Individual Contributors

An individual contributor is someone who contributes individually, rather than supervising a team.

It is important to recognize the contributions those in these roles make to the success of their departments. Some individuals may desire advancement into a managerial role, while others may not. In either case, Training and Development aims to enable these individuals to professionally develop and enhance their personal leadership abilities through our workshops. While these workshops are tailored to individual contributors, they are open to all faculty and staff who wish to take them.

These workshops include:

A.L.i.C.E. (BC 1.5hrs)

Public Safety, in partnership with the Division of Human Resources, is conducting A.L.i.C.E. workshops. The 90-minute-long A.L.i.C.E. sessions are designed to give participants insight and response options when encountering an active shooter. ALiCE: Alert, Lockdown, Information, Counter and Evacuation is crisis training created by two Texas law enforcement officers.

As a result of A.L.i.C.E., you will:

  • Consider data and statistics from previous active shooter events
  • Understand the key differences between A.L.i.C.E. and standard “Lockdown”
  • Learn and practice the A.L.i.C.E. active shooter response tactics

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff and counts toward 1.5 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Visit the ALiCE registration site to search for workshops on your campus.

ALiCE Registration Site
Communicating Across Generations (BC 3hrs)

Do you communicate well with people outside your age group? Find out how to manage communication across generations by first learning about the generations in the workforce. Knowledge about each generation will give you a general understanding about each group's frame of reference and help you interact more effectively.

As a result of Communicating Across Generations, you will:

  • Learn about the generations found in the workforce today
  • Consider ways to enhance effective interpersonal communication between generations
  • Discover common frustrations that people have about generational differences
  • Identify communication skillsets that contribute to effective teams

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

This workshop counts toward 3 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Sign Up for Communicating Across Generations here

Dealing with Difficult Behaviors (BC 3hrs)

Do you have a coworker that seems impossible to work with?  Ever wonder why that person acts that way….and gets away with it? This workshop focuses on identifying and addressing the most common difficult workplace behaviors. Learners explore ways to effectively deal with these behaviors and examine how they are personally impacted by them. Learners will understand the important roles that emotions and stress can play in dealing with difficult encounters. They will also learn to identify trigger words, reframe reactions, learn to address common difficult behaviors and demonstrate how to give constructive feedback.

As a results of Dealing with Difficult Behaviors workshop, learners will be able to:

  • Create a five-step game plan for addressing difficult workplace personalities
  • Identify the necessary STEPs (stress, triggers, emotions, perceptions) to reframe your reactions when presented with a tough situation
  • Identify and address six common difficult workplace behaviors
  • Demonstrate how to give constructive feedback

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

This workshop counts toward 3.0 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Sign up for Dealing with Difficult Behaviors here

Discover Talents, Build Strengths

Stop trying to be someone you’re not and start focusing on what makes you naturally powerful and unique. Maximize your potential with our Discover Talents, Build Strengths workshop, using Gallup’s CliftonStrengths.

Every day, Don Clifton’s strengths-based approach to management and leadership powers some of the greatest teams in the world’s most successful organizations. The premise is simple: people perform at their best, both on the job and in daily life, when they understand and utilize their natural talents. This enables them to build stronger relationships, be a better teammate, and focus more on what they do best, accelerating their personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re an individual contributor or a leader wanting to improve, or a leader wanting to empower your team to perform better, your efforts start here.

Through Discover Talents, Build Strengths, you will:

  • Learn about CliftonStrengths and consider its potential impact on workplace culture
  • Understand the Deficit and Strength Assumptions
  • Learn CliftonStrengths Terminology
  • Learn about your top five themes and help others understand theirs
  • Develop methods for using your natural talents to enhance your work and professional life

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff and will involve participants completing the CliftonStrengths assessment.

Sign up for Discover Talents, Build Strengths Here

Diversity Includes Everyone (BC 2.5hrs)

Every person at Kent State is a unique individual, very different from anyone else on campus. In order to work effectively, we need to understand and embrace this concept. This workshop provides learners an opportunity to explore fundamental diversity concepts and develop an understanding of why differences should be valued.

As a result of Diversity Includes Everyone, you will:

  • Discover a basic knowledge of diversity
  • Increase the understanding of methods that influence diversity-related culture change
  • Explore dimensions of diversity through interactive exercise

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

This workshop counts toward 2.5 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Sign up for Diversity Includes Everyone Here

Emotional Intelligence I: Identify

According to MSCEIT, emotions are informational data that is constantly collected. This workshop explores why collecting the correct data is important and factors that influence the collection processes.

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff. 

Through Emotional Intelligence - Identify, you will:

  • Discover factors that allow or prevent the emotional data collection
  • Explore and identify characteristics of the six basic emotions
  • Define your ability to accurately read and express emotions

Sign up for Emotional Intelligence I: Identify Here

Emotional Intelligence II: Use

Once emotional data is collected, you ‘feel’ certain sensations due to brain activity.  How much attention do you pay them? Learn how these feelings, or emotions, influence our thinking and why listening to them helps us make better decisions.

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

Through Emotional Intelligence - Use, you will:

  • Determine how emotions impact thinking
  • Increase your ability to effectively generate emotions
  • Learn the importance of connecting to others’ emotions

Sign up for Emotional Intelligence II: Use Here

Emotional Intelligence III: Understand

Now that you can link emotions to thinking, what do I do with it? Enrich your understanding of emotions by examining the root causes of emotions, predicting emotional chains and blends, and describing accurately the subtle differences between emotions. 

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

Through Emotional Intelligence - Understand, you will:

  • Describe what you feel by increasing your emotional vocabulary
  • Tackle a self-awareness method to determine the root cause of specific emotions in you
  • Forecast what emotion and/or event produces what type of emotional outcome
  • Explore how emotions transition from one state to another

Sign up for Emotional Intelligence III: Understand Here

Emotional Intelligence IV: Manage

Develop an action management plan with your newfound knowledge of emotions! Learners examine methods to reach their desired outcomes by integrating emotions with their thoughts.

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

Through Emotional Intelligence - Manage, you will:

  • Learn to constructively use anger
  • Identify personal methods to help manage your emotions
  • Develop an action plan to strategize your desired outcomes

Sign up for Emotional Intelligence IV: Manage Here

Listening with Purpose

Understanding personal listening approaches is essential to productive communication. Good communication skills in the workplace are one of the most important factors leading to successful teams, groups and organizations. Effective listening skills are crucial to communicating productively both inside and outside the organization. This workshop will help you become an active, purposeful listener in a wide variety of situations for more powerful communication. Learners will complete an online self-evaluation to learn about their preferred listening style and receive feedback on strengths and opportunities for improvement.

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

Through Listening with Purpose, you will:

  • Explore factors that influence our listening abilities
  • Learn the five approaches to listening
  • Practice recognizing and using effective approaches for different listening situations
  • Discover your own listening approaches
  • Create action plan to help apply listening skills

Sign up for Listening with Purpose Here

Measuring Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to incorporate emotions into your decision making for optimal outcomes. Kent State utilizes the MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test) model to measure your EI ability across the four key areas of Identifying, Using, Understanding and Managing emotions. You can take this EI online test and then engage in a personal consultation with a certified MSCEIT professional in HR to interpret your results. Participants receive their detailed test results along with areas of strengths and potential opportunities for development. Contact Training and Development at 330-672-2100 or hrd@kent.edu for more information and to schedule your EI test and consultation.

A fee is associated with the MSCEIT assessment.  Contact Training and Development for pricing options.  

Training link coming soon.

Prevent Bullying in the Workplace (BC 3hrs)

Bullying happens in more places than just the playground. How should we respond to bullying in the workplace?

So how should we respond? This workshop explores what this social issue is and how we can respond by improving workplace relationships, communication and promoting healthy campus expectations.

Through Prevent Bullying in the Workplace, you will:

  • Differentiate between bullying, harassment, conflict, and normal expectations
  • Discover tactics to prevent workplace bullying
  • Explore university reporting procedures for bullying
  • Care for yourself in the midst of bullying

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

This workshop counts toward 3.0 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Sign up for Prevent Bullying in the Workplace Here

Principles of Conflict Management (BC 3hrs)

Have trouble effectively dealing with workplace conflict? Ever feel like you spend too much time going around and around without any resolution?  Then, this is the course for you!

Guided by a self-assessment tool and practical exercises, you will:

  • Discover their preferred conflict management style
  • Learn how to distinguish between the different styles of conflict
  • Gain practical experience in applying conflict styles
  • Explore communication strategies

This workshop is ideal for all Kent State faculty and staff.

This workshop counts toward 3.0 hours of your annual Beyond Compliance requirement.

Sign up for Principles of Conflict Management Here

Time-Wise: Managing Time Effectively

We all face a daily dilemma: too much to do and not enough time to do it.  The concept of time management addresses how we resolve the daily dilemma. Time is the limiting factor, not our job duties and tasks. We must make tough choices about what to do and what not to do.

Take a journey through the Time Mastery concept, which looks at 12 categories that impact a productive use of time. The Time-Wise workshop showcases the Time Mastery Profile, a time-management instrument developed by Dr. Larry Baker and Dr. Merrill Douglass. The Time Mastery Profile is based on 40 years of research and conducting seminars around the world.

As a result of Time-Wise, you will:

  • Be introduced to the time mastery concept
  • Identify ways that you use time effectively and ineffectively
  • Improve your time handling abilities by replacing the self-defeating behaviors that hinder your effectiveness

Sign Up For Time-Wise: Managing Time Effectively Here

Understanding and Responding to Discrimination and Harassment

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of discrimination and harassment through the interactive use of scenarios and discussion around real workplace application.