Program Overview:

Many individuals consider their educational, technical, licensed, or professional skills the most important aspects of their application and consideration for a position in healthcare. However, most employers equally value an individual’s soft skills when making a decision to hire or promote. Soft skills are the things you do that make you a great employee outside of the technical skills that are needed for the job. They are skills that an individual has that make him or her great employee – no matter where they work or what they do or their job title. For some people, these skills come naturally – for others they need to be developed, refined, or strengthened. While these skills don’t necessarily find themselves listed on job descriptions of duties, employees with well-developed soft skills are difficult to find and are very valuable to healthcare teams. This course will focus on these key skills, often referred to as soft skills, which help healthcare workers be successful members of their professional teams and for increasing the organization’s performance and competitiveness. For whom:
All healthcare professionals

Learning objectives:
At the end of the program, participants will be able to:

■   Know, discuss and define “soft skills” and its relevance in healthcare work environment

■   List and evaluate current skills, and know other vital skills they would need to develop

■   Determine development strategies to adopt in acquiring other required skills

■   Develop skills to be assertive without being intimidating toward others

■   Develop active listening skills that promote better work relationships and less medical errors

■   Develop skills to influence and motivate others positively

■   Develop skills for effective communication between patients, nurses and clinicians

■   Identify differences between technical and non-technical professionals and manage the differences

■   Differentiate communication style preferences in order to better understand, influence and connect with other medical professionals

■   Overcome others’ “automatic resistance” to ideas in order to build better understanding and acceptance of team, reduce duplication, streamline patient care, and enabled specialist skills to be used more cost- effectively

Course Outline:
Day 1: Leadership and Self-awareness skills

■   Developing your leadership skills

■   Knowing one’s strengths & weaknesses,

■   Self-confidence: a strong sense of one’s worth and capabilities

Working with others towards shared goals

■   Delegation to empowerment
o The delegation process

■   Negotiating for a win-win situation
o Negotiating and resolving disagreements

■   Conceptual & Analytical skills

Day 2: Communication and Information Technology Skills

■   Role of Effective communication in workplace

■   Developing listening and questioning skills

■   Body language clues that show how others are thinking and responding to you

■   Communications models

■   Using perceptual positions to understand others view points

■   Choosing communication channels to increase engagement

■   Use of Information Communication & Technology

Day 3: Work Psychology Skills

■   Work ethics and Positive work attitude
o Types of attitudes and effects on organizational performance

■   Strategies for building positive attitudes

■   Norms, values, behaviours

■   Managing Diversity at work

1. Business etiquette
2. The work environment & ethics
   o Professionalism to work in the work environment
3. Managing and Resolving Conflict

Day 4: Teamwork and Interpersonal Relationships Skills

■   Understanding today’s Teams and Team Dynamics Definition, Types of Teams and Benefits of Teamwork

■   Building and leading a team that is motivated, engaged, proactive, and collaborative

■   The TORI team-building model

■   Interpersonal Relationship: The trust/relationship model
o Developing interpersonal skills between team members

■   Team results need effective team communication
o Creating synergy in teams

4. Day 5: Personal Productivity Improvement Skills

■   Importance of Time Management
o Setting priorities

■   Goals and Objectives Setting

■   Time management techniques

■Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
o Stages in problem solving and decision making
o Improving decision making

• • Overcoming decision fatigue

■   Managing emotional and physical stress

■   Personal action planning for personal development. Training Methodology
Lectures, discussions, exercises, and case studies will be used to reinforce these teaching/learning methods.

16.  Training Methodology
    Lectures, discussions, exercises, and case studies will be used to reinforce these teaching/learning methods.