Other Online Certificates and Courses

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rlnce@uwc.edu

Teleworkers can be supervised from a distance better than people working down the hall. But supervision of teleworkers is different than for office workers.

Understanding the essentials of supervision is criticial for both teleworkers and supervisors, management and organizational leaders.

Telecommuters boost your organization’s profitability, productivity, financial stability, competitiveness and efficiency. Plus you can recruit the best people regardless of where they live.

Tour a model virtual office. Then take away the core management practices to supervise teleworkers for a win-win for both employees and management. After attending, you will have the knowledge necessary to successfully supervise, and be supervised, in a distance environment. Includes the book, "Nine Shift: Work, life and education in the 21st Century."

Month-long online course; Greg Marsello and William A. Draves, instructors.

$245 each or $395 for certificate (2 courses, including:  Keys to Telework Success and Supervision of Teleworkers)

Course Outline

  Unit 1  

   Preparing to Supervise Teleworkers   

• Business and organizational advantages to telework
• Rewriting job descriptions from activities to outcomes
• Deciding whether someone can successfully telecommute
• Understanding those who prefer an office culture
• Gaining organizational and CEO support
• Writing the telework plan and outcome measurements

 Unit 2 

 Supervising Teleworkers 

• Weekly reports
• From activity to outcome reports
• Monitoring quality
• Dealing with underperforming people

Unit 3

Intranets and Virtual Offices

• Virtual Office as business office
• Asynchronous vs. synchronous communication
• Ways teleworkers communicate
• Building teamwork using your virtual office
• Creating supervision online
• Accountability for teleworker and supervisor

Unit 4

Issues in Supervision

• Face-to-face meetings
• Developing virtual teams
• Hiring contract, part time, hourly, salaried and other kinds of workers who telework
• Recruiting the best workers
• Organizational reporting and CEO support

About online learning

Online learning is a fun, enjoyable and very productive way to learn. Millions of people are learning online each year. You will engage with the instructor and other participants. You will get to know your instructor and other participants. You may make friends.  It’s easy. It’s fun. 

How the Course Works

It is easy to participate in your online course. After you register, you will be given a web address to go to get into your online classroom.  You will have a password and use your email address and password to gain access.

Once inside the online classroom, here’s what you can expect.

Participate when you want

Participants can participate as little or as much as you want.

You can participate any time of day or evening. The online classroom is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are no live real-time requirements or meetings. You decide when you participate.

For the best learning, participants should log into the course on 2-3 different days of the week.

What you will do

For each Unit, you will:

• Read the print readings (about 20 pages a week)
   
• Have the option of accessing the online readings
   
• Listen to the audio presentation for the Unit and view the slides
   
• Have the option of taking a self-quiz to see how much you have learned
   
• Engage in written online discussion with your instructor and other participants

For best learning, you should make one or more comments at 2-3 different times each week.

The content (readings, audio lectures, slides) and self quizzes are accessible for the entire course, so you can work ahead, or go back and review again, at your convenience.

Discussion

The Discussion for each Unit lasts one week.

All comments are made in writing and can be made at any time of the day or night.
Your instructor will log into the Discussion area at least once a day and answer questions, make comments, and respond to comments by you and the other participants.

We encourage you to make 2-3 comments each week to maximize your learning and enjoyment of the course.

It’s easy. It’s fun.

$245 each or $395 for certificate (2 courses, including:  Keys to Telework Success and Supervision of Teleworkers)

About Your Instructor

Greg Marsello supervises employees, contract workers and consultants from a distance and is an expert on operations, staff structure and organizational efficiency.

He has experience both in the manufacturing sector and the information sector. He began supervising employees from a distance in 1996 and has 12 years experience in virtual organizations.

A former business owner and manager with 30 years of supervisory experience, he ran a jewelry factory with 500 employees for over a decade. He now runs the operations for the Learning Resources Network (LERN) as Vice President for Organizational Development.

Marsello does four day training workshops on organizational efficiency and managing staff, as well as consulting with organizations with up to $90 million budgets. He is a popular how-to speaker and author of "Restructuring Staff" and "Reengineering" manuals.

William A. Draves is a leading futurist, speaker and co-author of “Nine Shift: Work, life and education in the 21st century.”

He has been working from home for over ten years and worked with his Board of Directors and Senior Management Team to transition to a virtual organization in 1998. 

He has keynoted conferences and done professional development seminars in Russia, Germany, England, Slovenia, Japan, Australia, Mexico, and all over Canada and the United States.

His NineShift blog has more than 2,000 readers a month, and he is the most quoted authority on lifelong learning in the nation’s media, having been interviewed by The New York Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, NBC Night News and other news organizations.

Course Objectives

• To provide supervisors and teleworkers alike with background information on the business, organizational and employer benefits of telework.
• To provide supervisors and managers of teleworkers with the knowledge necessary to rewrite job descriptions, prepare workers to telecommute, and establish a positive organizational culture for teleworkers.
• To provide participants with the knowledge necessary to understand how teleworkers are supervised successfully from a distance.
• To provide participations with an understanding how a virtual office works.

Course Outcomes

At the end of the course, you will:

• Be able to rewrite job descriptions from activities to outcomes.
• Know how to create a virtual office from a nontechnical and management perspective.
• Know how teleworkers are supervised successfully using weekly reports
• Understand how to prepare and transition workers to telecommuting
• Know how to monitor work quality and on-time performance
• Have gained tips on various ways to communicate with teleworkers
• Know the principles of dealing with underperforming telecommuters
• Have an understanding of how to report and communicate with organizational decision makers with regard to telework.
• Have the necessary knowledge to supervise teleworkers.

Completion Requirements