Professional Skills Update Webinar Series

$150 for the series

All sessions are 11:00 am - 1:00 pm.  They are recorded in case you can't make it live.

November 19, 2025 - Time management and effectively dealing with time abusers

Time is one of the most valuable resources. This session will explore strategies for effectively managing your time, focusing on the most significant time management challenge: time abusers. With their inefficient habits, disregard for others, and tardiness, these individuals impose undue burdens on us. They also create ripple effects, compress deadlines, and disrupt workflow. Whether intentional or unintentional, they will manage their time at your expense if you allow it.

We will explore strategies to respectfully keep these individuals in line and on track while holding them more accountable for their responsibilities, ensuring that this does not adversely impact stakeholders.

February 11, 2026 - Effective project planning using MS Excel or Google Sheets

This session will equip you with the tools to effectively plan, track, and manage both simple and complex projects using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Whether you're coordinating a team initiative, overseeing administrative timelines, or aligning cross-departmental efforts, Excel can be a surprisingly powerful tool for bringing structure to your planning process.

Participants will learn to:

• Define clear project goals, deliverables, and deadlines.
• Create dynamic timelines and task trackers based on Gantt concepts.
• Add color coding and visual tracking using conditional formatting.

This model simplifies the process, generates results that offer reasonable predictions on completion, and keeps team members on track.

March 11, 2026 - Effective persuasion, conflict resolution, and mediation

The ability to persuade, resolve conflict, and mediate is essential for the highly effective educational office professional. This goes beyond maintaining harmony to establishing constructive relationships, achieving consensus, and, most importantly, getting things done.

Topics will include the principles of persuasion, conflict resolution, uncovering common ground, and building trust based on shared interests. We will also examine how to identify areas for movement, listen beyond the words, utilize results-focused processes, and help some individuals get out of their own way.

Jeff Olefson of Staff Development Associates will present the series.

Tech Needs: Internet access for Zoom live sessions and YouTube for future on-demand viewing.