FREE Self Study Modules

To be effective as a supervisor or manager, you must work effectively with a variety of people. That's what this module is about - making choices to effectively deal with situations and people in the workplace. We hope you'll use the information in this module. If you do, we're confident you'll enhance your ability to supervise/manage different types of employees and deal with a variety of situations.

Effective Employee Relations (45 Pages)

As a supervisor or manager, you have a significant impact on employee relations. Your actions affect employee morale, turnover, and productivity. This module is designed to give you information useful for managing the employee relations climate in your area of responsibility. Refer to it whenever you foresee especially challenging employee relations situations.

Identifying Your Strengths and Weaknesses (21 Pages)

Organizational self-assessment is only one factor in the improvement equation. Study after study shows that effective managers and supervisors continually assess and seek to improve their own knowledge, skills, and behavior.

This module is about personal self-assessment; organizational self-assessment is covered in another module. This module is designed to help you:

• Identify and act upon your strengths and weaknesses

• Recognize your impact on others

• Evaluate your standards and ethics

• Handle stress and prevent burnout

Introduction to Leadership (20 Pages)

Leadership is an ageless topic that has been studied from many different viewpoints. In this module, when we use the term "leadership," we are referring to the process of helping to direct and mobilize people and/or their ideas to achieve a shared vision. The elements produced by leadership are movement and change. Throughout the ages, individuals seen as leaders have produced movement and change, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. They have done so in a variety of ways, though their actions always seem to boil down to establishing where a group of people should go, getting the group lined up in that direction and committed to movement, and then energizing the group to overcome the inevitable obstacles it will encounter along the way.

• Accepting responsibility

• Delegating work

• Defining job functions

• Promoting ownership

Most of us have room for improvement in our performance of one or more of these duties. Use this as an opportunity to hone your skills and make optimal use of your responsibility and authority.

Problem Solving & Decision-Making (39 Pages)

As a manager or supervisor, your workdays are filled with challenging problems and decisions. Some of the best practices for efficiently solving problems and arriving at good decisions are distilled within these pages. Though we may be armed with the best practices for either challenge – problem solving or decision-making – occasionally we reap unacceptable results.

Continuously improving your problem-solving and decision-making skills produces the best possible results – with the available information and within a finite schedule. Good solutions and decisions are the sum of an equation that includes data plus time available to take action plus results.

Wise managers and supervisors recognize that seeking perfection invites organizational gridlock. The purpose for this module is to help you increase the skills you already have to think straight, stay out of gridlock, and use logical processes for problem solving and decision making within your group and throughout the organization.

Effective Communication Techniques (49 pages)

Communication and organizational success are directly related. Good communication can have a positive and mobilizing effect on employees. Poor communication can produce powerful negative consequences, such as the following:

1. Distortion of goals and objectives of the organization.

Through anxiety, distrust, lack of support, rigidity, and other human resource issues created by poor communication, employees develop patterns of work in which they set their own agenda without regard for the organization's mission. They focus on tasks that are only partially related to the major goals of the organization. For example, employees may devote their work efforts to pet projects instead of working to accomplish organizational objectives.

2. Misuse of resources.

Another consequence of poor communication is the misuse of an organization's resources. For instance, money may be budgeted for purchases that are only marginally effective, and employees may be assigned tasks that do not take full advantage of their abilities. Because of mistrust, a highly competent employee may be given routine duties and never be allowed to make significant decisions and to advance in the organization.  

Preventing Sexual Harassment (available January 2003)

The Preventing Sexual Harassment self-study course was developed to help you carry out your organizations programs and services in a non-discriminatory manner. The guidebook offers information concerning federal laws and regulations concerning discrimination and harassment. In addition, participants are given practical information regarding how to prevent sexual harassment, understand their personal roles and responsibilities, recognize and respond appropriately to potentially harassing situations, and use the complaint system effectively.

Note: This publication provides simplified information on the Civil Rights Program. It does not replace Federal regulations, manuals or other supporting documents, which prescribe information.

Please Note: With the exception of the Sexual Harassment program, these instruments, in their original format, were developed for Westinghouse under contract to the DOE/CAO, and shared through the DOE/CAO technology transfer program. They are available to U.S. businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and individual citizens at no-cost, and can be used for  commercial, internal, or educational purposes.  TrainersDirect has taken the time to modify the instruments so that all government specific references have been replaced with generic text. All materials are relevant to any organization and will require no re-work on your part. As an example, in instances where the word Westinghouse is used we have replaced it with "Company," or "Organization." TrainersDirect indemnifies the U.S. Government and the contractor for all damages, costs, and expenses, including attorney fees, arising from the utilization of this instrument.

The Preventing Sexual Harassment self-study program, in its original format, was developed for use by the USDA APHIS. It is considered to be public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline is requested.