Our trainings are designed for people working in organizations striving for labor and social justice.

There are several types of trainings that we offer:

Series for Supervisors - strengthen leadership capabilities for supervisors and help them to assume the responsibility of this role

Series for Coaches - build leaders within the organization that bring key elements of training back to organization to improve strategic planning skills

Individualized Series - improve internal capability of an organization through a series of individualized trainings and evaluations

“Enlace’s Supervision Series has already been invaluable for us in terms of rethinking our structure

“Enlace’s training series has helped me fully take on my role as the Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 556. 

“The process is people oriented. It is great. 

“Our involvement with Enlace has stimulated our growth in a variety of ways. 

The objective of the Supervisor and Leadership Series is to help low-income worker groups and grassroots organizations grow by developing the capacity to continually improve and replicate the skills of staff leaders. Learning to use these processes helps both new and experienced leaders become better at motivating staff, improving staff capabilities and ensuring accountability. The trainings provide participants with an opportunity to meet others and share experiences and ideas. Through this series participants gain confidence as they begin to see their roles as leaders in the organization, not just supervisors.

We interview each participant before the training to assess potential or actual challenges they are currently experiencing and areas they need to work on. Our workshops are tailored to address the dilemmas participants are facing.

The Supervisor and Leadership series currently includes two parts:
Part 1 provides training for supervisors: how to conduct a one-on-one meeting, how to conduct a team meeting, and how to manage conflict between staff
Part 2 provides training for both supervisors and leaders of an organization: how to evaluate a program, structure, or activity and how to conduct a planning meeting.

One-on-one training:
-Provides hands-on practice conducting one-on-one meetings and giving corrective feedback
-Teaches how to develop individual work plans to ensure accountability
-Examines supervisor’s role and expectations within this role
-Helps supervisors evaluate a person’s role and growth within the organization
-Helps ensure better management of people’s time
-Gives information on how to nurture and develop staff and new leaders
-Teaches about the legal responsibilities of a supervisor

Team meeting training:
-Teaches supervisors to develop the team’s ability to brainstorm to solve problems
--Helps supervisors control the length of meetings and still get the important work done
Ensures that staff coordinates work with each other (and supervisors) while fulfilling their own individual responsibilities
-Helps supervisors continuously progress/improve the work of the team
-Ensures reciprocal accountability through the use of measurable standards

Conflict management training:
-Teaches supervisors how to manage conflicts between staff in a way that protects the whole organization’s time and moral and keeps the team focused on the priority work

Evaluation training:
-Teaches a step by step consensus process to evaluate and improve an activity or program

Proactive Planning meeting training:
-Teaches a step by step consensus process to develop long-term plans of an organization in a focused way which anticipates and confronts obstacles that could prevent the organization from reaching its objective

The individualized series for organizations is a set of strategic planning sessions that is created to fit an organization’s needs.  Enlace conducts an in-depth organizational analysis and creates a series of tailored workshops and trainings that enable directors, staff, and leaders to become more strategic and focused in their work.  These trainings give organizations structured processes for continually improving teamwork.  Enlace provides tools to look with a critical lens at what they currently have and help them to create systems in areas that are lacking.  They improve participation levels, mutual accountability, the usefulness of meetings, and strategic planning for effective campaigns and innovated programs.  This series helps an organization develop the capability to undertake campaigns that they were previously unable to tackle.

The major components of this training series are:
· An organizational needs assessment.  Enlace staff conduct interviews and work with the staff and/or member leadership of the organization to develop a specialized training design based on an in-depth analysis of the top leadership’s goals.
· Four individualized workshops, eight to fourteen weeks apart, designed to provide training, planning, strategizing, evaluation, organizational development and regeneration assistance to ensure that the organization is equipped to accomplish what the leadership intends and to sustain a proactive mode in continuing their work.
· Follow-up/evaluation between workshops by Enlace staff members to ensure the success of the program.
· On-going training (in addition to the four workshops) of a coach to serve as an internal resource to the leadership of the organization.  Participating organizations are required to assign a coach to the Enlace Coach Program

Goals for the series:
Evaluation and analysis of what works and what doesn’t within an organization
Organizations improve structure and dynamics through use of systems
Provide tools for organizational development in an experiential setting
More effective and focused campaigns

Our coach program trains a member of an organization’s staff or a community leader to be an internal resource for the organization.  The coach functions as a resource to the organizations’ top leadership team.  It is important that every organization engage in continuous improvement with the goal of developing more leaders and regenerating the energy and spirit within their organization.  For this reason, a successful organization depends on a team of leaders well-versed in strategic thinking and planning.  The ultimate goal of this series is to develop skilled organizational development coaches, a highly effective strategy team, and the ability to continuously develop a well-skilled expanding leadership. 

Through these trainings coaches gain skills to:
Assist the leadership of their group in determining the appropriate course to take, considering all the external and internal resources and challenges
Ensure that all desired results for a specific action or event are realized
Facilitate peer evaluations of campaigns and bring into focus specific needs that should be addressed to succeed in organizing efforts
Facilitate the designing of the most effective organizing campaign possible
Help their organization create and develop long term plans (3-5 years)

Who can be a coach?
A staff member or a community member who is committed to the organization on a long-term basis
Someone who works directly with the strategic leadership of the organization
Cannot be the director of the organization

Coach commitments:
To make learning and improving consensus frameworks a priority of their work
To serve as internal resources in the development of their organizations
To recruit and mentor others in their organizations
A minimum of two preparation meetings a year away from home organization
Participation in bi-annual convention
Participation in the workshops for their organizations

“Enlace brings a unique understanding of our work as well as a long-term strategic vision for the Market Workers Justice Campaign…