You might add a few words here about your blog, your company, or the authors writing the material below. The blog is a great place to talk about your products, announce events & updates, promote new materials, and connect with your students. More importantly, it’s a very effective way to juice up the SEO powers this theme comes with right out of the box, which means you’ll get found faster!

Practicing What We Preach

Practicing What We Preach

Every 3 years or so, IPD uses tools to check in with its customized training clients. This article discusses some of the tools we teach and use while sharing the results of our most recent survey.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Public Sector Hiring Challenges (and Solutions)- Part 2: Disrupt and Innovate

Public Sector Hiring Challenges (and Solutions)- Part 2: Disrupt and Innovate

Ignite a spark for the Minnesota Public Sector to collectively promote ourselves as a great career option! Be disruptive and innovative with these links to organizations and events.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Public Sector Hiring Challenges (and Solutions)

Public Sector Hiring Challenges (and Solutions)

While almost every industry sector is suffering with the challenge of the Great Resignation, public sector is suffering more than others. Learn six Talent-Recruiting Actions to Find Public Sector Employees in Minnesota

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Practicing What We Preach

Practicing What We Preach

Practicing What We Preach By: Beth Schaefer The Metro State Institute for Professional Development (known as The IPD to most of you) uses the tools it teaches to run its department.  Every 3 years or so, IPD uses those tools to check in with its customized training clients.  Customized training clients have purchased training to [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Pets, People, and Practices: Rethinking Bereavement Policies for a Diverse Workplace

Pets, People, and Practices: Rethinking Bereavement Policies for a Diverse Workplace

One area where DEI policies often fall short is in bereavement policies and ensuring employees can grieve is essential for a company’s health and longevity. Learn more about potential gap areas…

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Who’s Sitting at Your Table?

Who’s Sitting at Your Table?

By: Destyn Land, M.Ed.   Imagine that you were personally invited to a dinner party hosted by one of your favorite celebrities (for me this would be the late Chadwick Boseman). Upon your arrival, you realize the table you were assigned to sit at has seats that you do not fit in comfortably. Because you’re [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

When we think about our work lives, and the way that we engage with our colleagues, I imagine most of us (including me) would ask, “What’s love got to do with it?”

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Welcome Destyn Land – new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Specialist

Welcome Destyn Land – new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Specialist

IPD is pleased to announce Destyn Land as the new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Specialist for the Institute for Professional Development.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Diversify to Recruit and Retain

Diversify to Recruit and Retain

Learn 6 workplace values sought be younger generations and 4 actions leaders can take to demonstrate those values and diversify their culture.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Happy Holidays?

Happy Holidays?

By Beth Schaefer IPD Director Last week I attended an annual holiday party with friends that I have been attending for 30-some years.  Fun!  It was a potluck, and I made a pretty ordinary salad – for about $35 dollars in grocery supplies – not fun.   While many of us look forward to the holiday [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

The Value of Chit Chat

The Value of Chit Chat

Improve well-being, production, and creativity at work with one magical bullet that you are probably already doing … Chit Chat!

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Six Things You Can Skip to Improve Employee Engagement

Six Things You Can Skip to Improve Employee Engagement

This article will discuss the 6 myths your organization should avoid if it wants to help those immediate supervisors maintain engaged employees.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Are We Moving Employees from Stakeholders to Customers?

Are We Moving Employees from Stakeholders to Customers?

This is the third blog in the Employee Engagement Series. Are employees becoming a stronger factor in how you do business?

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Employee Engagement Defined

Employee Engagement Defined

This month, we continue our exploration of employee engagement – especially in the shadow of The Great Resignation- by defining what employee engagement is and what it is not.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Join the Community of Practice for MN Government Business Architecture.

Join the Community of Practice for MN Government Business Architecture.

Join the Community of Practice for MN Government Business Architecture. This free community of practice meets once a month.  The community consists of those who are in the role of business architect or are using business architect techniques in their work AND work for a Minnesota city, county, or state agency. The community provides an [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Employee Engagement = Employee Retention:   Fact or Fiction?

Employee Engagement = Employee Retention: Fact or Fiction?

Employers are dealing with exiting employees and being told employee engagement leads to retention, but is this a lot of mumbo jumbo?

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Make Your Move

Make Your Move

by Beth Schaefer IPD Director   “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? If I go, there will be trouble…. And If I stay it will be double…” by, ironically enough, The Clash If you have been reading The Great Resignation/Transformation series, you have already done the following to assess your current career situation: [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

You’ve Got Leverage

You’ve Got Leverage

While a record number of people are leaving their jobs (see the series introductory article: Is The Great Resignation Time for Your Career Transformation?), you may not have to leave to get a better deal. Because so many people are leaving, this may be a good time to negotiate a new situation at your current [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Great Resignation Transformation

Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Great Resignation Transformation

The Great Resignation Is On! This series of blogs studies the impact through the personal lens of your career ladder. Series Introduction  Part 1: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Coming in April) Part 2: You’ve Got Leverage (Coming in May) Part 3: Make your Move Before making any big decisions about your career, [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Is The Great Resignation Time for Your Career Transformation?

Is The Great Resignation Time for Your Career Transformation?

To coincide with the IPD Expert Insights free webinar series on transforming the workplace using the Modernization Playbook, I thought I should take a look at workplace transformation on a personal level.   For the first time in quite a while, workers are in demand so it stands to reason that they in a position to [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

The Beatles & Your New Year’s Resolution

The Beatles & Your New Year’s Resolution

Are you in need of a New Year’s Resolution, or a Performance Goal? If you are as old (mature) as I am, you will remember the craze around a little book by Robert Fulghum entitled All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.   Now, we have the 2021 version of that book: [...]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Taters, Turkey, and TP Anyone?

Taters, Turkey, and TP Anyone?

Taters, Turkey, and TP Anyone? Worried about shortages in holiday gathering supplies? Now, more than ever, business architecture has a role to play.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

The Top Four Obstacles to Problem Solving

The Top Four Obstacles to Problem Solving

  This month we are featuring a free webinar on how to solve problems so that you do not need to solve them again.   So, I took a quick look out on the world wide web, to see what obstacles people are facing to getting problems solved – especially as many of us are […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Return-to-Work Phobia

Return-to-Work Phobia

What can leaders can do to ease the fear of returning to work after Covid? Many people are dreading the return to work: the commute, unnecessary in-person meetings, sitting a cubicle, eating lunch at their desk…   For over a year, public health messaging has been that the safest place to be is your home, […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Five Criteria For High-Quality Diversity Training

Five Criteria For High-Quality Diversity Training

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) are not just buzzwords. To save time, I researched what makes a good DE&I trainer and combined the information into five key criteria.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Why It Makes Dollars and Sense to Improve Workplace Mental Health

Why It Makes Dollars and Sense to Improve Workplace Mental Health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month Things You Can Do Now To Improve Your Organization’s Mental Health – Even While Working From Home In the past, I would have dismissed this topic as something that is so distant to me, I would not even need to glance in its direction. I would much rather focus […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

action-and-learning

action-and-learning

The Institute for Professional Development (IPD) mourns the tragic death of Daunte Wright.  We mourn his loss with his family, his community, our state, and all who work to address the systems that oppress and diminish life.
Many of the organizations that use training from IPD are Minnesota cities and counties.   When tragedies like this occur…

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Pandemic Changes That Will Stick

Pandemic Changes That Will Stick

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” John Drucker For this article, I am taking a quick glance at how our workplace environments are likely to change in the long-term as a result of the pandemic.  It is a non-scientific shallow dive that will […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Build Bridges Within Your Village

Build Bridges Within Your Village

Build Bridges Within Your Village By: Beth Schaefer    Director, Institute for Professional Development I believe mentoring can help Minnesota build a competent workforce for all generations of workers by satisfying the workplace needs and personality traits that every generation has. As an example, I am a Gen Xer.  According to experts, that makes me […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Look Beyond For Joy

Look Beyond For Joy

Look Beyond For Joy By: Beth Schaefer    Director, Institute for Professional Development Normally, this is the time of year that I write about the “New Year, New You” and how training classes at IPD can help with that. However, 2020 was not a year of normal, and the first few weeks of 2021 have […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Is Pocket Agile a Thing, or Did I Just Invent It?

Is Pocket Agile a Thing, or Did I Just Invent It?

Is Pocket Agile a Thing, or Did I Just Invent It? Or – Is it OK to be Agile Lite? By: Beth Schaefer    Director, Institute for Professional Development I hesitate to say that I am practicing Agile because I have not been formally trained in Agile. And, I work in higher education – an […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Value the Voice of Customer

Value the Voice of Customer

Value the Voice of Customer By: Beth Schaefer    Director, Institute for Professional Development It happened again last week.  I was at a meeting where a policy revision was announced.  As the policy changes were being laid out, several people in the room had questions that did not have answers.  It became clear to me […]

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Do You Cultivate Trust?

Do You Cultivate Trust?

As a leader, do you create the space for High Impact Trust Advisors’s to flourish? For more information on how to do this – contact the IPD today! 612-659-7230

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Always Be Networking

Always Be Networking

Why you should always be networking. Call IPD today for more information on how to grow your career. 612-659-7230

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Why change inititatives fail: it’s not me, it’s you … except when it’s not

Why change inititatives fail: it’s not me, it’s you … except when it’s not

These are the real reasons people resist change… Call IPD today if you would like to learn more about our change management classes – 612-659-7230

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Special Offer: Metropolitan State University Alumni Discounts

Special Offer: Metropolitan State University Alumni Discounts

Sign up to receive discounts on Institute for Professional Development Courses.

Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog