Courses Offered
Grievances, Disputes and the Collective Agreement
Resolving the disputes in the unionized context requires understanding and confidence participating in the grievance process – from informal discussion to preparing for arbitration.
This 1.5-day course offers a comprehensive and hands-on skills development approach to effective grievance handling.
Focus is placed on learning how to interpret collective agreement language and prepare for and respond to grievances, including union representatives. Participants will develop a keen understanding of how to utilize the grievance process to resolve disputes in a productive and timely manner that brings clarity and closure to issues arising from the administration/application of the collective agreement.
Facilitating Difficult Conversations
Why can’t Bob and Mary just get along!
Leaders in public education are often called on to intervene and resolve issues between staff who report to them. Doing so effectively requires assessing the situation, creating a safe environment and facilitating a problem-solving process between the parties.
This course will provide you with the basic concepts, skills and approaches needed to assist others to resolve issues and work more productively together.
You will learn how to lead others through a practical, collaborative process for identifying shared interests, resolving conflict and attaining mutually satisfactory outcomes. You will have opportunities to practice in a simulated environment to hone your conflict conversation facilitation skills.
Foundations of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
This half-day course is designed as a foundational DEI course for leaders to understand concepts of power, privilege and intersectionality, and how they impact the workplace. Upon completion of the course, you will develop a deeper understanding of implicit biases and their impacts in the workplace. This course will allow you to gain tools to mitigate the negative effects of unconscious biases in the workplace and to further understand how unconscious bias is part of larger DEI organizational work.
Activities include:
- Decolonizing our bios
- The wheel of power and privilege
- Unpacking your invisible backpack
- Macroaggressions: Themes and messages
- The “Problem” Woman of Colour in the workplace
- The “Norm” of white dominant culture and something different worksheet
Harassment/Sexual Harassment
BCPSEA offers a variety of harassment training programs to assist school districts in the administration of Article E.2 of the Provincial Collective Agreement between the BC Teachers’ Federation and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
These training programs are designed to provide districts with appropriately trained individuals in order to satisfy the requirements of the Provincial Collective Agreement, Article E.2 Harassment/Sexual Harassment and WorkSafe BC Bullying and Harassment. While these programs focus on the provisions of the teacher agreement, the concepts and skills are also useful to individuals with management responsibility for support staff.
Investigating Employee Misconduct
Most employees regularly carry out their duties well; but there are occasions when an employee may misstep or fail to meet their professional obligations, requiring a manager to investigate and correct their conduct.
This 1.5-day training session provides participants with an opportunity to work through an investigation into allegations of wrongdoing where they will:
- identify key issues for review and development of an appropriate investigation plan
- prepare for and conduct interviews with witnesses, complainants and respondents (including how to deal with difficult and disruptive behaviors)
- assemble and weigh the evidence gathered to determine the appropriate course of action
- and conclude the interview on the right note
Real-time coaching and feedback will support and cement the learning so that participants feel ready and confident to immediately apply the skills that they will develop at the conclusion of this highly interactive workshop.
Making the Right Hire: A Comprehensive Approach to the Selection Process
Making a good hiring decision is important work and developing selection criteria, behaviour based interview and reference questions are key to getting it right! This interactive session will take you through the process of how to establish selection criteria which will inform your interview and reference questions. Information will also be provided on what you need in order to defend your hiring decision should you get challenged. 1 day
Professional Boundaries in K-12
Navigating appropriate boundaries in K-12 can be complex and challenging. During this 4-hour workshop we will assist managers to understand why reinforcing and maintaining boundaries are imperative to fostering a professional, healthy, and safe environment for all.
Public Education Collective Bargaining Academy
The Public Education Collective Bargaining Academy is an intensive and highly interactive learning opportunity that occurs inside of a unique three-day format. The Academy, covers all aspects of collective bargaining with lectures, facilitated discussions, small group activities, and a collective bargaining simulation aimed at providing participants with an opportunity to learn through practice. This session will include individuals from the labour relations community with extensive experience and expertise in collective bargaining, to enhance the learning opportunities.
WEBINAR: Navigating the Updated Refusal of Unsafe Work Process
In August 2022, new requirements came into effect in the refusal of unsafe work section of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. These changes now require written notification to replacement workers during a refusal of unsafe work. In this 45-minute webinar, we will discuss the changes as well as strategies and tools that employers in public education can use to navigate the new requirements.
WEBINAR: Productive Workplace Interactions
Conflict is one of the most frequent, yet challenging forms of social interaction. It taps into our values, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, judgements and emotions and is greatly influenced by the skills and aptitudes of the individuals involved. Even after the immediate conflict has ended, the outcome and the manner in which it came about linger on. If a mutually satisfactory resolution was reached, the relationship will likely be strengthened. If the outcome is perceived to be unfair to either party, however, the result often ranges from mutual avoidance to anger, fear or even retaliation.
With the proper use of collaborative conflict resolution, parties retain the greatest control over the process and outcome of their conflict, while maximizing the opportunity for strengthened future interactions and relationships.
Explore the concepts and skills of collaborative conflict-resolution in this 45-minute webinar. You will delve into the factors that lead to conflict escalation and those that can de-escalate conflict. You will identify and reflect on the attitudes and behaviors that lead to positive outcomes in conflict situations.
WEBINAR: Understanding Disability Management
Join us for this interactive 45 minute webinar to learn about the core components of an effective Disability Management Program and review strategies to assist you to support your employees to return to work in a safe, timely and productive way.
WEBINAR: Understanding the Duty to Accommodate
Accommodation is an equality concept that seeks to build inclusive environments that respect the differences and the rights of a diverse society. This is an interactive 45 minute interactive webinar.
WEBINAR: Understanding the Grievance Procedure
Understanding and effectively using the grievance process to resolve disputes arising from administration/application of the collective agreement is crucial in unionized workplaces.
This interactive 45-minute webinar will introduce participants to:
- what a grievance is;
- the purpose and impact of the grievance process in the workplace and the relevant framework;
- the role that union representatives and managers have inside of the grievance procedure; and
- how to investigate, prepare and respond to grievances at each stage of the process.