This program will help you build strategies to support a positive work environment and learn to manage and prevent conflict.

In this program, you will:

• Learn to work among multiple generations.
• Navigate difficult conversations.
• Build rapport, working under pressure.
• Recognize and address micro-behaviors.

You can expect to enhance your job-based skills in the Interpersonal and Customer Relations workforce development competency. 

Explore all of the courses you'll take in this program. You'll find the course name, a description, and the length of time it will take to complete each course below. We recommend you complete the courses in the order they appear below.

1. Promoting a Positive Work Environment (0.5 Hours)

   A positive workplace culture creates happy and satisfied employees. This in turn helps meet organizational goals. While it is important to create positivity in the workplace, itis equally important to address negativity to avoid decreased work performance. In this course, you'll learn to recognize the impacts of a positive workplace and identify negative indicators in a work environment. You'll also explore the organizational strategies that promote positive employee engagement and learn techniques to interact personally with employees in ways that foster a positive work environment.
    

2. Engaging the Power of a Multigenerational Workforce (0.5 Hours)

   Today’s workforce comprises a diverse combination of individuals from various generations, cultures, personalities, and backgrounds. Embracing these differences allows you to leverage them for a successful and harmonious workplace, and to achieve competitive business results. In this course, you’ll learn to recognize the value inherent in a multigenerational workforce and identify best practices for effective communication across generations. You’ll also learn strategies to promote team cohesion and address conflicts in a multigenerational workforce.
    

3. Making Difficult Conversations Meaningful (0.5 Hours)

   Difficult conversations can be stressful, evoking strong negative emotions, even becoming unpredictable or unsafe as tensions rise. Handled the wrong way, they can damage your work relationships and leave you feeling unsure of yourself. The extent to which you view situations as potentially easy or difficult depends on being aware of, and managing, your emotions. Change your mindset to believing you have the skills to engage in a healthy conversation, and you will be able to listen with empathy and communicate even difficult news with tact and diplomacy. In this course, you'll learn steps to prepare yourself for handling difficult conversations. You’ll also learn the key elements of being aware of your emotions before a conversation goes out of control as well as strategies that will help you effectively tackle difficult conversations in almost any situation. Finally, you’ll learn techniques to end difficult conversations on a positive note.
    

4. Building Rapport through Strong Collaboration (0.25 Hours)

   Learning to collaborate well can help you manage the inevitable conflicts that arise in any relationship. And this holds true even in the workplace. Well-managed conflicts can be a healthy practice and valuable for both self-growth and business growth, giving you an opportunity to learn others’ interests and perspectives, and teaching you how to approach all interactions with empathy. In this course, you'll learn to identify the strong interpersonal skills that help in successful collaboration. You’ll also learn to identify ground rules and boundaries that will help you keep difficult conversations on track, effective strategies to defuse conflict before it goes out of control, and methods to help you create win-win situations in interpersonal conflicts.
    

5. Working Well with Others (0.25 Hours)

   At some point, all of us will encounter competing personalities at work, all vying to get things done their own way. Interpersonal differences and personal perspectives, whether with a manager or a colleague, can increase stress, drain energy, impact morale, and affect productivity and happiness. But there are strategies for mitigating tension and building stronger, more trusting relationships, such as adjusting our own behavior and understanding the situations and behavior of others that can challenge us. In this course, you'll learn how to assess, identify, and manage your own behavioral style to help you avoid and control conflict before it happens. You’ll also investigate how to handle common situations that provoke conflict at work, how to work effectively with different personality types, and how to build habits to help you handle interpersonal conflict in the workplace with grace and patience.
    

6. Remaining Tactful and Diplomatic Under Pressure (0.5 Hours)

   Over the course of a career, not everyone you work with will be easy to get along with. Sometimes this presents difficult situations. But whether it's your boss, a peer, direct report, client, or vendor, professionalism, and professional success, rely on overcoming challenging people and be able to work with even those you don't personally care for. It requires using tact. In this course, you'll learn to navigate challenging situations with tact and diplomacy. You'll learn how to get along with co-workers, give feedback to bosses and direct reports, compose tactful emails, and negotiate diplomatically.
    

7. Recognizing and Addressing Micro-Behaviors in the Workplace (0.5 Hours)

   Micro-behaviors are a macro problem. Dr. Alvin Poussaint described the cumulative impact of micro-aggressions as “death by a thousand nicks.” Subtle acts of exclusion – often unconscious – left unchecked will take a toll on your employees. These subtle forms of bias and discrimination often leave people frustrated and lead to decreased productivity. In this course, you'll learn to recognize the characteristics of the different types of micro-behaviors and how to decode the messages they send. You'll also learn to identify when and how to take action to address micro-aggressions, and how to use micro-inclusions as an antidote to micro-aggressions.
    

8. Coping in a Toxic Workplace (0.5 Hours)

   The workplace is both dynamic and challenging. Within this complex ecosystem, toxicity can cast a dark shadow over your working life. It can erode your morale, impede productivity, and take a toll on your mental and emotional well-being. Therefore, it is crucial for you to address this issue head-on by implementing effective strategies to navigate and mitigate its adverse effects. In this course, you will learn to identify key indicators of a toxic work culture, develop strategies to cope with and navigate through it, and address toxic behaviors. Additionally, you will learn techniques to influence positive change in a toxic workplace. With these strategies, you will be better prepared to navigate the challenges of a toxic workplace and create a healthier and more productive work environment.

Want to learn more? Once you've completed all of the required courses, consider continuing your learning with the following optional activity that you can also enroll in via SLMS. Unlike the required courses, you do not need to complete this to earn your certificate. 
 

• Building Up Your Emotional Intelligence (0.5 Hours)

  By its very nature, the workplace sometimes involves conflict and stress. Even mundane day-to-day work activities require negotiation and compromise. And these can often lead to negative emotional reactions or outbursts. But using emotional intelligence (EI) can help you notice, identify, understand, and manage your own feelings and the emotions of others. EI is a positive force that can have significant impact on you, your team, and your organization. In this course, you’ll learn what EI is and how it drives personal excellence in the workplace. You will learn some best practices and strategies to become aware of your emotions and use that awareness to manage your behavior. You will also learn how to interpret other people’s emotions and use that knowledge to enhance workplace relationships.

All CSEA-represented NYS employees are eligible to participate.

Management/Confidential NYS employees with an Empire KnowledgeBank (EKB) license are also eligible to participate. Contact your agency training officer for information on obtaining an EKB license.  

Supervisory approval is not required for courses taken outside the normal workday. It may be possible for employees to take courses during working hours with supervisory approval.

• Register online in the Statewide Learning Management System (SLMS) anytime from September 16, 2025 through March 14, 2026.
• To earn a certificate, you must complete all eight courses and achieve a passing grade of 70% or higher in each course by the program's end date of March 15, 2026.
• To print your certificate, login to SLMS, go to the My Learning page, locate the appropriate certificate program, and select the Print Certificate button. The Print Certificate button will only be available if the status is Completed.

To participate, you must follow our two-step registration process. The first step varies for CSEA-represented NYS employees and Management/Confidential NYS employees. 

CSEA-represented NYS employees: Apply for a Partnership Online Learning License in the Statewide Learning Management System (SLMS). In SLMS search class code: P_OL_Program and register. This alerts Partnership staff that you want to learn with us; we will issue a learning license that will allow for access to our certificates and classes. Though we aim to process licenses promptly, please allow up to five business days for license approval.  
 

NYS Management/Confidential Employees: Contact your agency training director to obtain an Empire KnowledgeBank license if you don't have one already.  

Once you have an active license, you can register for Building Conflict Resolution Skills in SLMS. In SLMS search P_BCRS25 and register for the certificate program. It can take up to 24 hours after it is issued, for your license to be activated for class enrollment. You will need to return to "My Learning" in SLMS and click on the name of the certificate to find its classes.

Registration Directions

Please be sure you're using Google Chrome to access SLMS. If you don't have the internet browser on your computer now, submit a ticket to ITS to have it installed. 

You will not be able to access any of the courses in the certificate program until you have followed the two-step registration process noted above. Please allow up to five business days for license approval. New state employees typically won’t get access to SLMS until after their first paycheck. 

Still need help or have questions? Contact us at (800) 253-4332 or email [email protected].