Looking at the Professional Development courses offered by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), members are familiar with Web seminar courses on signal timing, certification and access management. The Professional Development Program’s Personnel Management Skills Series offers members a unique opportunity to engage in training that will assist them with their daily work responsibilities as managers, leaders and mentors. Taught by Nancy Duling, an independent training professional with over 20 years of experience, the Personnel Management Skills Series helps transportation engineers and practitioners sharpen their skills at hiring, setting employee goals, providing constructive feedback and addressing performance issues.

According to Duling, “Many transportation professionals are promoted into management positions through the natural progression of a career built upon technical expertise. While being experts in their field makes professionals in management roles an invaluable resource to the teams they lead, the skills to develop, assess and guide these teams may be unfamiliar territory.” By participating in these Web seminars, participants are able to explore topics that are not often covered in the classroom but that do arise in the workplace. Duling focuses her courses on interactive and thought-provoking activities that include polling opinions and completing individual exercises. In addition to encouraging lively discussions, Duling offers step-by-step processes for management tasks such as providing constructive feedback to employees. By giving participants a process to follow, Duling believes that her courses take the guess work out of how to develop and maintain successful work relationships with employees.

The series has drawn strong support from members such as W. Hibbett Neel Jr., P.E., ITE Fellow, and Robert C. Wunderlich, P.E., ITE Fellow, both of whom advised on the development of the courses and have encouraged colleagues to take advantage of them. Neel, who has had over 100 engineers attend the Webinar series, states, “The Personnel Management Series is a must for anyone who supervises employees or looks to do so at some point in their career.” Neel adds that the courses cover every aspect of management, with the added benefit of having a focus on transportation. Likewise, Wunderlich has praised the series, stating, “Nancy Duling’s courses provide information that is essential to professionals who want to grow their career into management.” Personnel management training can benefit professionals at all levels of their career, as different projects can call for varying degrees of responsibility in leading team members to a common goal. Several ITE members who completed the Hiring the Best Webinar praised the course for its relevance to their work, with one noting, “Duling gave effective examples related to the traffic engineering industry.” The courses have received high marks for interactivity and their focus on preparing participants for new management roles. According to Neel, “The quality of this Webinar series is the best I’ve seen because of the interactivity through the use of handouts and the participants’ ability to directly ask questions.” By having members participate in the Webinars with colleagues both in the room and across the country, the series shows participants that they are not alone with the personnel management challenges they face.

As companies and organizations streamline to address economical challenges, equipping employees with the ability to rise to new challenges within the workplace is key to maintaining productivity and morale. ITE’s Web seminars offer an ideal venue for group, on-the-job training as multiple employees can meet together during a lunch break to attend one of Duling’s seminars. Participants simply call in at the assigned time and log in to a computer to follow along, with their handouts printed out in advance. Duling notes that her seminars are unique from informational ones in which the instructor does most of the talking, as there are often periods of silence on the call while attendees complete exercises and take time to discuss their answers with each other. This type of atmosphere strengthens communication between participating employees while helping companies stretch their training budgets on a seminar that benefits multiple people. Wunderlich notes, “ITE Webinars bring knowledge directly to the professional, right where they are, in a cost-effective way without travel costs.” Neel adds, “As employers, we have a duty to train our young employees. These Webinars are a key method that ITE offers to advance professional development.”

For more information about the Webinars offered in ITE’s Personnel Management Skills Series, including full course descriptions and registration, visit www.ite.org/education/webinars_mdd.asp.