Barstable Patriot
Written by David Augustinho
January 23, 2009

Last February I wrote about a Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund training grant we applied for to train local supervisors and managers. Last summer we received a three-year grant for the Cape Area Management Program (CAMP) and in September we began the first of six training sessions.

Over the course of this three-year grant we hope to train more than 150 supervisors and managers in the basics of practical management, team work, project management and continuous quality improvement. Each training session is comprised of 64 classroom hours (lecture and discussion) and eight hours of peer-to-peer practicum (practice new skills, share best practices, addressing real-time problems).

Our training providers are: the National Graduate School of Quality Management (NGS), a Falmouth-based institution of higher education, and Ernie Oliveira, founder and President of DEO Associates, a business consulting company. NGS is providing the classroom instruction and DEO Associates is facilitating the practicum sessions.
Eleven local businesses and nonprofit organizations have taken advantage of this opportunity, enrolling 30 of their employees in the first training session. Regardless of whether trainees work for a not-for-profit or for-profit organization, they have discovered that the challenges they face as managers and supervisors is similar – they hope to build and develop skills in the areas of time management, giving feedback to subordinates, preparing and delivering performance reviews, conflict management, effective communication, delegating, leading teams, managing change, motivating staff, delivering quality service and products to their customer, and managing others to assist in attaining the goals of the organization.

Trainees have the opportunity to role-play: practicing new techniques and applying their learning to real-world situations. They use situations they have faced or are facing at work in their discussions. They enjoy their professor’s energetic presentations and find the material useful in their daily practice. Classroom discussions are lively, involving the whole class.

Although this first training session has only reached its midpoint, employers are seeing benefits to the training. In conversations with our employer partners, we have received positive feedback about their employees’ incorporating new skills into their work, coaching others with their new skills, developing confidence as managers, seeking to communicate more effectively and taking on new responsibilities.

This spring we will be offering the training in the Falmouth area along with desktop delivery to trainees on the Islands or those unable to commute to the training site. The classes will be delivered in real time to employees’ desktops with chat room interactivity so that participants can ask questions and receive immediate feedback. A training session is being contemplated for this fall in the Outer Cape region with two additional sessions being planned for 2010-11.

For more information please contact Project Coordinator Joan McDonald at 508-775-5900.