Save 10% on a collection of our most requested CDs for child care leaders.

Members you invest only $117.00! Discount will be applied at ckeckout.

Topics include: Customer Service, Legal Issues, Working With Women, Making Work Fun, Firing Staff, Performance Reviews, New Staff Integration, Minimizing Absenteeism and Tardiness, A Self-Confident Team and Generation Gaps (help your older and younger staff work together).

CD descriptions:

Customer Service

Would you like to help your staff feel valued and supported while you provide outstanding customer service to your parents?

Would you like to help your teachers build strong, positive, and professional relationships with parents?

One director recently called me and stated how much her staff enjoyed listening to this audio program.

On this CD, we'll explore: *What negative filters are and what you can do to eliminate them. *The "must know" customer service skills in today's workplace. *The number one thing that will give you the competitive edge when it comes to marketing your services.

Legal Issues

As child care leaders go about their daily operations relating to children, parents, and staff the importance of documentation, enforcing policies, adherence to specific procedures and healthy communication practices have become paramount in creating an optimal environment for working and learning and can be essential in legally protecting oneself under local, state and federal laws.

You'll discover:

*2 success principles that will legally protect you every day.

*3 steps to legally protecting yourself and maintaining positive relationships when policies and procedures cannot be consistently reinforced.

*If you should dismiss someone based on hearsay. The answer may surprise you!

*A key factor to keep in mind when an employee shares confidential information with you.

*When you should be worried about being sued by an employee.

*The fundamental defense against a lawsuit.

*The conditions constituting a hostile work environment.

*1 reason to keep documentation on your top performers.

*The number of policies you need to maintain a positive environment.

*2 factors required to make policies effective.

*6 "must do" items to include when conducting performance reviews. It can get messy for employers who don't do these things.

*2 "do not do" items when conducting performance reviews.

*Essential strategies to implement when you have to fire staff.

*What you can and should say to staff about a co-worker who was fired.

*2 things you should not talk about when a staff member gets fired.

*How to get employees to know and understand what's in your company handbook.

*If employees who complain are protected under the law.

Working With Women

Discover: *How it's different to work with a mixed gender team versus a team consisting of all women. *The typical reactions that occur when a conflict arises with a female co-worker. *Success strategies a female worker can put into practice with her colleagues to ensure that conflicts are resolved without lingering destructive impacts. *How to let go of lingering negative feelings about co-workers who you have personality conflicts with. *The best way to approach a female supervisor about her ineffective work behaviors.

Making Work Fun

Child Care -- what a fun profession! The children's smiles, their laughter, and all the funny things they do to make us laugh is what makes the profession fun. Now on the other hand, you may feel there are many things that counterbalance the fun we can derive from working with children such as: staffing issues, parent's complaints, organizational changes, paperwork, etc. In my workshops I've heard leaders state: This profession would be great if we didn't have any staff (board members, parents, etc) to worry about. If we could just come to work and interact with the children all day long it would be fantastic.

The focus of this issue is having more fun at work. If you're familiar with the Fish Philosophy, you may have a greater insight as to how people who work with smelly, slimy fish all day can still have fun at work. The people described in Fish work at the Seattle Fish Market. These people go home stinking like fish, yet during the day they have so much fun at work, people actually conjugate at the market before work, at lunch and on their way home from work to watch the fun happening.

Firing Staff

You're fired! For many leaders these words are hard to articulate. Listen in as we discuss effective techniques for firing staff when necessary. We'll explore effective "damage control" when a team member gets fired including how and what to communicate with staff and parents.

We'll also discuss strategies to help you keep optimistic and confident about the situation.

The following questions will be answered: *How many chances should you give an employee before you terminate their employment? *What are the impacts of not firing an employee who should be fired? *How do you fire someone who you have a personal relationship with? *Is there a best day of the week to fire someone?

Performance Reviews

How do managers know if an effective performance review has been conducted? With every performance review given, new objectives should be set. If new objectives are consistently being achieved, the review process is effective. Additionally, managers who conduct effective performance reviews experience a team that is productive and lines of communication that are open.

New Staff Integration

Would you like to know how to transform a new employee into a valued team member? And how to eliminate gossip and complaining about a new employee? Or how about getting a new employee to follow through on policies and procedures?

Minimizing Absenteeism and Tardiness

What causes over 3% of America's workforce to be absent on a daily basis?

How can you identify someone who is prone to absenteeism and tardiness before you hire them?

What are the interview questions that you can legally ask to help you determine if a potential new candidate is prone to lateness?

When -- if ever -- should a co-worker confront another co-worker about their being late or absent for work?

What are the most effective strategies for minimizing absenteeism and tardiness in your child care program?

A Self-Confident Team

When staff members lack self-confidence it can lead to more than just individual team members who don't believe in themselves. Team members with low levels of confidence typically exhibit destructive communication patterns which includes workplace gossip, unresolved conflicts and communication gaps with co-workers and parents. This leads to lack of setting and achieving new goals.

Throughout my career in the child care profession I've heard many stories of how team members communicate destructively due to their low levels of self-confidence.

Here's one situation: When given the opportunity to speak up at staff meetings regarding a current situation or new policy, staff members don't feel confident enough to speak up in front of the entire group. Instead they whisper negative remarks to their co-workers or wait until after the meeting has concluded and then they complain to their co-workers about what was said without a positive outcome.

Here's a worse situation: The safety of child is in jeopardy because of the destructive actions of one teacher. That teacher's co-worker won't clue the leader in because her loyalty is to her co-worker who is behaving in a destructive manner. She doesn't have the confidence to speak up about the issue and is more concerned with her co-worker's approval.

The good news is there are ways to help co-workers gain more confidence regardless of how low their self-confidence levels currently are. Through listening to this CD you'll discover 10 confidence builders that you can share with your staff, a 3-step process to becoming more self-confident every day, activities you can facilitate with your staff to increase their confidence levels and little things leaders can do daily to build a self confident team.

Generation Gaps

Have you ever wondered what it takes to close the generation gaps within your workplace? If you've answered yes, you are not alone. Getting older staff to work effectively with younger staff and vise versa is a common challenge that many child care leaders face.

My next questions: Have you ever tried to figure out how to motivate your younger staff? How to inspire them to make behavioral changes? How to get them excited about their role in the child care industry? Again, if you've answered yes, you are not alone.

This issue of the Leadership Connection answers the aforementioned questions and more. You'll discover what two experts say about why different generations in the workplace often clash and why most staff are not motivated by their pay checks alone. Perhaps it seems that today's young workers don't have the same work ethic you had. We'll explore this thought and see what is different in today's workplace that may cause staff to have a different philosophy about work.