Leadership Training

The Leadership Training sessions are training and support programs designed to educate Supervisors, Managers and Union/employee representatives on the dynamics of job loss and the myriad ways in which it may be experienced by those dislocated employees.  This will allow the leadership to have a greater understanding and awareness of how and why people react in the ways in which they do and provide them with “tools” for handling these situations.  The purpose is to help the leadership responsible for managing the dislocation process learn effective leadership skills for this task and to better understand the nature of trauma reactions of soon to be dislocated employees, and they, themselves, may be experiencing.

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Psychology of Job Loss

Call it what you want -- being laid-off or downsized, getting dismissed or fired, receiving your pink slip or your walking papers, losing your job hurts. Among a variety of life-altering events, such as death in the family, divorce, and serious illness, losing your job ranks among the highest in (stress-causing situations.)

Job loss can have a profound effect on your social, emotional, mental and physical well being. There is a typical cycle that most people experience. This cycle includes denial, anger, frustration, and eventually adaptation. Job loss can be a severe blow not only to one's financial well being, but also to one’s self-esteem. People may experience both emotional and psychological reverberations of sudden unemployment. However the loss of a job doesn't have to be an emotionally and financially devastating experience. On the contrary, for the employee of the 1990s and beyond it can be turned into a valuable opportunity to reexamine values and reevaluate personal and professional goals.

If the corporate buyouts and reorganizations of the 1980s and the accompanying staff cutbacks had a message for employees, it is that job security is decidedly not a fact of life.  So how can we transform loss of a job into a positive experience? This workshop will show you how to take control of your present situation and guide you toward a new career (and, possibly, a new lifestyle) that best suits your needs and aspirations. From the moment you leave one employer to the day you accept a new offer and start your new life.

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Verbal Defusing Potentially Violent Individuals

Employees on the "firing line" have to deal with the stresses, great and small, resulting from having to deal with angry, frustrated customers or coworkers. Angry individuals can take up lots of organizational time and energy and angry, potentially violent individuals can, also, threatens employee safety. Angry behavior often seems to be set off by the littlest things, and above all, it seems unpredictable.  But the truth of the matter is that employees can do things to defuse the anger and reduce abusive behavior.  People can learn to act in ways that reduce this kind of behavior, and ensure that they don't do anything that will result in an unpleasant situation going “ballistic”.

This training program deals with the concepts, explanations and rationale for addressing the reality of anger and hostility in the workplace.  It provides participants with needed personal safety awareness training and skills to verbally defuse distressed/angry individuals so that the situation does not escalate and result in violent actions.

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Diversity Training

Understanding differences and appreciating our similarities can have a significant impact on the atmosphere within the work environment. Through awareness of cultural diversity issues, gender and racial sensitivity, employers can help reduce the “toxic” or “hostile” work environments that are created which very often, through misunderstanding, can lead to conflict, hostility, anger and perhaps, even violence.

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Effective Communication

To meet the challenges of change, one skill continues to underlie all others: the ability to communicate effectively. Without it, all other functions suffer. This program examines communication styles and focuses on critical skills of listening, communicating in team settings, providing feedback and handling difficult interpersonal situations.

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Managing Change and Transition

Change occurs when something ends and something new or different starts.  The period between these two points is transition.  This is where people have to learn to let go of the old and embrace the new.  Usually it means moving from the familiar into the unknown.  Even when change is positive; this psychological process affects us.  Most of us have a strong response to any change.  One of the strongest can be a feeling of loss, along with the struggle to accept a new direction.  Change can produce physical symptoms such as sweating; sleep loss and/or emotional distress, which will affect the quality of work. 

The most common error in managing change is understanding the effect it has on us.  Many of us think that if we just accept the change we shouldn’t have any reactions as a result of the change.  We do not realize how upsetting it is to give up work patterns that are familiar.  Always remember how much has been disrupted and understand that we need time to adjust.

Even if the change is positive, it is not uncommon for a person to feel a loss associated with it.  We as individuals often have a hard time understanding the loss associated with change.  If we do not understand and manage loss, we cannot effectively accept and work through the loss.

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Stress Management

A recent Gallup poll reveals that for more than half of those between the ages of 35 and 54, stress are a familiar part of their lives with job and financial problems heading the list. It is also estimated that at least 85 percent of all workplace accidents are precipitated by difficulties employees face in coping with emotional distress. That is why this workshop is so popular with those who face more than their fair share of stress in their professional and personal lives. But there is a silver lining. Stress is not the problem. Instead, it is how a person responds to a stressor that determines the health outcome. Indeed, stress is a stimulus for growth and as such, can actually be beneficial. By using the information to be presented, participants will learn how to effectively manage stress-related disorders; They will also discover why a sense of control is important. We will discuss and learn the ABC’s of emotional habits. Managing one’s stress can mean the difference between good health and an ulcer.

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Dislocation Intervention Debriefing Groups

The Dislocation Intervention Meetings are small group meetings designed to encourage active involvement of each participant. People who are losing their jobs are very often so overwhelmed by what is happening to them that they are psychologically and emotionally "paralyzed". This paralysis prevents them from taking full advantage of the reemployment, reeducation, relocation and reemployment opportunities that are available to them. These sessions allow the individuals to explore and understand the impact their current situation is having on various areas of their lives. It helps them normalize their reactions, predicts and prepares them for the kinds of things they may experience and facilitates emotional closure. This is accomplished in a structured format, the outcome of which is to "jump start" the healing and recovery process so that the individual and their family will suffer minimal devastation from their job loss and they will be able to become gainfully employed much faster.

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Peer Support System

The purpose of a Peer Support System is to provide linkages between employees, management, dislocation resources and helping professionals.  Workers are usually more comfortable approaching one of their peers for assistance, especially when they are particularly distressed or when they may view the Company as having a different agenda from their own. Peer Support Teams have been shown to be extremely useful during organizational change, lay-offs and plant closures as they can interface with the workforce and provide feedback to management and the union as to the effectiveness of resources, the pulse of the workforce and identify any additional services that may be needed. They can also help minimize rumors, assist in problem-solving, educate and encourage use of outplacement services and other local resources, provide information about stress management and other coping strategies and refer individuals who may be having special problems to appropriate resources.