Being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), I am constantly reminded of my Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements. These requirements are to complete course to keep our professional education current and up to date. These courses are usually covering topics such as accounting matters and developments, ethics, and soft skills. Soft skills are those skills that are people related – open communication, dealing with difficult employees, difficult converstations, giving effective feedback. You get the picture. Often times, I am able to complete my CPE requirements through work. There are other times, I wonder if there is something better out there than just flipping and reading slides over and over for hours on end.
What I found was there are programs available to anyone online through learn.com. Learn.com offers programs for a variety of Job skills that you can take from the comfort of your home. These job skills cover a variety of topics such as learning Microsoft Office to learning how to manage difficult people. I have to admit I am terrible with confrontation so I try to avoid it at all costs. Unfortunately, I have found this past year that that isn’t always the best route to take. So I’ve been looking for new ways to learn how to deal with difficult employees. Learn.com had a course on Dealing with Difficult People so I decided to give it a try. The entire course was video interactive and only 15 minutes long. Two great perks that differentiate this course from the ones I have taken through work. In these 15 minutes, I was able to quickly learn what makes an employee a difficult employee, how to deal with a difficult employee, and when you need to draw the boundary line and find the strength within to deal with a difficult situation if one is presented. Fifteen minutes didn’t sound too long to learn anything about dealing with difficult employees, but I found they were more than enough once I took the course. I really appreciated the tips and suggestions found in this course. It was nice to learn that dismissal isn’t always the best answer. In fact, there are other answers such as “a change in scenery” or talking with someone else to learn new ideas on managing difficulty. Overall, I found this course effective and look forward to taking other mini-courses through Learn.com to help develop my soft skill set at work.
Tags: employment, jobs, skill set, soft skills, training, work
June 26th, 2009 at 6:29 am
I love my job being an accountant in the bank for almost nine years..i miss those days of my executive life! wink! …i wish to work again but it’s so difficult in germany because I have to go back to zero and go to school again…good luck to you!
October 14th, 2010 at 7:26 am
[...] no one wants to work with difficult people. When dealing with problematic employees, productivity Looking to expand your skill set? – theblondediaries.com 06/25/2009 Being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), I am constantly [...]