The University of Kansas Edwards Campus in Overland Park hosts a monthly series called “Professional Edge.” Designed to support community economic and workforce development needs in metropolitan Kansas City, Professional Edge offers KU faculty and staff as speakers on current topics. Most programs are held at 8:00am on the first Wednesday of the month.
The first program of the spring, “Autism in the Workplace and the Community,” is coming up on Wednesday, March 3rd and will feature Sean Swindler, Director of Community Program Development & Evaluation, Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training. More details are available on the KU Edwards Campus calendar.
Dates for the KUPMC’s 2010 open enrollment supervisory training courses have now been posted. The first is coming up in mid-April at the Public Management Center in Topeka.
This award-winning training is practical, engaging and relevant for both new supervisors and experienced leaders. Class size is limited to ensure adequate discussion and individual attention. Enrollment information is available here.
Tuesday, March 30, 4:30pm
Room 155 Regnier, KU Edwards Campus, 12600 Quivira, Overland Park
Over the next 30 years, the Kansas City region can expect to add 500,000 people and 300,000 jobs, and the future land-use scenarios under consideration show alternate ways of accommodating overall growth. Under a baseline scenario – where past trends continue into the future – nearly all the region’s growth over the next 30 years occurs on previously undeveloped land.
But through focused development, we can grow smarter. The adaptive scenario assumes that 40% of population and job growth between now and 2040 will be concentrated in activity centers and along key corridors in existing areas, older suburbs and urban places. This would lead to major differences in infrastructure costs, amount of land used, roadway congestion and transit ridership levels. This program is relevant to everyone working in local government and all those living in the KC region. Please join us! This program counts for PUAD 831 credit for KU MPA students.
Study after study indicates that what staff want more than anything else in the workplace is more recognition, not in the form of Employee-of-the-Month awards or plaques, but rather day-to-day feedback that let’s us know our work has been noticed and is valued. This post on the Harvard Business Review blog addresses how to offer such feedback and praise in ways that truly matter to the recipient. Hint: being specific is key.
This article in Business Week reflects on the importance of a continued focus on leadership development, even in times of economic strain. “The best companies for developing leaders recognize the value of strong leadership in both the good times and the bad,” says John Larrere, who heads Hay Group’s leadership and talent practice in the U.S. “Culturally they just cannot do away with leadership development, even in a recession. They don’t see it as a perk but as a necessity.”
We face even tighter constraints in the public sector than do the private sector companies examined in the article. Yet leadership development remains critically important for our organizations, especially when so many people are being called on to cover the responsibilities of positions that are vacant. Managers have the opportunity to see the next generation of leaders in action, and must continue to invest in their development.
Dr. Leisha Dehart-Davis is featured in a KU interview about her research on “green tape theory.” Leisha won a Kemper Teaching Fellowship from the University in fall 2009, and she exemplifies the high quality research and teaching in the KU Department of Public Administration.
Lynn Gaertner-Johnston’s Business Writing Blog is a great resource for workplace writing issues. This recent post caught our attention as one that sums up some rules for something that writers often run into trouble with: which words get capitalized in titles? Lynn sums it up in four easy rules. She even clarified one point that has often confused me–why do some prepositions get capitalized and some don’t? Answer: you decide based on the word’s length. Visit her post to learn more.
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