Projects

Essential Skills for Thriving in the Workplace Series

Audience: Individual contributors
Format: Four courses · 6 instructional hours · Virtual and in-person
Tool: Microsoft PowerPoint

A four-course employee development series designed to strengthen essential workplace skills, including emotional intelligence, intentional communication, personal accountability, trust-building, and critical thinking for creative problem-solving. The curriculum emphasizes practical strategies employees can apply to everyday workplace interactions, challenges, and decisions.

My role

I co-led the development of this series with a colleague, beginning with a needs assessment to identify relevant employee development priorities across member organizations. We developed and distributed a survey to selected HR and member contacts, incorporated topics identified through previous course evaluations, and analyzed respondents' rankings to identify the highest-priority learning needs. We selected the top 50% of ranked topics, combined related concepts, and used the findings to establish the four-course structure, titles, and learning objectives.

I served as the lead instructional designer for two courses and collaborated on the development of the remaining two, creating instructional content, practical activities, and supporting learning materials. I also developed the series' visual identity from scratch, designing brand-compliant PowerPoint templates with custom graphics, theme colors, representative imagery, and reusable Slide Master layouts to support consistency and future course development.

Following development, I facilitated all four courses for member organizations, adapting examples and activities to their specific workplace needs.

Deliverables

  • Four-course employee development curriculum

  • Custom, brand-compliant PowerPoint templates and reusable Slide Master layouts

  • Facilitator presentations and supporting instructional materials

  • Interactive exercises and application-focused activities

  • Customized materials for organizational delivery

Design Challenge and Approach

The primary challenge was determining which workplace skills would provide the greatest value to employees across organizations with different industries, cultures, and development priorities.

Rather than selecting topics based on assumptions, we used stakeholder input and previous learner feedback to guide curriculum decisions. By ranking identified needs and combining overlapping topics, we developed four courses that addressed several interconnected workplace skills without creating unnecessary redundancy.

Throughout development, I focused on translating broad concepts into accessible, practical learning experiences through relevant examples, discussion, reflection, and activities that encouraged participants to apply what they learned to their own workplace situations.

Selected Artifacts

Representative program and recognition materials are shown below. Proprietary instructional content is excluded.

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