Workshops

Building Resilience During Turbulent Times

For Employees:

A workshop or series of workshops or lunch time discussions designed to help employees cope with the stress of current events, and handle the changes taking place in the world and in their lives. The workshops will help employees focus on their work tasks and be more productive.  Practical ideas for working with children are included.

Workshops include: discussions and activities on the following topics:

  • Understanding and handling stress           

  • Determining new financial priorities

  • Planning for the future

  • Being proactive

  • Dealing with change

  • Addressing fears

  • Reassuring children about safety

  • Talking with children about violence and tolerance

  • Resources and activities for families

For Managers:

Managing Employees During Stressful Times

This workshop assists managers who have the multitude of responsibilities as well as handling their own stress.  Participants will practice techniques to manage more effectively and keep their employees productive.  Workshops will include discussions and activities

  • Assessing employees current needs

  • Communicating with compassion

  • Improving self-awareness and self-management

  • Providing flexibility

  • Dealing with intolerance

  • Creating team building activities

  • Leading with resilience

We provide workshops for employees and managers to assist  them in managing the changing demands of work and personal responsibilities. 

New Chances, New Choices
Workshops for Professional and Personal Renewal
WHATıS YOUR RQ (Renewal Quotient)?

Give yourself one point for every yes answer.

  • Would you like to feel more in control and less rushed?
  • Would you like to rekindle your passion for your work and personal life?
  • Would you like to have less stress, burn out or related health problems?
  • Would you like to take a long vacation, but always decide against it, because your boss, customer or team may need you in the interim?
  • Would you like to change the way your moods and emotions drive your decisions?
  • Would you like to bring less work home?
  • You are talking, but donıt feel like youıre communicating.

If you have answered yes to more than three then, itıs time for renewal. These unique workshops are designed to provide deeper ways to meet the challenges of managing others and living life to its highest level. Whether you are a manager, an employee, a dual working couple, a single parent, or a work-life professional, the workshops will provide you with greater self-knowledge and techniques to release overload. Your vision will become clearer as you become more aware of emotions in yourself and others and learn emotional management. The activities in these workshops will enhance your powers of communication, empathy and provide you with better tools for leading in all areas of your life.

Leadership Renewal for Work-Life Professionals (Human Resources)

Our goals are to bring work-life professionals together with a focus on acknowledging our work-life successes along with replenishing our leadership role with passion. Our success depends on being very good at understanding the needs of the people we serve, but also their feelings. We will learn to enhance our awareness of where the individual comes from and what they desire. We will observe and become sensitive to what people do not express verbally, but present in other ways.

This workshop will also include discussions and activities related to the following topics:

  • Work-life yesterday and today--and how the changes affect your role
  • Learning about a new model to link your emotional capabilities with success
  • Rekindling the passion and authenticity in our daily work and personal life
  • Exploring the next level of your leadership

This workshop provides opportunities for enhancing leadership and managing with resilience. Workshop activities promote self-awareness to guide your decision making, skills to recover from stress, and techniques to persevere in the face of setbacks and frustrations. Youıll leave with skills to authentically inspire and guide others, as well as renewed passion for your work-life leadership role.

 

Beyond Sensitivity and Diversity Training--for mangers/supervisors who manage the changing workforce

Many managers are working longer hours with more stress and are expected to be more productive. There is more pressure to have greater quality with less cost and more speed, while technology demands constant innovation. Managers are also challenged by recruitment, retention and workforce trends of more working women, single parents, dual career couples, elders living longer and the needs of Generation X. Along with these trends, employeesı values and increasing concerns about life balance and managing child /elder care become managersı issues as well.

Research now shows there are new ways that effective managers are handling day to day work-life conflicts in todayıs workforce. Their secret to success ‹emotional intelligence tools. This workshop is designed to assist you in having well-developed emotional intelligence with benefits of:

 

  • Recognizing your moods, emotions and drives in work-life decision making
  • Understanding the emotional makeup of other people
  • Renewing your passion to work
  • Finding common ground and building rapport
  • Negotiating flexibility

These building blocks will provide you with stronger tools resolving work-life issues and conflicts, which leads to more productivity for you and your staff. Youıll leave with renewed passion for your work and enhanced awareness of your emotional intelligence capabilities.

 

Beyond balance--for individuals in stressful work-life situations

The lines between your work life and personal lives have become blurred. Are we losing part of ourselves? Overwork, long hours, family responsibilities are only a few of the obstacles to maintaining a balanced life. Using techniques to become aware of and manage your feelings, you will begin to release your over load and be more focused in your work and life. You will find deeper ways to meet the work-life challenges and set the tone for what you want to happen. The passion for your life can be rekindled and you will leave with tools to transform your world from the ordinary into the extraordinary.

This workshop will also provide:

 

  • Relaxation and stress busters
  • Rekindling the passion and authenticity in our daily work and personal life
  • Practical ideas to share with family and deal with coworkers
  • A model with which to build and expand as your work and life stages change

Thank you for your interest in our training and coaching. We are certain that you will find that working with us will produce effective results for you and your business.

After an evaluation of your present situation, we then create a program most appropriate for your needs. The program may include any combination of the following:

 

  • Training seminars for management teams, department heads, focus groups, and general staff. Training seminars are a minimum of 1/2 day.
  • Individual coaching for executives, managers and small business owners by the day, 1/2 day, or by the hour (two hour minimum).
  • Group coaching for management teams, department heads, focus groups, and general staff (full day, _ day, hourly).
  • Company certification: A three-day program training individuals and management groups to use our methods and materials within the company as a management tool.

 

For individuals newly displaced (workplace downsizing and cut backs)

If you are out of work you are probably worried about money and having feelings of self-doubt and depression. This workshop will bolster your optimism and provide an environment that promotes self-confidence and emotional self-control. Through exercises that unlock mind power, you'll get back in touch with your goals and initiative to pursue new work opportunities. You'll participate in activities that provide deeper ways to meet the challenges. You will awake your sleeping passions and talents to set the tone for what you want to happen in your life.

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New--Sabbatical Workshops


Bonnie Michaels, a work-life consultant, speaker, author and President of Managing Work & Family, Inc. and her husband, Michael Seef, a logistics and transportation consultant, have returned from a year-long sabbatical. They have traveled around the world fulfilling dreams and fantasies and, most important, getting renewed.

Based on their unique experience of "pulling the plug," they are now offering the following programs to associations, corporations, conferences, travel organizations, pre-retirement and retirement groups, and individuals:

  • Sabbatical Dreams and Realities: a nuts and bolts presentation on preparing and executing a sabbatical. This workshop provides vital information on sabbatical preparation and determining what you need and want. You'll learn about the day-to-day life of a couple who fulfilled their mutual dreams in foreign countries on a budget. The workshop includes:

     

    • Deciding on destinations and activities
    • Negotiating strategies for time off
    • Preparation
    • Anticipating the realities of a sabbatical
    • Volunteering, studying, and wanderings
    • Financial planning
    • Reentry process

These sessions are appropriate for anyone needing renewal or in transition (career, pre-retirement and retirement.)

Sessions are ninety minutes, half day or a full day in length.
Bonnie Michaels and Michael Seef, workshop leaders

  • A Year Off. For travel enthusiasts, this is a presentation highlighting an unusual itinerary of exploring, volunteering, and studying in foreign countries on a budget. This presentation provides visual highlights of a unique "round the world" trip by a middle-age couple. "You're never too old for adventure and new challenges" is their motto! You'll hear stories of Flamenco dancing in Spain, an archeological dig in Israel, uncovering family roots in Germany, hiking in Switzerland, and volunteering in Australia and Japan,
Bonnie Michaels and Michael Seef, speakers

In addition, they will be offering advice and consultation for individuals who want to develop a plan that fits in with their financial and career goals.

Manager Workshops

Workshops are designed to assist supervisors /managers in managing the changing workforce and and flexible working options. 

Topics include:

  • Labor Force Trends & Business Impacts of Work-Life Programs
  • Awareness of Personal Responsibilities and Practical Work/Family Strategies
  • Awareness of Organization's Benefits
  • Implementing and Managing Flexible Work Options

Briefings For Senior Decision-Makers
Our senior staff conducts briefings for CEOs, Boards of Directors and upper management to provide direction as they assume a leadership role in planning work-family policy. Topics can include:

  • Impact of demographic changes in the workforce
  • Work and personal life conflicts and the bottom line
  • Work-family/life program and policy options
  • Cost-effective responses to specific needs
  • Strategies used by the competition and leaders in the work/family area
  • Addressing three major leadership concerns: liability, equity and intrusion.

 

Employee Information & Training

Management of Work and Family or Personal Life Issues

We work with your organization to provide employees with strategies and skills necessary to manage their work and family or personal life responsibilities effectively. Our training programs are based upon the philosophy that employees can effectively manage both sets of responsibilities when they apply work skills at home.

Employee Training & Information Sessions

Workshop formats range from 1 1/2 hours to several days. All training is designed to help employees be creative, strategic and realize change is possible.

Work-Life Topics include:

  • Core Training:
  • Work-Life Balance
  • Whole Life Planning
  • Life Management Skills
  • Communicating to Get What You Need
  • Dealing with Guilt

 

Additional Topics:

  • Surviving and Thriving Single Parenthood and Work
  • Planning Your Maternity Leave
  • Choosing Quality Child Care
  • Fathering, Partnering, and Working
  • Traveler's Aid...for parents who travel
  • Balancing Grandparenting and Work
  • Aging Parents: Eldercare Plans that Keep You Productive at Work
  • Talking about Tomorrow with Your Aging Parents
  • Aging Parents: Avoiding Caregiver Burnout
  • Aging Parents: Minimizing the Stress of Holiday Visits
  • Responding to an Eldercare Emergency

Information on Training Modules see Products

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Caring For your Spirit

Expand your heart and spirit in ways that make life worthwhile

As work and life conflicts pervade our lives, we need creative approaches to improve our quality of life. Join us for an inspiring session as we share creative ideas, uncover meaningful practices and engage you in enlightening activities.

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Work-Life Balance Retreats

A Work-Life Balance Retreat is an innovative way to bring individuals together to a safe and nurturing environment away from work and home responsibilities. The weekend promotes better ways to find "balance" as a individual and or with partners/spouse and other family members. Individual whole-life planning activities, games for parents and children, stress relieving exercises, and a relaxed atmosphere are a few of the highlights of the weekend.

For those attending, this is an intensive, practical, and fun program designed to give singles, couples and their children (optional) strategies to balance their work and personal lives.

For the employer whose employees attend, the program can include a corporate profile and recommendations for future actions in order to be more worker-friendly.

Activities include:

  • Personal work-life self-assessments
  • Corporate "worker friendly" assessments
  • Prework assignments
  • Whole life planning
  • Skills and role plays for communicating more effectively with spouse/significant other, children, elders, and others in your lives
  • Strategies for organizing to have more time for self
  • Dealing with guilt
  • Interactive games with children
  • Taking care of yourself (nutrition, exercises, massage)
  • Post work and following up procedures for individuals and the corporation

Optional activities:

  • Evening games, creative movement, magicians, entertainment
  • Special programs for older children
  • Baby-sitting for younger children

Retreats can be planned during the week or on weekends. Corporate discounts available. Make your next company event one that will help everyone find a better balance in their lives.

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Family Day at Work

A low cost, fun program for employees and their families in the workplace which allows an employer to demonstrate its commitment to a work/family policy in a creative way. Customized activities for children and their parents help to promote the positive aspect of working. Memory booklets, family portraits, and career puppets are just a few of the creative activities to choose from.

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