Connecticut State Employees Fall 2024 Inservice Catalog (2024)

In this interactive session on Artificial Intelligence (AI), participants will gain a deeper understanding of AI's impact on our world. You'll interact firsthand with advanced AI chatbots, experiencing their capabilities in solving workplace and personal tasks. This practical exposure will be complemented by insights into AI's history, underlying mechanisms, and its far-reaching societal implications. We'll explore AI's potential to revolutionize industries while also examining the ethical concerns and regulatory challenges it presents. Crucially, you'll learn why, although AI itself may not directly replace your job, you risk losing opportunities to those who can use AI more effectively than you. By the end of this training, you'll be equipped to critically evaluate AI's role in your profession and daily life, understanding why embracing AI tools is crucial for future success. Whether you're AI-curious or AI-cautious, you'll leave with a nuanced perspective on why we should simultaneously understand, love, hate, and fear this transformative technology – and how to navigate its complexities in our rapidly evolving world.

Instructor - Mike Behar

In this interactive session on Artificial Intelligence (AI), participants will gain a deeper understanding of AI's impact on our world. You'll interact firsthand with advanced AI chatbots, experiencing their capabilities in solving workplace and personal tasks. This practical exposure will be complemented by insights into AI's history, underlying mechanisms, and its far-reaching societal implications. We'll explore AI's potential to revolutionize industries while also examining the ethical concerns and regulatory challenges it presents. Crucially, you'll learn why, although AI itself may not directly replace your job, you risk losing opportunities to those who can use AI more effectively than you. By the end of this training, you'll be equipped to critically evaluate AI's role in your profession and daily life, understanding why embracing AI tools is crucial for future success. Whether you're AI-curious or AI-cautious, you'll leave with a nuanced perspective on why we should simultaneously understand, love, hate, and fear this transformative technology – and how to navigate its complexities in our rapidly evolving world.

Instructor - Mike Behar

Working with the public frequently sometimes leads to dealing with hostile, angry, and even threatening people. This workshop will help you understand and effectively de-escalate a client’s negative behaviors. These will include non-verbal and verbal strategies, responding to and managing insults, dealing with complaints, and using empathic and validation skills as de-escalation tools. It will also present ways of responding to difficult people that you deal with frequently or daily.

Instructor - Richard Fisher

Working with the public frequently sometimes leads to dealing with hostile, angry, and even threatening people. This workshop will help you understand and effectively de-escalate a client’s negative behaviors. These will include non-verbal and verbal strategies, responding to and managing insults, dealing with complaints, and using empathic and validation skills as de-escalation tools. It will also present ways of responding to difficult people that you deal with frequently or daily.

Instructor - Richard Fisher

Businesses today are confronted with a constantly evolving flood of new technologies, regulations, and customer demands and need to move quickly to provide training to maintain employee effectiveness. Virtual and augmented (VR/AR) technologies – collectively referred to as extended reality (XR) – are rising to this challenge with cost-effective hardware solutions and a range of off-the-shelf titles, content creation tools, and vendor-built custom training applications. XR-based training provides enhanced learning outcomes in safe, consistent, and repeatable training scenarios. Join other training professionals to experience XR training first-hand and learn how companies are leveraging VR/AR to ensure workforce effectiveness with a positive ROI.

Instructor - Randall Rode

This introductory Spanish language and culture course is designed for front-line workers. This practical course is designed for individuals to achieve a beginning level of cultural and linguistic proficiency in Spanish; if you have had some Spanish before, you may use this course as a review or refresher. This beginning Spanish language and culture course is designed to help individuals who are currently working to serve Spanish-speaking patients and their families better. The class will focus on speaking and listening and offer participants knowledge about Hispanic cultures.

Instructor - LuisaPiemontese

This intermediate Spanish language and culture course is designed for front-line workers. This course builds off knowledge gained in Level 1 and is designed for individuals with a foundational understanding of Spanish. The course will help individuals achieve a stronger cultural and linguistic proficiency in Spanish to help those currently working to better serve Spanish-speaking patients and their families.

Instructor - LuisaPiemontese

To help prepare workforce members for managing in a unionized labor environment. Designed for current and aspiring supervisors, this workshop delves into the unique challenges and opportunities of working in a unionized setting. This workshop will address the unique challenges and opportunities that arise when supervising employees covered by union agreements. Topics include understanding union dynamics, conflict resolution, the grievance process, collective bargaining agreements, understanding unfair labor practices, legal compliance, and more.

• Describe major federal laws governing union and labor relations

• Understand union complaint and grievance processes

• Understand navigating collective bargaining agreements

Instructor - Kauther Badr

To help prepare workforce members for managing in a unionized labor environment. Designed for current and aspiring supervisors, this workshop delves into the unique challenges and opportunities of working in a unionized setting. This workshop will address the unique challenges and opportunities that arise when supervising employees covered by union agreements. Topics include understanding union dynamics, conflict resolution, the grievance process, collective bargaining agreements, understanding unfair labor practices, legal compliance, and more.

• Describe major federal laws governing union and labor relations

• Understand union complaint and grievance processes

• Understand navigating collective bargaining agreements

Instructor - Kauther Badr

Explore the unique challenges, constraints, and opportunities that women face today as they ascend to organizational leadership. The issues deal with the dynamics of power, authority, and influence, managing multiple roles, and social role expectations. Course materials draw on the latest research insights from psychology, sociology, and business to understand the perceptions, behaviors, stereotypes, and backlash women uniquely face. Understand the roadmap to the labyrinth of women’s leadership, providing options for effective responses, strategies, and solutions. A secondary objective of this workshop is to learn about and develop resiliency skills to draw on when the inevitable career challenges manifest. Special focus will be paid to the factors that inhibit women’s career progression, such as work-family conflict, implicit biases, and double standards for women related to being nice vs being competent. This training is open to women with 3-8 years of professional experience, either currently in a leadership or supervisory role or aspiring to such a role.Dec 6 will also have both a virtual and in-person (brown bag lunch) networking option.

Instructor - Alice Wieland