WHYY Advantage

WHYY provides tools for professionals
By Mary Eileen O'Connor

In today's unpredictable business world, professionals need the knowledge and skills to stand out in the workplace.

WHYY Advantage, WHYY's workforce development service, is helping workers in the Delaware Valley get ahead by providing a variety of tools and training. Using the latest technology, WHYY offers monthly, interactive satellite seminars that feature some of the best and brightest minds in business today, such as Tom Peters, Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, at WHYY's state-of-the-art Technology Center.

WHYY Advantage also works with local businesses to bring live satellite programming to employees at their place of business and provides seminars and training directly to their desktops through the Internet and special software packages. Here are just two of the services offered by WHYY Advantage:

MeansBusiness Used by leading business schools and local companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, this service makes available more than 20,000 ideas, frameworks, models and concepts from renowned business writers. Its editors have reviewed and read thousands of books by these thinkers, selecting verbatim the best ideas in five-to-10 paragraph learning segments.

Employees will have access to the core elements of these publications without having to read the whole book and can customize their learning to any and all elements that concern their particular business field.

Leadership Excellence: Avoiding Derailment (LEAD) The effectiveness of leadership is measured by an individual's ability to work and lead effectively in the ever-changing business world.

LEAD is a Web-based, on-demand training system from the Center for Creative Leadership that provides managers with learning and performance support for developing leadership skills while on the job. Using interactive technology, the program teaches participants such crucial skills as how to meet objectives, build and lead a team, handle conflict and facilitate change.

Call (215) 351-2053 or visit whyyworkforce.org for more information about these services and other courses and training options available from WHYY Advantage.

Stay relevant at work

Don't let your skills become obsolete. Develop your professional skills to achieve your financial and career goals. Lay out a vision of your life and then map our how you'll achieve that picture.

Take an honest look at your work. Once a year take a good look at your competence and skills. If they don't match what's in demand in the market, figure out how and where you need to improve.

Stay on top of technical skills. Make sure you're competent on basic applications and have a command of available technologies, such as the Internet, to make you more efficient. Stay abreast of technological change by reading relevant publications.

Make skills upgrading a priority. That means accepting lifelong learning as a principle. Take classes online, go back to school or take continuing-education classes applicable to your job or the job you want.

In addition to the services provided by WHYY Advantage, WHYY members can receive discounts on classes at several local colleges with their WHYY MemberCard. Visit whyy.org for information. -- Adapted from Black Enterprise