The Garden City Telegram
NEW E-Edition!
Subscription
Required
Add Your Comment | Read (0) Comments
First class graduates from supervisor program
Published 3/17/2010 in Local News
By MONICA SPRINGER
It's important to hire good people, have good customer service skills and know how to manage people.
1
Brad Nading/Telegram From left: Shane Donovan, Laura Dunkel and Lora Norquest chat after the final session of Garden City Community College Business and Industry Institute's Certified Supervisor I program Tuesday at the Student and Community Services Center. The trio are the first graduates from the program.
And three people at Garden City Community College learned those skills through the certified supervisor program.
Shane Donovan, a control room operator at Sunflower Electric's Holcomb station, Laura Dunkel, a supervisor at Hampel Oil Distributors, and Lora Kilgore-Norquest, who works at Pioneer Hi-Bred, graduated from the program on Tuesday afternoon after their last class.
They are the first class to complete all four courses in the certificate program. The classes include team building and delegation, interviewing and hiring, performance management and customer service.
They each received a framed certificate from Cathy McKinley, dean of continuing education and community services, and Diana Machotka, community services coordinator.
McKinley and Machotka taught the classes.
Kilgore-Norquest, a research scientist at Pioneer Hi-Bred, a corn research station, said she's been interviewing job candidates for more than 10 years.
And she said she wasn't aware of some laws regarding questions you can and can't ask.
For example, McKinley said, employers are not allowed to ask for a job candidate's age, but can ask them if they are older than 18. And employers cannot ask job seekers where they are from, but can ask for their current address and phone number.
The laws are in place so employers cannot discriminate against who they hire, McKinley said.
Kilgore-Norquest also said she learned good customer service skills, as well as how to be a good customer by taking the four courses and earning the certificate.
Kilgore-Norquest, Donovan and Dunkel said they thought earning the certificate would help them in their current jobs and encouraged others to complete the certificate program.
"It helps you back up your decisions and effectively manage people," Kilgore-Norquest said.
McKinley said there's a nation-wide trend of adults already in career fields who want short-term, noncredit courses or certificate programs that people can use to learn more skills from their current jobs.
"People are wanting more skills as competition in the job market increases," McKinley said.
And for those who take the certificate programs who do not have college degrees, McKinley said she's also hoping they might cross over into the credit side of GCCC and major in business or accounting.
McKinley said people get promoted into supervision and management without knowing how to manage different people and different situations.
"It's an investment in yourself," McKinley said.
Other career certificates GCCC offers include career skills, office professional, professional development and computer training, and organizational development.
Additional certificates are available online.
For more information, contact McKinley at 276-9536 or Machotka at 275-3232.
Found 0 comment(s)!