Professional Enhancement Courses
We offer a wide variety of professional enhancement courses designed to develop your knowledge, sharpen your skills, and support your continued growth in your career. Whether you're looking to strengthen core competencies, explore new areas of interest, or prepare for the next step in your career, our learning opportunities are here to help.
We now have several new open enrollment courses offered at no fee for TAMU employees:
- AI@Work: Tools for Today's Workplace
- Creating a Learning & Development Plan
- Driving Your Career Forward
- Navigating Difficult Conversations
- Performance Management: Employee Best Practices
- Performance Management: Supervisory Best Practices
- Resilience: Building Strength in the Face of Workplace Stress
- Successfully Transitioning Through Change: It Starts With You
- Taking Control of Conflict
We also continue to offer the following courses with only a vendor materials fee for TAMU employees:
- MBTI Course #1: Understanding and Working with Personality Types
- Getting Things Done
- The 6 Types of Working Genius
- The Power of Habit
- Crucial Conversations for Accountability*
- Crucial Conversations for Accountability Add-On**
- Crucial Influence
- Mastering Emotional Intelligence Level 1
Stay ahead in your professional journey—explore these impactful courses today!
AI@Work: Tools for Today's Workplace
Time: 2 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
This interactive virtual course introduces Texas A&M staff to approved generative AI tools—Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and NotebookLM. Participants will learn ways to use these tools to boost productivity and streamline administrative and daily tasks. The session includes live demonstrations, hands-on activities, and practical strategies for integrating AI responsibly and in alignment with university guidelines.
Creating a Learning & Development Plan
Time: 2 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
Ready to take your professional growth to the next level? This hands-on course empowers employees and managers to create a customized Learning & Development (L&D) Plan that supports both individual career aspirations and organizational goals. Whether you're planning your next career move or helping your team grow, you'll gain the tools and strategies to make it happen.Participants will learn how to:
- Understand the benefits of an L&D Plan for career and organizational success
- Kick off the L&D planning process with your supervisor
- Identify goals, assess your current skills, and map out future opportunities
- Build a practical, step-by-step plan tailored to your development needs
- Collaborate with your supervisor to refine and finalize your plan
Driving Your Career Forward
Time: 1 Hour | Fee: None for TAMU
In today’s fast-paced professional landscape, staying relevant means staying curious. Driving Your Career Forward is a dynamic, 60-minute workshop designed to empower participants with the mindset and tools needed for continuous growth. Through engaging discussions and hands-on activities, you’ll explore the power of curiosity, identify professional development opportunities, and learn how to overcome common barriers to growth. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to take the next step, this course will help you create a personalized plan to move forward with confidence.- Explore the Power of Curiosity: Learn how curiosity fuels innovation in healthcare and education.
- Identify Skill Gaps: Understand the evolving demands of the dental profession and how to stay ahead.
- Discover Development Opportunities: Access resources like LinkedIn Learning, mentorship, and specialized training.
- Overcome Barriers: Learn strategies to tackle common challenges like time, cost, and complacency.
- Take Action: Leave with a personalized commitment to one small step toward your growth.
Navigating Difficult Conversations
Time: 4 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
Navigating difficult conversations is an essential skill in any workplace. This course, developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development, provides participants with the tools and techniques needed to handle challenging discussions effectively.
Participants will learn to understand the nature of difficult conversations and the seven stages involved in managing them. The course emphasizes the importance of empathy, preparation, and best practices for initiating and delivering conversations. Through interactive activities and real-life scenarios, learners will practice and refine their skills in a safe and supportive environment.
This course is designed to:
- Understand the nature of difficult conversations and what it takes to handle them.
- Identify the seven stages of handling difficult conversations.
- Use empathy to minimize negative responses and strengthen relationships.
- Apply best practices for preparing, initiating, and delivering the conversation.
- Discover how to generate solutions and bring the conversation to a close.
Performance Management: Employee Best Practices
Time: 2.5 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
This workshop will provide staff with the knowledge and skills necessary to actively participate in the Performance Management process. Participants will explore best practices while using the PCER (Plan, Coach, Evaluate, and Reward) model.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Define clear performance expectations
- Actively participate in coaching and feedback sessions
- Track and document performance effectively
- Utilize self-assessments to support development
- Identify ways to contribute meaningfully to performance evaluations
Performance Management: Supervisory Best Practices
Time: 2.5 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
This workshop provides an overview of the supervisory role in continuous management of employee performance. Using the PCER model (Plan, Coach, Evaluate, Reward) of performance management, participants learn best practices for setting performance expectations, providing coaching and feedback, documenting performance, conducting performance evaluations, and recognizing and rewarding performance.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Differentiate between performance management and performance appraisal
- Establish SMART performance goals and clarify performance expectations
- Provide ongoing feedback and support to maintain high performance standards
- Use Texas A&M University’s behavioral competencies and rating criteria while avoiding unintentional rating bias
- Identify approaches to recognize and reward performance
Resilience: Building Strength in the Face of Workplace Stress
Time: 4 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
Today’s workplace is filled with change, stress, and unexpected challenges. Resilience: Building Strength in the Face of Workplace Stress is a highly interactive course developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development that empowers participants with the mindset and tools to bounce back from adversity and maintain a productive, positive outlook.
Through engaging activities, guided self-reflection, and real-world application, participants will learn to strengthen their emotional resilience by building self-esteem, deepening personal and professional connections, navigating change, managing stress, and practicing in-the-moment coping strategies. Participants will leave with an action plan to apply resilience-building habits in their daily lives and workplace.
This course is designed to help participants:
- Bounce back from adversity.
- Build your self-esteem as a foundation of resilience.
- Make and maintain connections to build resilience.
- Accept and embrace change.
- Use flexible thinking to overcome obstacles.
- Implement stress management and relaxation strategies to maintain resilience.
Successfully Transitioning Through Change: It Starts With You
Time: 2.5 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
This course helps Texas A&M University staff navigate and thrive through institutional and team-level changes. Participants will learn to manage change, understand their roles, and use change management models and tools to support themselves and colleagues.
Learning Objectives:
- Differentiate between change and transition
- Understand the change curve and associated emotions
- Use Bridges' transition model and the change curve to identify personal change tendencies
- Prepare and adapt proactively to changes
- Recognize reactions and barriers to successful change
- Understand the ADKAR model for individual change management
Taking Control of Conflict
Time: 3.25 Hours | Fee: None for TAMU
Conflict is a natural part of any workplace—but when left unmanaged, it can erode trust, reduce productivity, and damage team morale. This course, developed by HRDQ and Organizational Development, equips participants with the tools and strategies to recognize, manage, and prevent conflict in a constructive and collaborative way.
Through interactive activities, real-world scenarios, and practical tools, participants will explore the most common sources of workplace conflict, identify their personal conflict-handling style, and learn how to apply best practices for resolution and prevention. The course emphasizes self-awareness, communication, and proactive problem-solving to foster a healthier, more productive work environment.
This course is designed to help participants:
- Identify their preferred strategy for handling conflict.
- Understand the characteristics and drawbacks of common conflict approaches.
- Recognize typical sources of workplace conflict.
- Apply strategies to resolve conflict based on its source.
- Practice behaviors that minimize tension and promote collaboration.
- Proactively address issues before they escalate.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Course #1: Understanding and Working with Personality Types
Time: 4 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
MBTI The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment is one of the world’s most popular personality tools—because it works. MBTI helps you understand your natural personality preferences, gives you objective insight that you can use to enhance your professional and personal relationships, as well as your direction, focus, and choices.
The Understanding and Working with Personality Type course is designed to:
- Introduce participants to the Myers-Briggs® framework and personality type
- Help participants develop greater self-awareness and awareness of others
- Equip participants to use personality differences constructively to improve individual and team performance
Getting Things Done
Time: 8 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
This course is designed to:
- Introduce learners to the “productive state”
- Provide additional skills for enhancing existing productivity system and/or create a personal productivity system from scratch.
To learn more, visit: Getting Things Done
The 6 Types of Working Genius
Time: 4 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
The 6 types of Working Genius is a new model that helps people discover their natural gifts and thrive in their work and life. When people better understand the types of work that bring them more energy and fulfillment and avoid work that leads to frustration and failure, they can be more self-aware, productive and successful.
Working Genius identifies the six fundamental activities required for any type of work and provides a simple framework for how work gets done. Too many people feel frustrated, underutilized or misunderstood at work. Far too many teams experience failure, feel stuck or are confused because they don't know how to tap into the people around them. Working Genius is changing the way people are thinking about their work and teams, and is leading to more dignified, fulfilled and successful work.
To learn more, visit: About The 6 Types of Working Genius
The Power of Habit
Time: 8 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
Habits affect performance more than talent, intelligence, luck, or decision making. Most know this, yet they struggle to take control of their habits to get the outcomes they want.
Based on the bestseller by Charles Duhigg and the latest science in habit formation, The Power of Habit course teaches how habits work and how to develop effective habits using skill instead of willpower. The course teaches a skill set for mastering any habit. You might call this skill set the habit of all habits. The one to rule them all.
To learn more, download: The Power of Habit
Crucial Conversations for Accountability
Time: 16 Hours (Multiple Meetings) | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
Any manager who's struggled to close a significant performance gap or anyone who has ever walked out of an annual review feeling like they've just been processed rather than prioritized knows there's nothing easy about it.
Performance management is about addressing behavior routinely and consistently. It’s about candidly coaching through challenges and fostering a culture of accountability for lapses in behavior. It’s about identifying goals, fast-tracking careers, and in the process, improving the bottom line.
The good news is these accountability skills are replicable and learnable. We’re all just a few crucial skills away from learning how to manage people and performance daily and directly. Crucial Conversations for Accountability is an engaging classroom course rich with group discussion, real-time practice, and group support and coaching.
*NOTE: If you have already completed Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue, please instead register for the 1-day Crucial Conversations for Accountability Add-On.
To learn more, download: Crucial Conversations for Accountability
Crucial Conversations for Accountability Add-On
Time: 8 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
Crucial Conversations for Accountability Add-on is for those who have completed Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue and takes a deeper dive into the accountability skills for managing performance.
Performance management is about addressing behavior routinely and consistently. It’s about candidly coaching through challenges and fostering a culture of accountability for lapses in behavior. It’s about identifying goals, fast-tracking careers, and in the process, improving the bottom line.
The good news is these accountability skills are replicable and learnable. We’re all just a few crucial skills away from learning how to manage people and performance daily and directly. Crucial Conversations for Accountability is an engaging classroom course rich with group discussion, real-time practice, and group support and coaching.
**NOTE: You must have completed Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue to register for this add-on course.
To learn more, download: Crucial Conversations for Accountability Add-On
Crucial Influence
Time: 8 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
When facing persistent, resistant challenges, leaders often surrender to poor results or invest in change efforts that waste time and resources. And yet it’s possible to influence behavior with surprisingly predictable success.
For the past thirty years, we’ve studied leaders with a proven ability to influence rapid, profound and sustainable change. And here’s what we know: human behavior is grounded in six sources of influence. Effective leaders know how to leverage and apply these sources of influence to solve everyday leadership challenges.
Crucial Influence® teaches leadership skills that are essential to leaders at every level. Drawing on five decades of social science research and work with successful leaders around the world, the Crucial Influence Model reveals why people do what they do and how all leaders—from aspiring leaders to top executives—can influence others for lasting results. Crucial Influence is an engaging classroom course rich with group discussion, real-time practice, and group support and coaching. Delivered in one day, this in-person course offers the best in traditional learning and development.
To learn more, download: Crucial Influence
Mastering Emotional Intelligence Level 1
Time: 8 Hours | Fee: Materials Only for TAMU
Whether you are aware of them or not, emotions are intertwined in everything you think, do, and say each day on the job, in your career and throughout your life. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is how you handle yourself and others on the job.
Organizations that embrace EQ development within their workforce experience:
- Better team collaboration and improved productivity
- Keen resilience and effective leadership
- More engagement and increased work satisfaction
- Improved organizational culture
TalentSmart’s Mastering EQ® Level 1 will take participants far beyond knowing what EQ is and how they score on their first EQ assessment.
To learn more, download: Mastering EQ Level 1