Work & Communicate Effectively

The link below leads to the Facilities Planning and Management internal Knowledge Base.  This is a website that can only be seen by UW Employees.  It contains all training documentation created by and available to Physical Plant employees related to the three main software systems maintained by Physical Plant.  They are:

• ReADY – a website where campus customers can submit maintenance work requests to Physical Plant
• AiM – a website used by Physical Plant employees to track and manage work created through ReADY
• Go – an iOS app used daily by tradespeople to manage their work, fill out timecards, and communicate with other tradespeople

Feel free to save or bookmark the Knowledge Base website for future reference.  Also note that a shortcut to the Knowledge Base website is automatically made available to you on your work-issued iPhone or iPad.

Go to the knowledgebase here: https://kb.wisc.edu/fpm/internal/

Below are professional resources you can explore and connect with your supervisor/peers on.

Human Resources:

• College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA HR) – This organization provides leadership on higher education workplace issues in the US and abroad. Create a free account on the CUPA-HR website in order to receive full membership benefits. Be sure to identify UW–Madison as your organization.
• Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) – The world’s largest HR professional society, operating globally.
• Association for Talent Development (ATD) – A professional membership organization supporting those who develop the knowledge and skills of employees in organizations across the globe.
• APPA – Leadership in Educational Facilities
  Events | APPA
  Grounds Maintenance & Operations
• Check out other HR Professional Organizations: https://hr.wisc.edu/hr-professionals/organizations/ 

Business Operations and Purchasing:

Communications & Marketing:

Associate VC Office:

To add to this list of resources, please contact Kayla Ruplinger

Go to each respective organization to learn more

Plain Language skills can help you get your message across quickly and clearly. These skills are useful to UW employees in a wide range of positions that involve communicating with others. Training is available at no cost, and all UW–Madison faculty and staff are welcome to attend.

Participants can take an introductory class on Plain Language as a stand-alone training, or attend three sequential workshops to gain a deeper understanding of core plain language strategies. Those who complete all three workshops can earn a Plain Language certificate.

• Introduction to Plain Language
• Write with Plain Language
• Design for Plain Language

Instructors will focus on word choice, grammar, organization of content, and format to improve the readability of documents.

Work with your supervisor and Marci Birkes (marci.birkes@wisc.edu) to schedule

This workshop is designed to help FP&M supervisors understand what hostile and intimidating behavior is and how to engage university resources to resolve issues. In a two-hour, case-based workshop, participants will work through scenarios to identify when HIB is occurring (and when it isn’t) and understand what the role of a supervisor is when they hear about, witness, or experience incidents related to one or more of these behaviors.

All FP&M Supervisors

Please contact Kayla Ruplinger or Alicia Meyer for upcoming dates.

Check out UW-Madison’s resources: https://it.wisc.edu/learn/guides/getting-started-with-webex-meetings/ 

Zoom is an enterprise cloud platform for video, voice, online meetings, screen sharing, chat, and webinars. This enterprise web conferencing and distance learning application runs across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems.

Because the UW-Madison Zoom service uses an Education license, we have access to more features compared to a free basic Zoom account. Below are quick highlights on the differences:

This document explains how to start using the UW-Madison Zoom service.

Learn more about using Microsoft Word with this training.

With Word on your PC, Mac, or mobile device, you can:

• Create documents from scratch, or a template.
• Add text, images, art, and videos.
• Research a topic and find credible sources.
• Access your documents from a computer, tablet, or phone with OneDrive.
• Share your documents, and work with others.
• Track and review changes.

Outlook is a versatile and important tool. Learn more about it through this training.

With Outlook on your PC, Mac or mobile device, you can:

• Organize your email to focus on the messages that matter most.
• Manage your calendar to schedule meetings and appointments.
• Share files from the cloud so everyone always has the latest version.
• Stay connected and productive wherever you are.

Get up to speed with Microsoft Excel, the world’s most popular spreadsheet program. Follow along with Excel expert Dennis Taylor as he demonstrates how to efficiently manage and analyze data with this powerful program. Learn how to enter and organize data, perform calculations with simple functions, and format the appearance of rows, columns, cells, and data. Other lessons cover how to work with multiple worksheets, build charts and PivotTables, sort and filter data, use the printing capabilities of Excel, and more.

Have you ever witnessed something that left you uneasy or concerned for another person at work, but you didn’t know how to step in and improve the situation — so you did nothing? You are not alone. It is common to feel unsure of what to do when we witness behavior that concerns us.

This interactive workshop will introduce you to important intervention skills for building healthy, inclusive and engaging workplaces. You will have the opportunity to practice multiple intervention options in real-life scenarios, and will leave equipped with options to interrupt and improve concerning workplace situations when they arise.

Why Should You Attend?

• • Learn skills that build your confidence and increase motivation to identify, intervene and interrupt behaviors that negatively impact the workplace.

• • Examine various options for effectively intervening and improving negative situations through the 4D’s of Stepping In framework.

• • Develop your ability to assess a situation and confidently select an effective intervention option for the situation.

• Practice bystander interventions and skills to use in your workplace, including what to say.

This workshop is designed to help university employees (faculty, staff, graduate-student employees, and post-docs) identify hostile and intimidating behavior when it happens, understand how to create conditions that prevent it, know the policies in place to address it, and become familiar with the resources on campus that can help.

In this case-based workshop, participants will work through a number of scenarios to help identify what hostile and intimidating behavior is (and isn’t), and work with one another to understand what their responsibilities are when they hear about or experience incidents of hostile and intimidating behavior. The workshop will be a combination of content delivery (e.g., mini-lecture), both small and large group discussion, personal reflective activities, and group activities.

This module will help you understand, manage, and resolve interpersonal conflicts and tensions. As a result of this module, you will:

• Identify how people tend to respond to conflict situations and describe the characteristics of interpersonal conflict
• Demonstrate techniques for handling anger and negative emotions that arise in conflict situations
• Create and practice an action plan for addressing a personal conflict

This interactive workshop is designed to help participants provide quality and effective feedback. In this course, you will:

– Practice frameworks for giving and receiving feedback.
– Consider ways to handle challenging responses to feedback in order to maintain relationships.
– Create and practice an action plan for engaging in constructive feedback conversations.

This module presents concepts, skills, and techniques for helping leaders communicate more effectively in one-on-one situations, both in person and virtual. As a result of this module, you will:

• Identify and overcome the barriers to effective communication.
• Reflect on your personal communication strengths and areas for growth
• Practice specific communication skills such as paraphrasing, responding to emotions, and identifying behaviors instead of attributes

Understanding the perspectives of others, building meaning, and creating human connections all stem from listening. Without strategies for active listening, how do you know if you are hearing your supervisor or coworker’s intended message? What information are you missing out on? In this course, dive deep into your patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to identify internal roadblocks to communication. Learn strategies to connect with others and stay in dialogue. This is a virtual course. You will receive a link 24 hours before the course in your email.

Why should you attend?

• Reflect on: The communication process and what gets in the way

• Practice: Listening strategies to support greater understanding

Learn best practices in writing emails that effectively share the information you want to convey and receive the responses you need. Covering subject lines, tone, organization and formatting, put these tips into practice right away. FP2L Certificate of Leadership Competency participants, please forward me your practice emails, or send me an email sharing your takeaways to receive credit for the course.

This is a self-paced online course.

An interactive workshop to discuss and practice effective communication strategies for English speakers working with those who speak different first languages. Participants will received a “toolbox” of tips for communication and a list of resources.

Learning Objectives: Participants will understand and be able to use a variety of self-assessment and communication strategies when working and interactive with others in a multicultural environments.

Contact Cultural Linguistic Services to schedule sessions.

More than any other topic, frontline employees ask for advice on how to serve angry and upset customers. This course reveals proven techniques for effectively neutralizing negative situations. Customer service expert Jeff Toister also shares specific actions employees can take before and after encounters with upset customers that will reduce the likelihood of problems occurring in the future.

Learning objectives

• Listening with empathy
• Helping the customer be right
• Preserving the relationship
• Learning from angry customers
• Passing along complaints
• Replacing trigger words