Professionals in Portage la Prairie learned how to cope in the modern work force thanks to a team building and conflict resolution workshop hosted by Community Futures White Horse Plains, Thursday.

The workshop was divided into two two-hour sessions at the Portage Rotary Multipurpose Room at the PCU Centre from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and run by Melenie Olfert a contract trainer at Manitoba Tourism Education Council (MTEC).

The morning seminar focused on motivating and providing feedback to employees. The session focused on getting to know individual employees and what motivates them.

“We all have different motivational types and ideas and factors that motivate us individually. Money is not a motivator – it works for short term but it doesn’t last,” said Olfert. “We also talked a lot about the different generations and what motivates each specific age group. Never in history have we worked side by side with four other generations – it adds conflict to the work place but it can be healthy conflict if we understand what motivates each of these age groups.”

The workshop also addressed the need to give feedback in order to motivate employees.

“Most employees today in order to retain them you have to tell them what they’re doing well and what they’re not doing so well and coach them,” said Olfert.

The afternoon workshop focused on team building and a conflict resolution workshop. Participants heard that teams aren’t just created they need to be nurtured.

“You just don’t hire these great people and you’re going to have this effective, motivated team. It’s actually going to take work to go through the four stages, which are forming, storming, warming, and performing,” said Olfert. “We did an activity around that and after the activity I wanted them to kind of reflect on where their work team is, what stage of the game they were at.”

Conflict among teams was discussed, where participants identified factors, including trust.

“One of the main things we talked about was lack of communication or misinterpretation of communication, we talked about values and the difference of what is important to us, age differences also came up, different skill sets came up, and leadership styles as well,” said Olfert. “Most of the folks here were managers so they really appreciated hearing about what they can do to keep a strong team going even if work is slow or they’re overworked.”

Over all, Olfert said the topic is a very important one not only to make a work environment more enjoyable but to be able to retain workers.

“If you don’t motivate your work teams, if you don’t continue to strengthen work teams and team build and let them know that they’re valued and appreciated people are going to go elsewhere,” said Olfert. “It’s really important that not only in urban areas but in smaller communities that we retain the workers that we have in Manitoba as a whole.”

Shanna Hapko, office manager at Christianson, Christianson, Jones Law Firm, found the sessions to be very informative.

“It was a really good day with a very good presenter. I was really pleased that there was so many diverse work environments – from offices to construction to manufacturing to government that were here – it made for really great interactions,” said Hapko. “I don’t think there is enough opportunities in Portage for employers and managers to attend without having to go into Winnipeg or elsewhere. I’m really pleased that I spent my time here today."