Having the ability to have difficult conversations is an essential skill – whether it is with peers, staff or more senior people. This pragmatic and practical; workshop will give you the tools and techniques to deal with these difficult conversations and help you diffuse conflict and maintain healthy working relationships.

Developing and Managing Teams is an effective one day programme designed for those with responsibility for team leading and team participation. The programme provides an overview of the main elements that contribute to effective team performance. By the end of the session, each participant will have an effective action plan to improve team performance.

Influencing Skills is aimed at those who work with internal and external stakeholder relationships, and who want to use influencing as a way to attain success in these relationships. The session focuses on negotiation as a route to positive influencing results.

It is generally accepted that one to one and increasingly group coaching provides a high return on investment. This one day seminar provides a basic introduction and is designed to enable participants to deliver coaching to colleagues.

This course provides an overview of the key areas underpinning successful change in the public sector. Extensive notes are provided to allow participants to follow through and develop work place strategies for change. Topics covered include drivers of change; change models; the people side; using project management techniques to deliver change.

Managing Individuals is designed for anyone managing or leading people in the public sector. This one day programme covers motivation, delegation and the performance review/appraisal process: the foundations on which successful working relationships are built. The programme is interactive and participative, and learning outcomes can be applied readily to real life situations.

This course is designed to provide managers with the skills and knowledge to deal confidently and professionally with under-performance. It considers how to use appropriate formal and informal processes of support, training and development, meetings and reviews to improve performance, and looks at the particular issue of managing poor attendance.

The modern workplace is a fast-moving environment, generating a range of pressures for staff to deal with. So what makes one person experience pressure and another experience stress? This practical one day course with show you why people deal to pressure and stress in different ways, and how to manage stress to improve staff morale and business outcomes.

Customer service is a key part of any organisation's success, and often provides an indication of overall morale and organisational health. This course will take you through the essentials of customer service, and give you the tools to improve the experience of customers using your organisation's services. You'll learn how to motivate and measure your team's performance, ways to deal with complaints that turn them into opportunities, and how to develop and implement action plans to improve service.

Delegation and empowerment in the public sector are much sought after skills and behaviours. Teams that have strong leadership enable people to work more efficiently and effectively. This seminar allows participants to understand that effective leadership, delegation and empowerment can provide a foundation for impressive results and allows each participant to realise their own style and strategy for success.

This seminar will raise awareness with attending public sector management grades of the key principles in employment law in 2010/2011.

The main focus of the legal awareness will centre on the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act brings together under one piece of legislation groups such as age, sex, disability, religious beliefs, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity.

This workshop is aimed at middle managers responsible for leading teams and implementing change in their organisations.

• Understand the shared responsibility for making change effective.
• Seek to build mutual trust around change.
• Communicate with and involve stakeholders at the most appropriate levels.
• Share a raised level of appreciation of the complexities of making change decisions.
• Support senior managers and satisfy the need to know how and why decisions are arrived at (especially if the outcome is not what you personally would have chosen).
• Reduce levels of cynicism and so raise levels of support and commitment to making the changes work.
• Respect the views of others and continually hold awareness of both the wider context for the decisions and the organisation?s vision.

The course is designed to aid the transition from work to a happy, healthy and rewarding retirement.

Whether wholly or part funded or on a voluntary basis, employers are helping retiring individuals by demonstrating a genuine interest in the continued wellbeing of their employees while signaling a strong paternal message to remaining members of staff.

This half day workshop will provide information, advice and signposting for retiring employees that helps them engage with the situation productively, helping formulate a plan for the future before that future is upon them.

This workshop covers the essential aspects of managing performance that all people managers should be able to understand and apply. Using a mixture of theory and practical application, the course will develop competence and confidence in this important area. Role play is an integral part of the course ? but is used in a low-key way.

This course will give you tips on how to overcome your presentation fears and deliver with impact.  You will learn how to structure content for clarity and build rapport with your audience.

Effectively managing meeting is more than sending out a notice that the team is to meet at a particular time and place. Effective meetings need structure and order. Without these elements they can go on forever and not accomplish a thing.

CIPFA's training course "managing Meetings Effectively" will enable you to learn important aspect of how to organise an effective meeting and running it effectively. You will learn important aspect such as setting a solid objective in mind, a tight agenda, and a commitment to involving the meeting participants in the planning, preparation, and execution of the meeting, you are well on your way to chairing great meetings.

In this hands-on hard hitting workshop participants learn through practice exercises how to strengthen their negotiation skills through videotaped role-plays, classroom exercises, and classroom games sessions.

Participants practice skill building exercises as a team, one-on-one, face-to-face, so they can implement their learning within their personal business environment. By the end of the day, participants will be able to handle even the most difficult negotiations with confidence and have a high positive impact on its outcome.