Supervisor Insight for Communicating Across Learning Styles & Generations

Level:             Advanced Practice – Supervisor

Credits:          6

Intended Audience:  Supervisors interested in learning more effective engagement strategies with their staff based on communication and generational differences.

Course Description: For the first time in American history, there are four generations in the workplace at the same time. Each generation was formed by a variety of events in the political, social, economic events of their formative years, regardless of cultural identity, geographic location, or socioeconomic status.

Supervisors play a key role in staff retention as motivators and role models.

Employees stay on the job:

• When they feel respected,
• When they see opportunities for growth
• When they feel that their voices are heard
• When they feel they have a positive influence on clients’ lives and
• When their strengths & accomplishments are acknowledged.

In a highly interactive and engaging session, discover the generational influences that impacted your own workplace persona, and uncover supervision strategies which will assist you in learning how to fluently communicate across the generations to encourage competent staff to stay in DCFS. Additionally, there are various communication styles which can be a deterrent or enhancement to effective engagement. Self-assess your own styles of communication and develop strategies to communicate with staff with different styles, and teach them to consider the same implications in the parallel process with their clients.

The processes used in this workshop are approximately 25% lecture & large group discussions, 25% skills practice, 35% small group discussion & activity, 15% individual reflection & assessment.

 Intended Objectives:

• Self-assess and value various learning styles
• Develop strategies for communicating with staff in accordance to their learning style
• List the four generations in today’s workplace
• Identify his/her individual generational identity as a component of overall cultural identity
• Value the impact of historical, economic, and sociological events on a generation’s development
• Identify characteristics, and assets & liabilities in the workplace of each generation
• Develop strategies for supervising a multigenerational staff
• Discuss parallel process implications

Topics Include:

• Parallel process
• Engagement
• Communication Styles
• Generation as a component of cultural identity
• Effective supervision strategies