Supervision 101: What All New Supervisors Need to Know

(An Infopeople Online Learning Course)
July 24, 2007 - August 20, 2007

"Congratulations, you've been promoted and you're now a supervisor!"

If you came to the job of supervisor without much formal training, you're not alone. Most supervisors develop their skills through experience—and sometimes, that's painful. The good news is that you don't have to suffer, and neither do your employees. Once you learn some practical techniques based on time-tested supervisory principles, you'll not only survive as a supervisor, but you and your staff will thrive. This course is for you if you want to:

• Give your staff the kind of support they need to stay motivated
• Coach and communicate with your staff effectively every day
• Feel more confident in dealing with common performance problems
• Handle challenging performance problems more easily

At the conclusion of this course you will have tools you can use immediately to be a proactive supervisor, and the confidence to handle supervisory problems that arise.

Workshop Description: This four-week online learning course will provide practical resources, tools, and methods that can be used by supervisors in any library setting. You will explore useful techniques for interviewing, hiring, and coaching staff. You will learn to diagnose common performance problems, and develop a set of best practices for handling the supervisory issues that challenge you most. The instructor will provide sample orientation checklists, coaching and counseling tools, behavior-based job descriptions and a webliography, as well as practical, useful tips that can be applied immediately.

During the course, you will be doing exercises and taking quizzes. You will also participate in online discussion forums and take part in one or two live chat sessions with your instructor and classmates as part of the online learning process

Preliminary Course Outline: Using your web browser and your Internet connection, you will log in to the Infopeople online learning site and complete the following learning modules:

• Module One: Building a Framework for Supervision
  • Recognizing and appreciating a diversity of skills and approaches
  • Supervisory style and how it influences employee motivation
  • Basic legal framework within which all supervisors operate
• Module Two: Basic Tools to Keep Things Running Smoothly
  • Using behavior-based job descriptions for recruiting, interviewing, and setting expectations
  • Mentoring and coaching for development
  • Creating and running work teams
• Module Three: Correcting Performance
  • Handling common performance problems
  • Counseling and progressive discipline
• Module Four: Performance Reviews
  • What, how, and when to document performance
  • Involving employees in documenting their own performance
  • Goal-setting, development planning, and performance planning

Online Learning Details:
This four-week course will be taught online using the web. When you register, you will receive a registration confirmation that will include the URL to get to the course, as well as a username and password.

Every student proceeds through the online learning modules at his or her own pace. Students should expect to commit to spending a minimum of 2 to 2½ hours per week on this course in order to be successful. You can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night. However, you will be expected to log in to the course each week to do that week's assignment. We ask that you log in sometime during the first week of the course to begin the course work.

Your instructor will be available for limited consultation support for two weeks after the official end date of a course, and the course material will stay up for an additional two weeks after that, to give those who have fallen behind time to work independently on the course. However, you will be expected to accomplish the majority of the course in synchronization with your peers during the first four weeks.

Who Should Take This Course: Any supervisor from the library community. This course is most suited to new supervisors and those with less than three years of supervisory experience.

Prerequisites:
This course is taught over the web. You must:

• Have an Internet connection and Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.
• Be able to save Microsoft Word .doc or Adobe .pdf files to your computer and print them out. (For .doc files, a free Word Viewer is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. Search for "Word Viewer." For .pdf files, a free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html).
• Be comfortable navigating on the web and navigating back and forward on a website that uses frames.

To be most successful in this course you should be willing to share information with your colleagues and be willing to spend time reading and participating in the weekly discussion boards.

System Requirements: The online learning product that Infopeople uses is called Angel. The following are minimum system requirements for using Angel. You will need access to a computer that has at least these specifications to participate in an online course:

• Windows:
  • Internet Explorer 6.0 and above, Netscape 7.1 and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above
• Macintosh:
  • Mozilla 1.4 and above (which is the same engine as Netscape 7.1), Safari 2.0 and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above
  • OS X and above (OS 9 will NOT work with our online learning product)

If you are not comfortable with any of the above, please consider taking this course with a colleague who does meet these requirements.

Fee: $75 for those in the California library community and $150 for those out-of-state.

Course Start: This 4-week-long online learning course starts on July 24, 2007.