difficult to deal with.

What we can change is our reaction. Reducing the drama within our team depends on being able to understand and respond appropriately to their behaviours.

Learn successful strategies and tips for building a positive, productive workplace by knowing WHAT to focus on to move these interactions forward, HOW to effectively respond, and WAYS to manage the impact of their behaviour. End frustration. Act rather than re-act, and ensure a respectful, effective, and collaborate team.

Why you should Attend: Through COVID-19 we are seeing that stress, fear, and uncertainty impacts how we communicate, collaborate, and engage. Research shows that there is a direct relationship between an increase in stress and negativity and the resulting difficult behaviours in our organizations.

How you and your team effectively deal with negative and difficult people can mean the difference between having a toxic, drama-filled workplace, and an engaged, collaborative, and productive organization.

Areas Covered in the Session: Key Messages:
  • Negative attitudes decrease the ability to problem-solve, effectively communicate and collaborate, and increases the risk of mental health issues, absenteeism, and difficult behaviours such as back-stabbing, finger-pointing, and gossiping
  • Not dealing with negativity and difficult behaviours rob us of time and energy
  • Negative attitudes and difficult behaviours are contagious and can create a toxic workplace culture
  • Leaders who can appropriately manage any negativity and difficult behaviours will create teams that can effectively collaborate and thrive through this challenge, and those organizations that try to simply ignore those people and attitudes will struggle to be productive, service their customers, and be competitive

Participants Will:
  • Develop an understanding for those exhibiting typical difficult behaviours in order to effectively meet their needs and move the interactions forward
  • Identify and control the impact of difficult people so that you can keep the situation from escalating further
  • Increase insight and differentiate the 4 types of attitudes and understand how they develop in order to keep your cool in a variety of situations
  • Utilize various verbal and non-verbal communication techniques and situational strategies that you can use to de-escalate and effectively handle upset people
  • Learn how to gain control and handle these situations by identifying the payoff
  • Uncover the secret to moving difficult conversations forward.
  • Know how to act, not react, in solving situations so that you can lead with more confidence, feel less stress, and gain more success in working and interacting with your team

Who Will Benefit:
  • Human Resources Professionals
  • Health and Safety Reps
  • Union Reps
  • Supervisors, Manager, Directors (Team Leads)
  • Executive Directors Not-For-Profit
  • Business Owners, Entrepreneurs
  • C-Suite
Beverly Beuermann-King specializes in working with people and organizations who want to control their reactions to stress, build resiliency against life's challenges and live healthy, successful lives using her S-O-S Principle™.

Beverly launched her company in 1995, and since then she has helped teams from a wide range of industries to be happier, engaged, and successful. Audiences discover the right strategies to improve their health, manage their challenges, and enhance their life’s satisfaction.

Overview: Participants will learn step by step how to gain immediate credibility, use nonverbal communication with skill, and keep an audience's attention with ease. This webinar is useful for anyone who wants to improve interpersonal, small group, or public communication skills. Yes, we will learn what to do with butterflies as we go through the structure of making your presentation appear smooth and seamless. Why should you Attend: The success of your communication will determine the success in every other part of your life. Learning to conquer a few public speaking skills will make you a stand-out among your team and equip you to tackle work challenges with confidence. Whether simply answering questions or making a major presentation, communicating with poise and confidence will add to your personal and professional credibility.

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Powerful introduction and conclusion tactics
  • How to look confident even when you aren't
  • How to tackle the nervousness
  • The magic formula for eliminating "ands and ums"
  • How to keep the presentation on track when you are interrupted
  • Effective practice techniques
  • Guidelines for slides
  • Become audience centered
  • Use the clock to your advantage
  • How to increase the impact of your message

Who Will Benefit:
  • Supervisors
  • Managers
  • All Consultants
  • Executives
  • Small Business Owners
  • Human Resource
Amanda Box "The success of your communication determines your success in every other aspect of your life" That philosophy is the foundation for Amanda Box while teaching and facilitating the fundamentals of communication. Her 20+ year career has been spent in a dual role of teaching on the college level and consulting with business and industry.

Box uses an interactive and dynamic presentation style to teach specific communication skills to diverse groups. With improved interpersonal, presentation and writing skills, professionals can spend time doing their best work rather than getting bogged down in the frustrations of flawed communication. Box connects with people on every level including business leaders, government agencies, medical professionals, industry leaders, sports teams, university development teams and many more.

Specialty topics include: communication through change, presentation skills, conflict management, advanced business writing and grammar, customer service, gender difference, small group dynamics, team building, interpersonal communication, and listening skills.

Amanda Box taught full time on the university level for 10 years and continues to serve as adjunct faculty while consulting with business and industry. Box rounded out her professional skills while serving as the communication coordinator for four years for a nonprofit organization where she was responsible for all internal and external communication including several publications, the web site, and media campaigns. Box has undergraduate and graduate degrees in communication.

Overview: COVID continues to present new challenges and issues and with it comes new requirements and a new gamut of challenges for small business owners and leaders. Initial reactions to the continuous changes range from excited to frustrated, and everything in between.

Why should you Attend: Participants should attend this webinar if they:
  • Have concerns about the impact of the new paid leave laws
  • Have employees who are presently quarantined or infected with COVID-19
  • Are in HR or new to HR
  • Are in a leadership position and need more information while building or expanding their plan to address the company’s response to the coronavirus

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Which employers must adhere to regulations
  • Who is eligible under changing guidance
  • What is included under the expanded Family Medical Leave laws
  • What paid sick leave requirements employers are required to adhere to during a public health crisis
  • How long the provisions are in place
  • If an employee’s job is protected
  • When an employee may use accrued Paid Time Off
  • What notifications employees are required to provide employers when out on leave
  • How multi-unit sites must comply
  • How the changing laws potentially impact collective bargaining agreements
  • What happens to unused Emergency Paid Sick Leave
  • What happens to unused Emergency Paid Sick Leave when an employee terminates
  • How do OSHA standards apply
  • and more

Who Will Benefit:
  • Business Owners
  • Operators
  • Novice
  • Experienced HR Generalists
  • Administrative Assistants
  • Payroll Staff
  • Small Business Administrative Assistants
Brenda Neckvatal is an international award-winning HR professional and two time Best Selling Author. Not only does she help business leaders get the people side of their business right, she is a specialist in crisis management, government contracting HR compliance, and mentor to rising entrepreneurs, business leaders, HR champions and professionals. Brenda has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc, as well as US News and World Reports. She started as an HR sprout after a solid fourteen-year career in retail management. She really enjoys helping people solve their unique problems, and human resources offered her the ability to support her co-workers more. Having the benefit of working for six Fortune 500 companies, she converted her experience into advising her audience to use tried and trusted best practices that help small businesses achieve their workforce goals. In her combined 30-year career in human resources and business, she has consulted with over 500 small businesses and C-suite leaders. She has optimized employee effectiveness and helped mitigate the high costs associated with making hasty employment-related decisions. She has been involved with employee situations where they have engaged in workplace violence, a near stabbing, deliberately inciting fear in other coworkers, stalking women, breaches of protocol around national security, assault, suicide, death, homicide, and a potential active shooter. Brenda is a devoted volunteer in the Navy SEAL Community and is constantly finding new ways of supporting veterans of Naval Special Warfare. She dedicates 32 weeks a year to working with The Honor Foundation to support the career transition of Special Forces personnel by providing them with her knowledge, insight, and creativity. Perseverance, integrity, and relentless optimism are just a few of the ingredients that make up what you experience when meeting and working with Brenda.

Overview: When we think of workplace investigations, the most common thought is that of investigating harassment complaints. But workplace investigations are often necessary to discover, prevent and address other problems - such as theft, safety or OSHA issues, retaliation, vandalism, substance abuse, social media violations, company policy violations, and so on.

As an employer you have a duty to investigate, and as an employee, you have an obligation to cooperate with the investigative process. But what if you have a recalcitrant complainant, wrongdoer or witness?

You know that documentation and writing a final report are critical aspects of an investigation process - and should begin as soon as an employee makes a complaint.

But do you know how to document the critical elements of a report so that you can minimize your liability? One of the first questions you need to consider is whether the complaint requires a full-blown formal investigation or a less formal resolution because the complaint is a minor policy violation.

Do you know what steps to take if you need to search an employee's desk, computer, smart phone or locker? And when should you include legal counsel, and what evidence do you need to gather?

Join this webinar by industry veteran Susan Strauss, who will answer all these questions - and teach you the art and science of conducting an investigation. Strauss will walk you through the best practices on how to conduct a fair and impartial investigation, and reduce your organization's risk of liability.

Why should you Attend: Strauss will teach you how to identify what constitutes a compliant, how to determine if an investigation is necessary, and discuss the key steps of an investigation.

She will discuss the intricacies of interviewing the accuser, accused and witnesses - and show you how to create a safe environment in which to interview and establish rapport with your interviewees.

She will demonstrate the good documentation practices you should follow, and teach you how to differentiate between formal and informal investigative procedures.

Strauss will provide practical tips on how to detect when someone is lying, teach you how to conclude and follow up an investigation, and how to write a formal investigation report.

After attending this webinar, you will be able to conduct fair and impartial investigations that support a positive work environment, protect your employees, and decrease the risk of your organization's liability.

Areas Covered in the Session:
  • Identify what constitutes a complaint
  • Determine if an investigation is necessary
  • Discuss the steps of an investigation
  • Explore the intricacies of interviewing the accuser, accused and witnesses
  • Demonstrate good documentation
  • Differentiate between a formal and informal investigative procedures searches
  • Determine credibility
  • Discuss tips on whether someone is lying
  • Help you reach a conclusion following an investigation
  • Follow up with appropriate action based on the outcome of the investigation
  • Help you write a formal report outlining the investigation

Who Will Benefit:
  • VP of HR
  • All HR Directors, Managers, and Generalists
  • Director of Risk Management
  • Managers and Supervisors
  • Team Leads
  • HR Consultants
Dr. Susan Strauss is a national and international speaker, trainer, consultant and a recognized expert on workplace and school harassment and bullying. She conducts harassment and bullying investigations and functions as an expert witness in harassment and bullying lawsuits. Her clients are from business, education, healthcare, law, and government organizations from both the public and private sector.

Dr. Strauss has conducted research, written over 30 books, book chapters, and journal articles on harassment,bullying, and related topics. She has been featured on television and radio programs as well as interviewed for newspaper and journal articles.Susan has a doctorate in organizational leadership. She is a registered nurse, has a bachelor’s degree in human services and counseling, a master's degree in community health, and professional certificate in training and development.