Psychological safety is essential for creating a positive work culture where individuals feel valued, respected and empowered to contribute their best. It fosters open communication, learning, collaboration and innovation, ultimately leading to higher performance and organizational success. This course will explore what psychological safety is (and is not) and how leaders can contribute to a positive, values-based workplace culture.

Biases exist within everyone, and it is up to each individual to understand their biases and work to disrupt them to prevent negative impacts on others. In this course, you will learn about the fundamental concepts for understanding and disrupting your everyday biases. Together we will examine the PAUSE model for identifying and disrupting your biases, as developed by Be Equitable.  

You will learn to:

• Identify ways bias is shaped and shows up in the workplace

Effective communication is the foundation of success at work. It enables individuals and organizations to:

Leaders and supervisors play an important role in supporting the mental health and well-being of their teams. In this interactive session, you will learn best practices and strategies for recognizing and responding to mental and emotional health concerns in the workplace. It is part of the Leadership Development Curriculum.

A feedback-rich workplace culture is vital to individual, team and organizational success, but feedback isn’t always easy to give or receive. This interactive course will provide practical strategies for giving and receiving feedback gracefully and constructively. It is part of the Leadership Development Curriculum.

You will learn to:

• Identify common roadblocks in the feedback process

A successful hiring process is an important part of building a positive organizational culture. It will help you find staff who can quickly contribute to your team. This course aims to equip hiring teams with:

• A comprehensive understanding of inclusive practices and tools

• A deep dive into all stages of the recruiting and hiring process

• Approaches to help mitigate potential biases throughout the hiring process 

Class discussions and activities will allow participants to put learning into practice. 

In June 2022, U-M enacted an official policy about digital accessibility. The policy covers digital formats such as websites, documents and software programs. Digital accessibility applied consistently avoids potential barriers for individuals with disabilities. This introductory course will provide an overview of:

• What digital accessibility is

• Why digital accessibility is important

• How everyone at the university plays a part in making digital content accessible

In our work, it is essential to understand how to access support before encountering a problem. The Shared Services Center (SSC) provides a broad range of transactional support in collaboration with university business partners for all three campuses and Michigan Medicine. This awareness level course introduces the variety of services provided by the U-M Shared Services Center, and how you can expect to interact with, or direct others to interact with, the SSC.

Leaders play an important role in helping to prevent workplace issues and wrongdoing. This course gives leaders tools and strategies to create a more welcoming and respectful work environment. Interactive discussions, case studies and role-playing exercises will enhance learning. Leaders will be more prepared to:

Are you looking to engage employees and strengthen communication within your team? Conversation clubs are a versatile tool to host team conversations on topics of interest. They are easy to implement. Conversation clubs give teams a chance to:

• Talk about workplace topics that aren’t always explicitly discussed
• Allow team members to lead the discussion in a low pressure environment

Join this microlearning session to discover ways you might be able to use it in your unit!