Leading Customer-Focused Teams

Description

Each year, hundreds of professionals who want to sharpen their existing skills, develop new skills, and enhance their understanding of hospitality management participate in executive education programs from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration. eCornell has worked hand-in-hand with the School of Hotel Administration to adapt its renowned Professional Development Series for convenient online delivery.

The Certificate in Leading Customer-Focused Teams addresses the skills and competencies required of employees ascending to management positions and of those recently promoted to management positions in the hospitality industry. These courses teach valuable techniques for managing time to increase efficiency and productivity, and managing teams to increase the level of participation and the effectiveness of team members. They deliver the skills needed to lead high-performance teams and to create a service culture based on a commitment to customer care. In short, these courses are designed to build a foundation of skills new managers need to succeed and to make their organizations successful, too.

These courses show you how to encourage positive team member relations, address individual needs, and build team cohesiveness—all key elements of creating and maintaining a high-performance team. You learn how to make important group decisions effectively. You find practical approaches designed to help you reduce your stress and become more productive. You learn to coach and counsel employees who may need or want your help. Through the development of verbal and nonverbal communication skills, you become adept at delivering phenomenal customer care. Then you discover how to realize the vision of phenomenal customer service through focused search and selection methods and an organizational culture dedicated to service excellence.

Who Should Enroll in This Certificate?

Hospitality professionals who lead or manage teams of people and seek to enhance productivity and effectiveness for themselves and their employees; anyone wishing to enhance their skills in time and stress management.

Enrollment

To register, contact an Enrollment Counselor at info@ecornell.com or 1-866-326-7635 (+1-607-330-3200 from outside the United States).

Certificate programs are eligible for eCornell Payment Plans. Discounts are available for military personnel, veterans, and Cornell University Alumni. eCornell programs are not eligible for financial aid or federal Pell Grants. Contact an enrollment counselor for more information.

Courses in this Certificate

• Understanding Team Dynamics

  • An organization is only as competitive as its management is capable. In order for an organization or business to meet goals and maintain advantage, sound leadership and organizational frameworks need to be in place to ensure that teams are working well together.

    Good management cultivates innovation and fosters productivity. Ineffective team management can lead to frustration, low morale, even loss of revenue. In this course, participants will explore the attributes of a well-organized team and learn how to assemble and lead a more energized, fulfilled and productive workforce.

    Course Format

    eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and builds each course around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

    This course contains the following modules:

    • Teams and Team Goals.
      • Benefits of working in teams over working independently.
      • Establishing clear team goals.
      • Characteristics of effective goals.
      • Participatory goal setting.
    • Team Member Behavior, Norms, and Group Interaction.
      • Task functions and relationship functions.
      • Behaviors that encourage or harm member relations.
      • Developing healthy, productive group norms.
      • Strategies to deal with social loafing.
      • Factors affecting cohesion/cohesiveness.
      • Bales Interaction Analysis.
      • Five basic group structures and how they influence communication flow.
      • Characteristics of a well-functioning team.
      • The role of the participant observer.

    
    
    Benefits to the Learner

    After completing this course, you will be able to:

    • Explain the principles of group dynamics and development.
    • Describe the dimensions of team member behavior.
    • Assess how effectively a team functions.

    
    
• Facilitating Group Decisions

  • In a global economy, organizations that analyze and respond quickly to marketplace challenges and opportunities tend to be the most competitive and profitable. The ideal work team is cohesive, flexible, and able to arrive at important decisions rapidly. Group decision making requires skillful information gathering, sound strategy and the ability to execute.

    In this course, you will explore the the psychology of group decision making as a means to improve organizational performance.

    Course Format

    eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and builds each course around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

    This course contains the following modules:

    • Models, Techniques, and Methods for Decision Making.
      • Factors to consider in determining whether to employ group decision making.
      • Advantages of group decision making.
      • Symptoms and potential consequences of "groupthink".
      • "Risky shift".
      • Group versus individual tolerance for risk.
      • Common models of decision making.
      • Implementing decision-making models for specific circumstances.
      • Techniques for group decision making and strategies to reach high-quality group decisions.
      • Factors involved in choosing the most appropriate decision-making method.
    • Assessing Ethical Implications of Decisions.
      • Ensuring ethical soundness of group decisions.
      • Ethical behavior in both leadership and contributing roles within the group.

    
    
    Benefits to the Learner

    After completing this course, participants will be able to:

    • Determine whether or not to employ group decision making.
    • Evaluate the most appropriate decision-making method for a particular circumstance.
    • Apply the techniques that improve and facilitate group decision making.
    • Facilitate effective participation of team members in problem solving
    • Implement strategies to help groups arrive at the best decisions.

    
    
• Improving Personal and Workgroup Productivity

  • In an era of pervasive technology and information overload, the ability to prioritize and use time effectively is at a premium. Personal time management may be one of the greater challenges of our time.

    Managers spend a significant amount of time in meetings, so it is imperative that they know how to structure meetings and make them worthwhile. Meetings provide opportunity for creative, high-quality discussion, but often they can be unproductive and frustrating. Wasting time, especially when it’s so valuable, is just bad for business.

    In this course, you will learn best practices for structuring personal time, managing workloads and running great meetings.

    Course Format

    eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and builds each course around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced, and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor, who leads the online discussions and is available to answer any questions about the course content.

    This course contains the following modules:

    • Solving Time-management Problems.
      • Tendencies that affect personal time-management behaviors.
      • Strategies for beating procrastination.
      • Distinguishing essential tasks from those of lower priority.
      • Distinguishing between urgent and important events.
      • "Time robbers."
      • Personal habits that impede effective time management.
      • Analyzing interruptions to reduce the tendency of others to cut into your valuable time.
      • Assertiveness skills for effective time management.
      • Constructive confrontation.
      • Using a time log to analyze your habits and work activities.
    • Managing Team Meetings.
      • Functions served by meetings.
      • Effective meeting preparation.
      • Best practices for leading a meeting effectively.
      • Asking the right questions to achieve the most effective group participation.
      • Six categories of questions and the appropriate use of each.

    
    
    Benefits to the Learner

    After completing this course, participants will be able to:

    • Identify and overcome personal tendencies that lead to procrastination.
    • Efficiently prioritize tasks and events based on urgency.
    • Plan and lead meetings that successfully disseminate relevant information and increase morale and productivity.

    
    
• Managing People More Effectively

  • A principal goal of management is balance: encourage and maximize productivity and maintain a healthy work environment that fosters job satisfaction. A thriving workplace can be attributed to any number of things, but workplace dysfunction often begins with individual stress. Stress can be caused by any number of factors, including internal or external changes, pressures and threats.

    In this course, you’ll learn to recognize the signs of stress and assess whether or not an individual should undergo counseling or professional help. Failing to identify and alleviate stress in the workplace can lead to dysfunction and greater problems within the company, from low morale to diminishing revenues.

    You’ll learn coping strategies and stress-reducing techniques that managers and employees use to get their companies on the right track. In the second part of the course, specific coaching techniques and exercises are reviewed. Counseling skills are especially valuable for managers in the hospitality industry. Managers who have mastered the basic skills of coaching can improve productivity and serve as a helpful resource for their colleagues and within their organization.

    Benefits to the Learner
    After completing this course, you will be able to:

    • Recognize and manage your own stress-related symptoms.
    • Recognize signs and symptoms that indicate an employee may need your help managing stress-related problems, or may need professional help.
    • Implement appropriate and effective coaching strategies.
    
    
• Creating Service Cultures

  • Delivering exceptional customer service begins with the establishment of a service culture, one that rewards and reinforces exemplary customer-focused behaviors. The course shows how to create a service-oriented team by selecting and developing high-performing employees who maintain high service standards.

    This course helps managers establish a strong internal service culture that is focused on exceeding customer expectations—which leads to increased company revenue.

    Course Format

    eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and our courses are built around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor who leads the online discussions and is available to answer specific questions about the course content.

    This course contains the following modules:

    • Identifying High-Potential Service Employees.
    • The Intangible Side of Providing Phenomenal Service.
    • Identifying the Intangibles of Phenomenal Service.
    • Creating and Maintaining Internal Service Systems.
    • Communicating Standards of Phenomenal Service.
    • Supporting Phenomenal Service.
    • Providing Leadership for Phenomenal Service.

    
    
    Benefits to the Learner

    After completing this course, participants will be able to:

    • Discuss the nature and importance of intangible personal characteristics in the delivery of phenomenal service.
    • Describe the variety of selection strategies available to identify service intangibles.
    • Clearly articulate service standards and communicate them throughout the organization.
    • Create internal systems to maintain and continuously improve processes related to phenomenal service.
    • Discuss the impact implementing the ideas from this course can have on your organization’s service quality.

    
    
• Secrets of Phenomenal Customer Service

  • Delivery of consistent, high-quality customer service requires leadership, training, development and continual improvement on an organizational level. It also involves properly scaling customer services to reflect the size, capabilities and service brand of the organization.

    This course prepares supervisors and managers to identify these key service requirements and to implement a variety of training methods to ensure the continual development and reinforcement of service attitudes and skills among its employees.

    Course Format

    eCornell takes a problem-based approach to learning, and our courses are built around realistic case studies and scenarios. All courses are self-paced and are facilitated by an eCornell instructor who leads the online discussions and is available to answer specific questions about the course content.

    This course contains the following modules:

    • The First Secret: Phenomenal Verbal Communication Skills.
    • Responding with Empathy.
    • Responding Objectively.

    • The Second Secret: Phenomenal Non-Verbal Communication Skills.
    • Controlling Vocal Cues.
    • Reinforcing Verbal Messages.
    • Using Body Language.

    • The Third Secret: Phenomenal Listening Skills.
    • Influences on Listening Effectiveness.
    • Listening as a Customer Service Skill.

    
    
    Benefits to the Learner

    After completing this course, participants will be able to:

    • Describe challenges confronting employees in the area of service communication.
    • Identify essential service skills specific to a particular position.
    • Describe the secrets of effective service communication: phenomenal verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and listening skills.
    • Analyze service encounters to better address specific customer needs and requirements.