It is important for managers to learn and understand the office environment and the employees that make it tick.

Since the manager interacts with several aspects of the workplace, one should learn how to effectively work with colleagues, supervisors, and upper management in order to help keep the department functioning as a whole.

Course Concepts

•    Understand the purpose and benefits of office politics
•    Setting boundaries and ground rules for new employees
•    Learn to interact and influence among colleagues
•    Learn how to manage various personality types in the office
•    Determine how to gain support and effectively network
•    Recognize how you are a part of a group and how you function

It is important to treat everyone in the workplace with respect and dignity.

Workplace harassment must be identified, discouraged, and prevented in order to keep a hostile work environment from developing. Left unchecked, harassment can escalate into violence. Workplace harassment training is essential to the welfare of all businesses and their employees.

Course Concepts

•    Define workplace harassment
•    Understand bullies and how to avoid hiring them
•    Create a risk assessment and understand how to handle violence 
•    Recognize social and business responsibility
•    Develop relevant policies and procedures
•    Learn how to investigate complaints 

This training is intended to make supervisors more aware of when substance abuse may be, or has the potential to become, a performance problem and ways to help them gain a general understanding of their role and responsibilities in enforcing a drug-free workplace policy.

Course Concepts

•    Recognize when employees might have a problem with alcohol or drugs
•    Respond through Interventions and/or referrals
•    Protect confidentiality
•    Continued supervision
•    How to avoid enabling
•    Supervisor traps
•    Dos and don’ts for supervisors with respect to drug-free workplace programs

A company’s ethics will determine its reputation. Good business ethics are essential for the long-term success of an organization.
Implementing ethical programs will foster a successful company culture and increase profitability.

Course Concepts

•    Define and understand ethics.
•    Realize the benefits of ethics.
•    Create strategies to implement ethics at work.
•    Recognize social and business responsibility.
•    Identify ethical and unethical behavior.
•    Learn how to make ethical decisions and lead with integrity.

As part of their best practices, it is important for employers to train employees on ways to promote, achieve and value diversity in the workplace. Diversity must start at the top with accountability measures in place in order to enforce the initiatives throughout the company. Individuals and companies who promote diversity will see improvements in recruitment, retention, morale and customer relations.

Course Subjects:

• Define Diversity
• Describe stereotypes
• List strategies for removing barriers
• Use active listening skills to receive messages in a diverse population
• Understand body language
• Identify ways to encourage diversity in the workplace
• Understand and respond to personal complaints
• And much more!!

Become “Chip the Manager” for a week. Role-play with a set of fictional apartment staff members who need some sexual harassment training. Learn to recognize, react to and deal with situations you could face in your own experiences. (Available in Spanish and in a 2-hour California-approved edition.)

Course Concepts

• What sexual harassment is from a legal perspective and how to recognize and deal with it
• Types of sexual harassment
• Retaliation to sexual harassment
• The costs of sexual harassment
• Trends and statistics regarding sexual harassment
• The responsibility of everyone involved, from victim to management
• How sexual harassment is a particular concern to the property management industry

Apartment maintenance staff interact with your residents more than other employees.  Rather than teaching the detailed information concerning the Fair Housing issues involved with processing applications and making selection decisions, this interactive and interesting course emphasizes the need to understand how their actions can result in a Fair Housing problem, and how to avoid violating the Fair Housing laws. (Also available in Spanish)

Course Concepts

• Learn how Fair Housing laws impact maintenance staff
• Acquire skills to avoid Fair Housing pitfalls
• See how emotions are the enemy when it comes to Fair Housing
• Find out how to protect yourself with documentation
• Discover ways to exceed expectations

Fair housing failures are still prevalent throughout the country and are more prosecuted today than in the 1990s. In this must-have course, the student will be engaged and entertained as they interact with fictitious staff members and residents. (Also available in Spanish.)

Course Concepts

• Students will help Chip and Mary make difficult Fair Housing decisions as they deal with everyday issues in a fictional apartment community setting.
• Achieve a good understanding of the Federal Fair Housing Act and the liabilities associated with not following the guidelines.
• Learn to recognize and avoid discrimination.
• Participate in practical applications of difficult Fair Housing procedures.
• Learn reaction techniques to avoid potential discrimination lawsuits.

Understand the effects of substance abuse in the workplace, learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of substance abuse, and learn how it negatively impacts the property management workplace as a whole.

Course Concepts

• Learn the requirements of the Drug-Free Workplace Policy
• See the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse and its impact on the workplace
• Understand how to recognize the link between poor performance and substance abuse
• Become familiar with the progression of the disease of addiction
• Determine what types of assistance may be available

All industries have a potential for conflict, but the apartment industry has even more potential for it because we are dealing with people's living environments. Learn from our outstanding cast how to deal with conflict between co-workers, managers, and residents in an effective manner.

Course Concepts

• Understand why conflict arises and how to avoid it
• Watch as our Park Plaza employees deal with various scenarios where conflicts arise
• Discover different ways in which conflict affects everyone involved
• Positive steps you can take to prevent problems before they start
• When problems do come up, how to keep them from getting worse