Online Bites

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Me as a Manager

We often never get the chance to consider what being a great manager is, what type of manager we want to be, and what underlies how we manage our team. The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 1: Birds of a Feather. Why do you manage the way you do? Why doesn’t everyone get what you’re doing? Or saying? Understanding your personality style and each of your teams is where the BIGGEST AHA moments happen. Thousands of managers who have completed this training have suddenly realised why their team (or their family or friends!) don’t always get along. Because birds of a feather don’t always flock together, and you need to know how to work with different styles. This module also covers how the styles influence HOW you manage your team.
• Bite 2: Management Skills. What are the things you were good at before you were a manager that can help you now? What’s going to trip you up and create issues? This bite looks at what skills management involves, and you get to assessing your own strengths and areas that you want to develop, or watch out for.
• Bite 3: Management Challenges. Being a manager isn’t easy. Make sure you’re prepared by understanding what challenges might be thrown your way, what you might struggle with and how you can overcome these. Can you be friends with your team? How do you know people working remotely are actually working? What is Gen Z all about? How can you create change when you’re a cog in the corporate wheel? You’ll cover this and more, so you’re fully prepared!
• You may also want to complete the Adapting your Style – Bite 13 and Dealing with Sticky Situations – Bite 42.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%). Modules for other countries will be available shortly.

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Essential Employment Law

When you have a team, there are a number of pieces of employment law that apply. You need to know how to comply, but also to answer questions from your team and deal with any tricky legal issues that can apply. For NZ, the online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 4: The Employment Relations Act. Making sure you understand the differences between different types of employees, how breaks, flexible working and trial periods work and what you need to look out for in your individual or collective employment agreements. We cover the legislation but more importantly how this plays out in real life, and what can trip you up.
• Bite 5: The Holidays Act and managing leave. Your employees taking holidays, sick leave, bereavement or public holidays to comply with the law, and your policies, can be confusing and leave some not sure how it works. This bite takes you through everything you need to know, along with some clever and practical ideas on how to manage leave with your team.
• Bite 6: Parental Leave & the Smaller Acts. While the ERA and Holidays Act have the biggest impact on employment – there are also some of the smaller pieces of legislation that as a manager you need to understand how they work, what employees might ask, or situations that might come up. These include parental leave (and how to manage employees on parental leave), jury service, criminal records, wages protection and minimum wages.
• You may also want to complete the Recruitment Law bite, part of module 5.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Perfect Performance Reviews

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Except for many managers and employees, performance reviews are the worst of times. If you want to make them a great experience for everyone, this bite is for you! The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 7: How to review goals and skills. If you’ve set clear goals, that can be measured, then it’s easy to review them. But what happens if your employees argue or it’s hard to get measurements? And what about rating how skilled someone is. People can get upset and disengaged. Luckily this bite will take you through how to overcome these issues and more! With a clever way to think about rating skills that might make you smile.
• Bite 8: Tailoring your review. Not all performance reviews should be equal. Because different employees need different things from their review. And if you want to make your reviews as effective as possible, you need to understand consequence management and how to tailor your reviews to the different people in your team. This is another section that creates lots of AHA moments and will transform how you review your team.
• Bite 9: Developing your team. The last part of performance reviews often focuses on what training and development your team need. Both to achieve their goals in the future, or to prepare for the next step in their career. This bite covers how to work through a development plan, discuss skills and competencies with your team, and then how to make sure any development actions that are taken, add value to what and how your team deliver.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%). Bite 10 is for NZ managers only.

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Thumbs Down: Dealing with poor performance

When people in your team aren’t doing their job as well as they could – you need different ways to deal with. Different people have different reactions to feedback, so having some clever ways to make them want to improve, as well as knowing when you need to take it to the next step and how, is essential for being a great manager. The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 10: Understanding the issue. Before you leap into dealing with an issue as someone not performing, there are a number of factors you need to consider. This bite covers what the different factors are, why they matter, and then once you’ve considered each of these, knowing what actions to take to deal with the situation. This is another area that can trip managers up, and in New Zealand, can result in Personal Grievances and fines.
• Bite 11: Courageous Conversations. For many people, giving feedback is a scary business. People get upset, defensive, angry and most importantly – don’t actually improve their performance after feedback. Gen Z really don’t like feedback either. So this bite gives you come clever ways to give feedback, that get someone to improve without feeling like you’ve even given them feedback. Is it magic? If you do it right it is. But you need this bite to know how…..
• Bite 12: Performance Plans. In many countries (including NZ), the step before you can give a warning for performance, is to put a performance improvement plan in place (also called a PIP). There are some tools and techniques to use to make sure you are really clear with your plan, you get your employee on board, and you end up not having the monkey on your back, trying to fix it all, rather than creating ownership from your team. This bite covers how to do it.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%). Bite 15 is for NZ managers only.

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Recruitment and Selection

Finding the right people for your team is essential but managers can get fooled by candidates who say the right things in an interview, but aren’t actually very good on the job. There are also some fishhooks to how you select who to interview, and then conduct probity checks. Not to mention complying with legislation! So the online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 13: Successful Selection. How can you tell who the best candidates are from a pile of applications? What are the ways to quickly find the top candidates? What probity checks can you do and what might catch you out? How can you overcome any unconscious biases or selection issues? So many questions – but this bite will answer them all!
• Bite 14: Inspired Interviews. Preparing the right interview questions to really test knowledge is harder than it sounds. The way you ask the questions, and how you deal with talkative candidates, or those that don’t open up can be a challenge. This bite takes you through interviewing concepts, questions to ask, ways to test candidates knowledge and honing your interviewing skills so that you make sure the person isn’t just good in the interview – but is good at the job.
• Bite 15: Recruitment Legislation. Making sure you comply with Human Rights and Privacy laws is essential when you are recruiting and interviewing. You need to know how to ensure that candidates don’t feel they’re being discriminated against illegally. You also need to know how you collect and store information isn’t going to be a privacy breach, as hefty fines have been issued for companies who have been caught out.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Clever Communications

Why doesn’t everyone understand you every time? Why do conflicts occur? How can someone read an email and misinterpret what you meant? Because you’re not being clever with your communications! Luckily, this module is going to give you some tools and techniques to take your comms to the next level. This module is where BIG AHA moments happen and is one that people rave about afterwards. The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 16: Understanding and adapting your style. This bite builds on the information in the ‘Birds of a Feather’ bite (which you can watch for free). Your personality style underpins how you communicate, so you’ll learn what your strengths are in how you communicate, what might trip you up and then thinking about your team, why things awry. You’ll get practical tips on how to adapt to people in your team, with real life ideas you can use straight away.
• Bite 17: Dealing with difficult people. You’re not going to get on with everyone in your team, or with every other manager in your organisation. Yet you need to know how to work with them effectively. This bite takes you into the key thing you quickly need to understand about why someone is difficult, and then some different techniques you can use to diffuse situations, build rapport and find ways to work with someone.
• Bite 18: Word it right. Emails, texts, messages, posts on internal or external social media – wording these right so the message gets across can be trickier than it sounds. This bite takes you into some cool tools about how to word things for different audiences, and different situations, that has people reading what you’ve written, and understanding it!!

Taming Time and Delegation

Teams working different hours. People under pressure. Delegating something and finding something else entirely has happened…. These are just some of the challenges of trying to tame time in a team, and delegate. Find out some new ways to get more done in less time, and delegate brilliantly instead.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Motivation and Coaching

There have been some surprising findings in recent years about what really motivates us, and with Gen Z coming into the workplace, this is changing again. As a manager you need to understand both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators for your team, as well as how to set goals and coach people (or have someone as a coach in your team to help develop people). So the online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 22: Motivation and Rewards. Can you make it so that your team wake up excited to come into work, and sing and laugh while working really hard to achieve everything that’s needed? Okay, that might be pushing it. But this bite will take you through how to create a culture that motivates people, and what rewards really work to recognise and create higher performance.
• Bite 23: Goal Setting Essentials. It may sound simple to set some goals for your team. Go and do this by then. But what if you’re not sure how long it will take? How will it be measured? What if they misinterpret what you meant? There are some complexities around setting a great goal, and this bite will take you through what those are, and some tools you can use to make sure you set goals that really work for your team.
• Bite 24: Coaching Essentials. To help your team develop, either yourself or one of your team should be skilled in coaching. This bite takes you through the different types of coaching approaches you might take, depending on the skills and experience of the person you’re coaching, the challenges that can happen and how to understand your own strengths and areas to develop as a coach.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Managing Change

The only thing that stays the same, is there is always change! As a manager, you’re often responsible for leading your team through change, whether it’s a new system or process, culture initiative or other project your organisation is introducing. You need to know how to take your team through the stages of change, communicate in right way, and make sure you’ve built your resilience and help your team with their resilience, as change can impact on people’s wellness. The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 25: Stages of Change. This bite uncovers the different issues that people can feel at different stages of the change, and what behaviours you might see. Then we go through some practical methods to take your team through each stage of change, why it matters and what you’ll see if you’ve done it right!
• Bite 26: Change Communications. How do you get your team engaged with the change? This bite covers some different communication tools that you may not have heard about, but which can help nudge your team in the right direction, understand why the change needs to happen and get people on board. If you’re looking at taking your comms to the next level, you’ll get some new ideas in this session.
• Bite 27: Building Resilience. Being a role model through change can be challenging. This bite takes you through some methods to measure and build your own resilience, and resilience in your team. Find out how to cope when your team are feeling the pressure, and how to help them feel in control and bounce back.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%). These modules are based on New Zealand employment law. Other countries will folllow.

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Restructures, Warnings and Dismissals

If you need to take your team through a restructure, or work through giving a warning or dismissing someone – there are strict legal requirements that you must follow. You also want to make sure that you treat people with dignity and respect, as these are hard processes to work through (and look after yourself too). The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 28: Restructuring your team. This bite gives you an overview of the employment law and the steps that must be followed, but the focus is on how you as a manager can keep your team on track while you restructure. How do you deal with the questions asked, support your team through what can be quite traumatic, and then look after everyone after the restructure to rebuild your team spirit. We have a separate HR module on running a restructure that goes into much more detail on the steps – this bite is for you as a manager and the challenges you’ll face when restructuring.
• Bite 29: I’m Warning You. If someone in your team has breached policies or procedures, or they’ve been on a performance plan and haven’t met what’s needed, then you’ll need to work through a disciplinary process with them and may end up giving them a warning. Again there are legal requirements you must follow, as well as your company policies and procedures. This bite will take you through the management challenges that can occur and how to cope with these.
• Bite 30: Dismissing an employee. If you are in the situation of having to dismiss someone in your team, this bite covers the legal steps that you must comply with, and also the management challenges that can trip you up. If people take a PG (personal grievance) and the process hasn’t been followed, companies can be fined heavily.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

High Performance Teams

Whether your team is 2 people or 20 people, you want to make sure people are working well together, that the team is productive and if you can, build your team to be a high performing one! You’ll also have to deal with some sticky situations along that way that can derail things magnificently. The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 31: Stages of a team. There’s lots of information out there about the stages of a team, but not how you take your team from one level to the next. That’s what this bite covers! You’ll uncover tools and techniques to use to move from your team from forming to storming, from storming to norming, and then onto performing! If you’re wanting some new ideas to use when you’ve got new people in the team, or the team isn’t gelling, or you need to reignite the spark – this bite’s for you.
• Bite 32: High Performing Teams. This bite is based on Belbin’s Team Model. He found that there are a number of ‘roles’ you need in a team to take it to the top! At Elephant we’re accredited in Belbin, so you can learn about the roles, choose to also purchase the Belbin team reports, and then look at how you develop people to take on these different roles.
• Bite 33: Team Meetings. There are some different dynamics when you run a meeting for your team. This bite will take you through different types of meetings that can work much better for different situations, and then topics, exercises and actions you can take in team meetings to discuss information, solve issues, develop your team and much more. If you’re looking for new ideas to make your team meetings engaging and interesting, this bite is for you.

Each online bite is NZ$45. Or purchase all three for $121 (save 10%).

If you want to purchase in bulk, we can provide a discount for your company.

Mentoring and Training your team

Two areas that can really help take your teams skills to the next level, are introducing mentoring programmes and focusing on training your team on the job. As a manager, you need to how to put these into place successfully! The online bites for this topic include the following:

• Bite 34: Effective Mentoring. What are the skills you need to be a great mentor? What’s the difference in mentoring vs coaching vs training vs management? What are the challenges that can come up when you’re mentoring? This bite is a great way to prepare yourself to be a mentor, or if one of your team is going to mentor someone. We also cover how to make a mentoring programme work & overcome challenges like matching mentors and measuring results.
• Bite 35: Induction & Orientation: Knowing how to bring new people into your team and induction and orient them quickly and successfully, so they can get up to speed as soon as they can. We also discuss how you can access training needs so you know what they need training in.
• Bite 36: Training your team. You might have agreed on some development actions for your team, but how do you conduct effective on the job training? How do you take into account learning styles? Communication preferences? Adjust for the type of skill you’re training them in? This bite will take you through understanding adult learning, and practical ways to provide on the job technical and skills training.
• You may also want to complete the bite on Coaching (part of module 8).