Put a focus on Focus Week: Sign up for free training courses

  • Published
  • By Amy Rollins
  • Skywrighter Staff

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Registration for the second Focus Week of 2019, scheduled for April 22-26 at the 88th Air Base Wing, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, will continue from now until the day before each course is held.

This Focus Week iteration spotlights performance improvement for both the individual and organization. A wide variety of class subjects will be conducted throughout the week, making it possible for individuals to improve present performance and contribute to future career aspirations.

The goal of the Focus Week program is to enhance mission viability and improve quality of life for Airmen while implementing collaborative projects that provide mutual value to the government and local communities.

Courses include:

■  Balancing Work and Personal Life – A hectic, unbalanced lifestyle can prevent enjoyment of personal relationships, interfere with productivity at work and harm one’s health. This class helps participants assess how they manage their numerous roles to create an integrated life.

■  Bullet Writing Basics – This course is designed to give skills needed to effectively start writing bullets: how to start a bullet, structure it in the appropriate format, along with tips and tricks for first-timers writing bullets. This is a basic-level course for individuals, mainly civilians, who have not been exposed to bullets on a regular basis.

■  Burnout and Stress Management – When someone experiences stress or when stress lasts too long, it can be harmful; burnout is one possible outcome. This class addresses ways to prevent burnout.

■  Colors Personality – Helps students discover your values, understanding how you can get along better with others and have a clearer understanding of a person’s approach and preference in their work and personal life. This training can help with opening lines of communication and reducing personal misunderstandings and help people communicate better with each other.

■  Conflict Management in the Workplace – Creative competition drives innovation; harmful conflict is the root cause of a toxic work environment. The class explores the differences between the two along with types of conflict, levels, sources, interpersonal tools to consider, approaches and a four-step model that guides re-establishing trust between parties.

■  Delivering Effective Feedback – Giving feedback is one of the most important parts of a leader’s job. It is also one of the most difficult. Leaders sometimes avoid attempting it but this can lead to poor overall performance. Doing it badly can result in conflict, bad feelings, a demotivated team and even worse performance than before. This course will focus on means to provide feedback in ways that raise performance in the person receiving feedback while maintaining his or her self-esteem and goodwill towards the organization.

■  DoD Performance Management and Appraisal Program (DPMAP) – This briefing prepares supervisors and employees covered under DPMAP. It defines employee engagement in terms of the Department of Defense culture of high performance; show supervisors and employees why it is important to be engaged at work. It will review the performance cycle under DPMAP to include: the performance planning phase and how to write SMART standards, the monitoring phase and the evaluation phase and performance ratings.

■  Emotional Intelligence: A Different Way of Being Smart – Have you ever wondered why some people of high IQ flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well? Explore a different way of thinking about intelligence and how it can strengthen personal and professional lives. Learning what scientists have discovered can make you happier, healthier and more intuitive leading you towards a more intellectually enriched life.

■  Injury Prevention – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more Americans die from violence and injuries — such as motor vehicle crashes or falls — than from any other cause, including cancer, HIV, or the flu... Injuries are more common than we think, but they’re also more preventable than we think.

■  Stress Less: Strategies to Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout – This class defines and identifies stress and how stress can affect your health. Discussions on practical techniques and tips to build your stress management toolbox will be presented.

■  Taking Control of Email – Provides basic information required to set up a formal email/task management system by learning a better way to use Outlook. It will reveal common productivity traps and solutions. You can have a “zero inbox”, clearly understand your tasks and greatly increase your productivity and reduce stress by learning a better way to use Outlook.

■  The Hiring Process-From Vacancy to New Employee – This course is designed to provide supervisors of civilian positions an overview of the civilian hiring process beginning with the initial identification of a vacancy through the recruitment and onboarding process. Supervisors will be walked through the 80-day hiring model and be provided with a general understanding of what to expect during each step (gate) of the recruitment process.

■  Understanding Your Individual Development Plan – What’s in your IDP? Do you know what your developmental goals are? Do you know what your functional goals are? If this is like a foreign language to you and you want to take control of your developmental success this is the course for you. This course will provide tips and recommendations for you to effectively work with your supervisor/employee to develop an Individual Development Plan (IDP).

■  The Power of Outlook – Microsoft Outlook has many powerful features that make it a go-to application for users. Students will learn tips and tricks on how to navigate the Outlook interface, manage email communications, contact information, calendar events, tasks and notes.

Registration is open to all 88 ABW employees, both military and civilian. The wider Wright-Patterson AFB audience is encouraged to attend as space allows.

To register via MyETMS (Education and Training Management System), go to https://myetms.wpafb.af.mil. Click on the self-registration tab.

A tutorial is provided on the MyETMS home page for first-time users. Search 88 ABW and go. Hover your pointer over View Class Comments for full course descriptions.

For more information, contact Barry Cumberland, Human Resources specialist, 88th Force Support Squadron Workforce Development, at 904-4799 or barry.cumberland@us.af.mil.

AFLCMC Focus Week

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Spring Focus Week sessions will take place April 22-26.

Focus Week is a period set aside quarterly to accomplish mandatory, leadership, acquisition training to gain continuous learning points, as well as knowledge from a different discipline. Focus Weeks provide vital acquisition training, policy updates, core skills and operational perspectives to the acquisition community.

Students may participate in these events either in person or online (for some courses), allowing AFLCMC to reach numerous geographic locations.

Registration is now available for most courses via the Acquisition Now Continuous Learning website, however additional courses offerings may become available as Focus Week approaches. Search for course offerings by going to https://www.atrrs.army.mil/channels/acqnowcl/, click on “Apply for a CL Event” and search under AFLCMC Focus Week. A more detailed course catalog will be distributed via email to employees or can be obtained by emailing the AFLCMC Focus Week point of contact at jason.sibrel@us.af.mil.