Programme Introduction/Roles, Competences and Personal Effectiveness

• Programme introduction and objectives
• Action planning
• The ‘competence’ model of skills, behaviours and values
• Emotional and Chronistic Intelligence
• Personal competence review
• Time management constraints – resources, systems, other people and self
• Handling requests and conflicting priorities

Team Working, Communication and Meetings

• Team working and team roles
• Briefing skills – giving, receiving and passing on
• Organising, and participating in, meetings
• Notes, minutes and follow-up

Managing Working Relationships /Communication Skills/Supervising Admin Staff

• Delegation – giving and receiving
• Coaching and  training colleagues and staff – skills of on-job training
• Communication and listening skills – lessons from NLP
• Building rapport
• Developing a network of working relationships – influencing skills
• Assertiveness and conflict
• People problems and problem people
• Helping others perform – case study
• Practical motivation
• Criticism skills

Managing Time/Desk Management and Office Technology/Writing Skills

• Planning and priority setting
• Office layout and ergonomics
• Managing the paper-load and developing paperless systems
• Getting the best from office technology
• Letter writing
• E-mail efficiency and etiquette
• Writing and editing reports
• Proof-reading skills
• Setting up/developing writing layout and style guidelines for the organisation
• Writing & designing presentation slides

Managing Information & Budgets/Improving Customer Service and Systems

• Principles of information management – scheduling, filtering and digesting
• Interpreting & presenting statistical information
• Designing & using graphs
• Designing surveys, presenting findings and interpreting meaning
• Basic concepts of financial management
• Monitoring budgets and variance
• Improving  customer service and systems – continuous improvement
• Action planning