Employer U:
Improving Professional
“Wellness”
by Kim Jones
As a long-time contributor to Our Maine Street
magazine, I wrote many articles about physical, mental,
social, and emotional wellness during my tenure as
Director of Healthy You. Well, here I am again, only
now my focus is on professional “wellness” – or rather
those employee behaviors, attitudes, and skills that
affect (or sometimes infect) the workplace.
Employer U isn’t a canned training program. We don’t
have a catalog of workshops full of generic content to be
delivered to every group in the same way. Certainly, we
provide some universal programs for general audiences,
but what makes Employer U different is our customized
trainings designed to meet the unique workforce needs
of our clients.
In September, I accepted a faculty position in the
Business Department at the University of Maine at
Presque Isle (UMPI). My new role not only fulfills a
life-long goal of teaching at the collegiate level, but I’m
also serving as the Director of Employer U. It’s this
part of my job that raises the most questions when I’m
describing my career change to others. So this, my first
article since joining the UMPI family, seems like the
perfect opportunity to explain what Employer U is and
how it’s helping to improve professional “wellness”.
For instance, take a topic like customer service. While
there are definite common denominators, delivering
great service in a retail setting may require a slightly
different approach than in a hospital, for example.
Employer U takes into consideration an organization’s
culture, resources, and purpose to create more tailored
programs.
What It Isn’t
When you think about what it takes to have a successful
organization, often what springs to mind are words
like exceptional customer service, fiscal responsibility,
creativity, strong leadership, and a motivated
workforce. But these factors, commonly found in
top performing companies, don’t just happen. For
more predictable, sustainable success, employees need
ongoing professional development.
Sure, you might get lucky on occasion and hire someone
who is just naturally an all-around great employee, but
even the best performers can benefit from routine skillbuilding. Which brings me to Employer U – a new
workforce development initiative from UMPI. To tell
you what Employer U is, let me tell you what it isn’t.
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WINTER 2016
Employer U isn’t just a lecture-based approached
to teaching. From years of research, we know that
adults learn best when the information they receive is
supplemented with immersive, hands-on experiences.
Our Employer U training team delivers program content
in a variety of ways to help to ensure that participants,
regardless of their learning styles, understand, retain,
and can apply the information. Additionally, Employer
U programs are offered on campus so professionals
can take full advantage of the extensive technologies,
laboratories, and facilities we have at the university. In
some cases, we can even bring these resources to the
workplace. This multifaceted approach results in more
effective and, quite frankly, more interesting training.
Employer U isn’t being offered in a vacuum. I believe in
the power of collaboration. While we have tremendous
resources at UMPI, those resources aren’t unlimited.
Working collaboratively with other educational