Upskill this summer from the location of your choice

Remember summer school? That sweaty purgatory for students who’d flunked calculus?

Now picture the opposite.

No, it’s not a long, lazy weekend at the cottage, but you’re close. It’s learning you can do at the cottage, or anywhere you can access the internet. It’s courses that get you ahead instead of catching you up — courses you don’t have to take but want to, because they give you practical skills you can put to work immediately to be better at your job (no offence to calculus, which we hear is also quite important).

Our virtual instructor-led courses are developed and taught by expert practitioners in their field, and give you a chance to connect with your peers as you learn critical skills of tomorrow. Many of our popular courses are running this August and some of our Business Analysis and Project Management courses are guaranteed to run. Take them individually or as part of a certificate program and saunter into your busy fall season on the strongest foot.

Check our course calendar here.

From all of us at AC Corporate Training, we are wishing you a great summer!

If you’re a franchisor, you want nothing more than to see your franchise owners and operators succeed. When they do, you do. It’s a simple principle, even if there’s a lot of hard work that goes into creating that win-win scenario.

To start, you need your franchisees to know, understand and follow the policies, practices and procedures you’ve established for your business.

It’s no less important to ensure that employees at each of your franchise locations have the knowledge and skills while doing their part to deliver the positive brand experience you want for customers. That experience is what ultimately maintains the health of your enterprise and enables you to see it grow by attracting new franchisees, while retaining the ones you have already.

The value of a training partner

For both parties in a franchised operation, finding a training partner who understands their business and has a demonstrated track record of delivering results-oriented learning can make a huge difference. This is where AC Corporate Training has a competitive advantage: it can draw on the expertise of a wide range of subject matter experts and experienced course developers through its affiliation with Algonquin College.

To learn more about how we can help franchises meet their training needs, watch this 90-second video. Then, if you’re ready have a conversation with one of our learning strategists, you can reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

Life’s full of tests — and if you’re a new or would-be homebuilder looking to get licensed with the Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA), you’ve got at least seven of them in your near future.

We want to make it as painless as possible to meet the competency requirements for licensing put in place under section 38 of the New Home Construction Licensing Act, 2017. If you’re a builder or vendor, you’re probably already familiar with them:

• Business Planning and Management
• Financial Planning and Management
• Project Management and Supervision
• Legal Issues in Housing
• Customer Service and Tarion Requirements
• Building Codes (required for builders only)
• Construction Technology (required for builders only)

At two hours each, you’re in for about 14 hours of test-taking. The good news is that you can take all seven assessments on your terms — from anywhere, 24/7, with no appointment required — through our online proctoring system Honorlock. All you need is a computer, a stable internet connection, a webcam, and the Chrome browser with the Honorlock extension.

Along with the assessments, we’re rolling out two new sector-specific courses designed by industry experts to help you run your projects and business more effectively: Ontario Building Codes — which includes a post-course assessment approved by the HCRA to meet the Ontario Building Code competency requirement — and Project Management and Supervision for Construction.

Whether you’re a new builder or an industry veteran, we’re here to support your training needs. You can check out our HCRA offerings on our assessments page, or contact a learning consultant at training@algonquincollege.com or 1-833-282-6852 to find the best training for you and your team.

This time last year, many of us were bidding a happy farewell to 2020 — and looking forward to a glorious near future of unmasked get-togethers, full-contact hugs and best-of-both-worlds hybrid work. And while it might seem like not much has changed, we’ve come a long way in twelve short months.

Take, for example, the shift to remote work in 2020. Remember how disruptive that was? In 2022, we’re old pros — and now the idea of a standard, cubicled workday built around recurring tasks and operational rhythms feels very 2019. But even before the pandemic upended work as we knew it, things were quietly changing. Projects — understood as unique, time-bound initiatives outside the range of usual activities — were becoming the new business paradigm, overtaking routine work as the primary driver of both short-term performance and long-term value creation.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has called this new work model the “project economy,” and experts have been struck by the rapidly growing need for skilled project professionals, even in traditionally less project-oriented sectors like healthcare and the public service. In 2017, PMI estimated that by 2027, some 88 million people around the world will be working in project management, and the value of project-oriented economic activity will have jumped to $20 trillion. More locally, the demand for project managers in Canada is expected to outpace almost every other occupation, growing by 11% in project-oriented industries alone.

So what does the projectification of work mean for you? For one, familiarity with the principles and language of project management isn’t just for project managers anymore: all staff, no matter what their job title, are increasingly expected to understand and work effectively on the key elements of any given initiative. As companies adopt a more project-driven structure, some have gone so far as to ditch traditional job titles, defining employees not by their department or management layer but by the projects they work on.

All this was happening even before the pandemic put a firm end to business as usual, forcing even traditional organizations into more fluid, project-based ways of working. And as the world changes and uncertainty becomes the new normal, project management is changing too. In the past, the ideal project leader had strong subject matter skills in the project discipline. Today, project management is increasingly a meta role, combining subject expertise with process, facilitation and human resource skills. Project leaders need to be comfortable working under uncertain conditions and making plans with only limited information, and they should be prepared to apply some agile methods such as Scrum, Kanban and agile project management.

Want to stand out in the project culture? You can check out our project management course offerings and the path to certification on our courses page, or contact a learning consultant at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729 to find the best training strategy for your needs.

I hear it all the time in my practice.

“We don’t need formal project management training — we’re doing fine without it.”

“We don’t have any projects.”

“Project management is just about learning a bunch of terminology and administrivia, which isn’t what we need.”

I have been teaching project management and leadership for decades and I’ve heard it all. Today, I want to walk through some of those objections and help you understand how formal project management training can help.

Leadership and process go together

I’m an adult educator by trade, and my original passion was teaching leadership. But what I realized after a few years was this: no matter how strong their leadership tools were, those I trained were still tripping over things that weren’t working well in their organization. They didn’t necessarily have the process skills required to bring their visions to life.

My first introduction to project management came when I was working with a federal government client. They had a project management system, but it wasn’t working for them. It was buried in highly prescribed details, and their project managers were drowning in organizational requirements. The system did not meet their needs.

What is required to make projects work for your organization is leadership: a vision is shared, people are focused and energy is present. And process tools: plan, do, check and repeat.

Leadership without process tools is chaotic. Process tools without leadership leaves people just looking busy. When both are present there is focus, efficient use of all resources, confidence in the outcome and credibility.

Finding value in surprising places

Maybe your organization isn’t purchasing millions of dollars worth of equipment, or building large hospitals or deploying new software.

How about organizing a fun fair?

One of my favourite aspects of project management is that the skillset is so scalable. I worked with a client in a remote northern community who used the skills she learned to plan a carnival — similar to the old Ottawa SuperEx — for her region. The result wowed everyone in her tiny community, who had never been to an event like it. We simply gave her the tools she needed to realize her dream.

In fact, the value of project management skills can surprise in many ways. I’ll give you another example. One First Nations group I worked with said they weren’t doing any projects. I paused for a moment, and then I asked them about a solar farm I saw as I drove into the community. A lightbulb went on for them at that moment. “Aha! We are doing projects — we’re just not calling them that!”

If you look around your workplace, perhaps you’ll start noticing efforts that should really be labelled projects, which you can define as formal endeavours to create a unique product or service. For each, you’ll need to devote the capacity, the tools and the processes to reach a desired outcome.

A wide range of applications — and opportunities

As you start to learn the principles of project management, you’ll appreciate that it is full of its own terminology and ways of doing things. Those are needed to ensure that everyone on your project team is speaking the same language and knows what to expect. You’ll need to know those terms and practices if you want to build your credentials as a professional project manager through certification.

You will also discover that the practice of project management lends itself to a variety of informal expressions. For example, we often refer to adopting project management best practices while a project is already underway as “building the plane while flying it.”

‘Building the plane’ is a relatively common expression, but yours don’t have to be. One company I work with has an expression that makes sense to all of us, although it wouldn’t help us boost our professional standing. When we get a project and don’t yet know how big or complex it is going to be, we say we’ve got “a bag of puppies” (with apologies to PETA).

Every client is different. I have helped federal government clients, such as the Bank of Canada, where project management support was keyed around documentation, governance and administrative overhead. I have also worked with First Nations communities where the project complexity was lower and the requirements for terminology, documents and such were likewise reduced. Instead, our efforts focused more on building leadership capacity.

Other times, my involvement concentrates on ensuring that tools are applied correctly and identifying areas for improvement.

Whatever situation you find yourself in — whether it’s lack of process, awkward process or disconnects in language — training could be the start of a solution. The vast majority of our learners tell us, “We’re already managing projects but we didn’t know that, so we couldn’t harness what we were doing.” That’s valuable insight you can apply as you develop or hone your own professional project management skills.

To learn how AC Corporate Training can help you or your teams, visit the Project Management courses page on our website. You can also reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

Pat Masters has over 25 years of experience as a trainer, facilitator and consultant. She has worked with companies within the fields of law enforcement; universities and colleges; high-tech private sectors; and municipal, provincial, federal governments and international governments. Pat is PMP certified by the Project Management Institute.

Here’s a question that you may not have thought about this past year: how have your colleagues learned and grown?

Most organizations would say their employees have grown in their jobs through the stresses and changes associated with a pandemic. But from deliberate training and learning? Not so much — or so you might think.

Look at health care, for example. No sector has been busier over the last 18 months. With its focus on responding to Covid-19, you might think education was taking a back seat to patient needs in health care settings.

Yet, a recent report from the Association of Talent Development found that 90 percent of health care organizations had converted their classroom courses to online learning, and 80 percent deployed new or updated training. This training was essential to keeping the pandemic contained as best as possible and ensuring that hospitals, clinics and other essential serices could continue to function during a crisis.

In some cases, the changes literally meant saving lives, even if it might seem that taking the time needed for training could have had consequences for patients. It’s a tricky — yet necessary — balancing act.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Our work isn’t life and death; and neither is our training. It’s OK to put skills development on the backburner right now.” If so, consider this: keeping employees well-trained and engaged may be important to the health of your organization.

LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report revealed that 59 percent of workers identified reskilling and upskilling as their top priority. In particular, 83 percent of Gen-Z workers said they wanted to learn skills that would help them perform better in their current roles.

What research like this shows is keeping your existing team and attracting new talent isn’t just about pay, flexible work or other perks. And training isn’t just something you can use to make your staff more productive or improve your operations. It is now considered an essential part of employee recruitment, retention and satisfaction.

If you want to explore training options to improve collaboration, productivity and staff engagement in your organization, let us know. You can reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

In 2018, Canadian organizations employed 216,000 information systems business analysts, according to the Government of Canada’s Job Bank. By 2029, the number could be as high as 329,000. This healthy demand for new analysts is coupled with equally healthy salaries and the opportunity to work in a wide variety of organizations.

The demand for business analysts makes sense with our increasingly technology-connected and complex world of business. But you may be asking yourself, what does a business analyst do? And what do I need to do if I want to access the opportunities that are available?

What is a business analyst?

The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA^®) defines its area of focus as the practice of enabling change in an organizational context, by defining needs and recommending solutions that deliver value to stakeholders.

To make it a bit simpler than that, it’s about problem solving. It’s about finding ways, usually through the use of technology, to make your team or organization function better with improved processes, products and services.

Business analysts are often found in IT departments or working in business units as a liaison with central IT teams.

What are the requirements to become a business analyst?

The Job Bank notes a good starting point is a bachelor’s degree in a discipline such as computer science, computer systems engineering, software engineering, business administration or a related field. Experience as a computer programmer and certification or training with specific software you might help deploy is an added advantage.

One of the ways to jumpstart your entry into this hot field is through our Business Analysis Essentials certificate program and, subsequently, certification through the IIBA  to increase your earning potential.

Algonquin College Corporate Training is an IIBA Endorsed Education Provider™. This means our courses qualify for Professional Development hours and Continuing Development Units required to apply (and later recertify) for the IIBA Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP^®) certification.

Or, if you’re already working in the field, you might consider taking one of our business analysis courses to brush up on a specific topic, such as Use Case Modelling or Validating and Testing Requirements. As long as you’ve completed the introductory Fundamentals of Business Analysis, you can also take other courses in any order to complete a full certificate program.

To get started or for more information, visit one of the course pages linked to above. You can also reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

Is the way your organization is structured a complement to your business, or yet another obstacle for your team to overcome?

Do you have one unified team rowing together, or many different teams rowing at their own pace and in their own directions?

How do you bridge the gap between where you are today, and where you wish you were?

While the temptation is always to go out and buy another tool, plan another reorg or hire more staff, perhaps a better solution is training that helps your management staff break down silos to make your organization more effective and collaborative.

We have just the thing: the Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP^®) program and certification.

The three-day BRMP program strikes the right balance between creating value today and innovating for the future. It gives you a framework to combine your professional knowledge with the soft skills and business insights required to successfully lead transformation and change.

It also introduces you to — and provides details for — building what’s known as The House of BRM, which includes the following three key aspects of Business Relationship Management:

• The Foundation supports the BRM role and ensures it has the competencies to be effective and deliver value to both the provider organization and its business partners.
• The Pillars define the BRM space in terms of Core BRM Disciplines: Demand Shaping, Exploring, Servicing and Value Harvesting.
• The Roof protects Business Relationship Management as a key aspect of provider capability. It does this by ensuring clarity around the role, discipline and organizational capability of Business Relationship Management in the context of the Provider Strategy and Operating Model.

BRMP training continues beyond the classroom, too. As a program participant, you will receive an introductory offer for a BRM Institute Professional Membership.

Should you become a BRM Institute member, you’ll receive access to their members-only Online Campus and the BRM Interactive Body of Knowledge. Through this campus, you’ll be able to connect with peers working at major multinational organizations such as BMW, Deloitte, General Electric, SC Johnson and the United Nations.

Algonquin College Corporate Training is accredited as a Training Organization by APMG-International to deliver BRMP training and the certification examination.

To get started or for more information, visit the BRMP program page. You can also reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

For some of us, seeing coworkers in person again rather than via a video app will be a reality soon — if it isn’t one already. That’s because, as the number of people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 steadily increases, offices are reopening.

But they won’t be the same as before. Indeed, along with the excitement mixed with trepidation of returning to one’s office space, there could be a wake-up call: after so long away from a communal work setting, some of us might discover how out of practice we are in relating to others face to face, even in a once-familiar setting.

If you’re worried that might happen to you and you want to sharpen your social skills before you arrive back at your desk — or you think others on your team might benefit from practical upskilling — here are a few courses we offer:

• Empathy in the Workplace – Studies show that empathy has a huge impact on workplace well-being, creating a culture of shared purpose, more effective teamwork, happier employees and better recovery from setbacks. This course helps managers and other professionals foster more positive relationships with employees and coworkers through proven empathy-building techniques and exercises.
• Resolving Conflict – Workplace conflict is inevitable, but the ability to deal with it empathetically and effectively is what distinguishes resilient and high-performing organizations from ordinary or even dysfunctional ones. This course teaches participants how to work through conflicts in ways that lead to more collaborative, respectful and productive teams.
• Navigating Difficult Conversations – Difficult conversations can be rich and productive learning opportunities, helping to resolve conflicts quickly, improve team relationships and build a culture of accountability. This course teaches managers and other professionals how to turn potential confrontations into fruitful conversations for a happier, healthier, more engaged and productive workplace.

Looking for something else? We offer custom training and group delivery of workshops to meet your organization’s specific needs.

To get started or for more information, you can reach us at training@algonquincollege.com or 613-727-7729.

If you had a problem in your business and you were told it would take years to solve, how would you react?

Chances are you might start looking for other options.

Yet, when people are seeking to advance their career, they often simply accept that it will take longer than they might wish to get ahead. They enrol in a traditional degree or certificate program to fill a gap in their résumé.

While sometimes that is the best approach, it’s not the only one. And it’s certainly not the fastest or most affordable, as a recent Financial Post article highlighted.

At the same time, companies often can’t afford to wait for workers and will look to skilled immigrants to fill vacant job roles. However, that isn’t always the right answer and, besides, Covid-19 has slowed immigration into Canada.

So, increasingly, companies are looking at rapid training programs to quickly fill gaps.

That is where we enter the picture. Algonquin College Corporate Training works with organizations to deliver both off-the-shelf and custom training to help upskill and reskill their workforce with courses focused on technology, leadership and business skills, and other in-demand proficiencies.

Additionally, through a partnership we formed with four other Eastern Ontario colleges, we work with the province and federal government, as well as job seekers and employers, to respond to specific industry needs.

For an overview of some of our work, watch these short videos featuring just a few Eastern Ontario College Consortium (EOCC) clients.

You can learn more about the EOCC at eocc-cceo.ca.