Working in Challenging Times | Workforce Development

Working in Challenging Times™

Today's business environment, coupled with economic uncertainty, is a challenging place. Organizations are continually driven to develop new market strategies, improve response time, and stave off nontraditional competitors. To stay ahead of competing companies, they must address marketplace demands swiftly and execute their new strategy initiatives flawlessly. Implementing new strategies in a changed world requires people at all levels in the organization to be fully engaged and energized. However, change often results in employees who become frustrated, losing sight of what they do on a day-to-day basis. In response, the organization quickly becomes reactive rather than proactive, losing the speed and adaptability that won customers in the first place. The organization and its people often need help seeing change in positive, energizing terms.

Working in Challenging Times™ is a one-day program with concepts and application for committing one's own discretionary energy on implementing company strategy. Participants learn to understand and manage their own reactions and self-talk about changed events. They develop a sense of personal accountability for realizing the positive potentialities in the change. The focus is on moving forward—both as an individual and in dialogue with coworkers.

Program Outcomes

Working in Challenging Times™ is a powerful organizational development program that will help individual contributors understand their role to implement business strategy during times of change, take charge of the change process that surrounds them, and refocus their energy to move positively through times of change.

Approach

Working in Challenging Times™ (WCT) is an instructor-led one-day program that enables:

Face-to-face interaction among participants and with the facilitator
True-to-life skills practice with immediate in-person feedback
The opportunity for real-time commitment to action

Wilson Learning believes that learning must be transferred to day-to-day work practices. To achieve this, Working in Challenging Times™ includes components and activities that enhance:

Participant Readiness: Prepares participants and managers for the overall learning experience

Pre-workshop communication sets the context for learning.

Learning Transfer: Embeds practice and use of new skills in the learning design. The learning can be flexibly delivered as a:

One-day face-to-face application-oriented workshop.
All can be delivered in modular format over non-consecutive days to allow application between sessions.

The face-to-face workshop can be taught by a Wilson Learning facilitator or by an organization’s own leader-trained in-house professional.

Organizational Alignment: Ensures the organization supports the use of the new skills

Leading in Challenging Times™ (Optional)— is a two-day instructor-led program for leaders to help understand their role in implementing business strategy during times of change

Enabling Improved Performance

As a result of completing the program, participants will be able to:

Understand the link between organizational challenges and individual discretionary energy
Recognize patterns of energy loss and apply skills for refocusing energy
Help themselves and others take stock of loss experiences and begin to move positively through the change
Take accountability for change by working with a mindset of opportunity

Some organizations expand the impact of the program to the leaders and influencers by offering the two-day companion program, Leading in Challenging Times™.

Evaluation

Working in Challenging Times™ (WCT) helps develop a more proactive and powerful model for your organization, producing results in times of change.

Organizations that implement WCT can access optional measurement tools to assess and guide participants' progress. Performance evaluation forms are provided as part of the program and can be used to measure leaders' progress and success.

Wilson Learning will partner with your organization to measure initial behavioral changes and business results. Our common interest is to make sure that Working in Challenging Times™ delivers the results you seek. We are committed to helping you succeed. We will work with you to set up measurement systems to help move desired change forward and sustain the momentum of your implementation.

To learn more about measuring the impact of learning, visit Measurement and Evaluation Services.

This offering, like all others from Wilson Learning, can be customized to reflect your environment and business priorities and can be integrated with your processes.