Team Efficiency
Teams have always been important, but the role they play today is crucial, since organizations increasingly focus on the effective use of resources, on raising productivity and on making better decisions, faster.
Developing highly performing teams (Robbins, 2013) is based on three elements that facilitate this process:
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Context – the organization should support teamwork in order to make the employees’ expectations on working in teams be realistic;
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Building the team – the manager’s role is to put together complementary people, who will achieve the common objective;
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Process – the team should have a clear purpose and specific objectives, clearly known by all team members. At the same time, there has to be relation-building mechanisms that facilitate conflict resolution or decision-making processes.
The training programs designed to improve team performance provided by the Progress Foundation trainers answer the following questions:
– How can I build a team?
– What is expected from a team player and how can I be one?
– What does the manager of a highly competitive team?
– Is teamwork the answer to my organization needs?
Developing management skills
The standard management processes involve a set of skills that have to be developed by those in management positions, to the benefit of both employees and the overall organization.
The Progress Foundation programs designed to develop management skills are correlated to the performance management systems in our partner organizations. Thus, our interventions will support your employees in achieving immediate performance on the job, and will provide training to prepare them to take a superior position within the organization.
The approach of employee development based on their skills set is focused on the individual, not on the position, and our support will go beyond a punctual training, towards the permanent development of an employee’s career.
The training programs designed to develop management skills, produced by the Progress Foundation trainers answer the following questions:
– How can I better use the available resources?
– What are the steps to make to reach our organizational objectives?
– How can I organize and plan activities in order to reduce the use of resources?
– What is the manager’s role within the team he/she coordinates?
Leader’s Performace
The most significant organizational psychology studies showed that the leaders are made, not born (Avolio, 2007, Bass and Rigio, 2006). Any leadership process, either it is a small team or a whole organization with a complex organizational chart, requires a set of skills that we put together under the title of leaders’ performance. The role a leader is in charge with is that of performing beyond expectations through generating respect, trust and desire for teamwork, in order to reach the shared objectives.
Our favorite leadership model we work with is the transformational one, as it includes the models used so far: the situational model, the transactional one or the leadership styles. This leadership type may occur in the superior-subordinate relation, between employees at the same hierarchical level but also between those on an inferior hierarchical position to a superior one, when the employee influences his/her superior’s decision.
Therefore, the Progress Foundation specialists do not propose a default leadership solution, but develop the trainees’ skills in order to make them perform beyond expectations.
Our training programs for leaders’ performance created by the Progress Foundation trainers answer the following questions:
– What makes a highly performing leader?
– What makes the other follow a leader?
– Why certain people are supported by the others immediately after showing up with an idea?
– How can a leader, by his/her leadership style, improve team performance?
– What are the sources of transformational leaders’ power?
Human resources processes for employees development
The right understanding of HR processes contributes to the design of coherent strategies with regard the employees in organizations and makes interventions score the expected result. One source that may contribute to the revenue generation to your organization is the way certain indexes are used, such as employee retention, selection and evaluation, or how to select the right performance indicators.
Thinking about managing the people in your team in line with the natural evolution process of the employee in organizations may not be the major functions of a management positions, but if you can do it, your actions and decisions as a manager are more coherent and better justified.
The training programs designed to improve the employee development HR processes created by the Progress Foundation trainers answer the following questions:
– What are the factors that trigger employee retention?
– Do bigger salaries for employees ensure a better motivation?
– How does the work environment influence the employees’ behavior?
– How can I grow the performance of stalling employees?
Customer relationship management
Attracting and retaining our customers has always been a long and difficult process that involves high costs for any organization. One way to recover this investment is to keep a close relationship with our customers and to transform them into partners. Thus, our employees who interact with the customers have the mission to manage their needs, in order to preserve a high satisfaction level, which is good for both parties.
The approach we use in our customer relationship management training programs is to create a partnering relationship, where we, as suppliers, take care that your business grows, therefore you bring in more business for me to grow in line with you. Building this privileged type of relationship requires constant efforts on part of the whole organization to accurately set the customer’s expectations, to safeguard an authentic interaction, and to become memorable to the customer.
The studies (Thompson & Kolsky 2004; Temkin 2008) on customer relationship identified a set of answers that differentiate the brands among the customers. These are:
– Integrity (honesty, authenticity, empathy, acknowledgement and dignity);
– Reliability (reaction, availability, coherence and actuality);
– Efficiency (fast and efficient fulfillment of customer expectations by well trained employees);
– Convenience (fast access to products and services).
The customers want to feel that the employees who deal with them – either from distance or face-to-face – are trustworthy, professional, well informed, empathetic and confident that they recommend the best product or service for their needs.
The training programs designed by the Progress Foundation trainers to create an authentic customer relationship with customers answer the following questions:
– How can I maintain a high customer satisfaction level?
– How can I develop a partnering relationship with my customers?
– What are the characteristics an employee must have to develop authentic customer relationships?
– How can I raise the responsibility of my own employees to effectively manage the customer relationships?
Design of organizational processes using the human-centered design methodology
The objective of this workshop is to allow organizations that provide services to users or customers to sketch, adjust, design their business in a fluid and flexible way and to adapt by simple changes their operation in order to respond to the legitimate needs of our customers.
The methods used are highly interactive, as the workshop design starts from the assumption that the design experts are exactly the employees.
The activities and games they will cover throughout the training event will allow your employees to change the perspective they use to look at their experience as service providers, to be more empathetic, creative and innovative. At the end of the workshop, the participants will build innovative solutions that may be deployed at once in their organization.
You need this workshop, if you put yourself the following questions:
– Are my services enough simple and easy-to-use for my customers?
– How can I provide a unique experience to the customers I interact with?
– How can I create services that may make me apart?
– What are the steps to make to develop a service?
Creating organizational well-being using the digital storytelling methodology
Since the creation of digital storytelling methodology in the labs of Berkeley University from California back in 1983, there are very few innovations brought to this process, because today we still transform ideas into mini documentary using the same 7 steps described by Joe Lambert (2013). Innovations were triggered only by the new technologies, because the therapeutic power of stories, their power of influence in decision-making or their cathartic power are all the same even today. However, the latest research shows us the effect of digital storytelling in reducing the organizational stress, especially in emotional labor or in the healthcare sector. Progress Foundation has already a 6 year expertise in using this methodology, bringing innovations coming from the latest academic research in this field and from the long-term partnerships with the University of Brighton (UK), Digital StoryLab (Denmark) or the Laurea University (Finland).
This is an interactive workshop that can be run on both PC and Mac, and the process may involve personal, organizational or advocacy objectives – in a direct relation with the mission of your organization.
