Classes and Workshops

Note: All listings on this page reflect Pacific Time. Unless noted otherwise, classes are held virtually via Zoom.

Class Spotlight

Gartner Introduction | Tuesday, October 15: Join us to learn how to tailor your Gartner experience and leverage the latest research available to you on generative AI, manager effectiveness, DEI, and much more

Social Emotional Learning at Work | October 23 and 31: Join author and educator Dr. Rachelle Rogers-Ard and learn the elements of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and reflect on ways to embed SEL within UCOP competencies at work.

Influence Without Authority (Multiple Sessions Available): In this workshop, you’ll learn leadership skills needed to become influential contributors: building trusting workplace relationships, managing up, carving out a niche area of expertise, and connecting the dots from your role to the organizational mission

STEP Deadlines & Resources

STEP learning resources | Watch the short STEP overview video

Reminders for the 2024/2025 Performance Year (April 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025)
– Define Criteria: Complete by May 31, 2024
– Check In #1 : Complete by August 31, 2024
– Check In #2 : Complete by December 6, 2024

Questions? Contact step@ucop.edu
Having Technical Issues with STEP? Review this FAQ

Upcoming Classes and Workshops

Featured

UCOP Safety: Basic Awareness

Online : Thursday, October 10, 9:00 - 10:00am

Melissa Collins, Program Manager for Security, Risk and Resilience, will facilitate this live virtual class that will provide basic safety tips to help employees feel informed, alert, and safe as they travel to and from the workplace. Extra time will be allotted for questions and feedback. Melissa joined UCOP after serving 20 years with the UC San Diego Police Department, retiring as a lieutenant, and is a safety expert.

Additional Sessions:

November 5: 2-3pm
December 3: 11am-12pm

Box Advanced

Online: Thursday, October 10, 11:00am - 12:00pm

Want to know how to securely store sensitive data in Box? Interested in how to get data into Box via email or URL? Sign up for this advanced Box class and we will cover a wide range of topics including setting up alerts to monitor folders and using Box groups to manage department collaborations.

UCOP Safety: Active Attacker Trainining

Online : Tuesday, October 15, 10:00 - 11:00am

Melissa Collins, Program Manager for Security, Risk and Resilience, will facilitate this live virtual class in which participants will learn skills and strategies to respond if exposed to active attacker situations. The course will review real-life incidents and discuss options in the event of potential similar encounters. Melissa joined UCOP after serving 20 years with the UC San Diego Police Department, retiring as a lieutenant, and is a safety expert.

Additional Sessions:

November 13: 3-4pm
December 5: 2-3pm

Gartner Introduction

Online: Tuesday, October 15, 11:30am - 12:00pm

You’ve activated your Gartner membership through UCOP, now what? Join us to learn how to tailor your Gartner experience and leverage the latest research available to you on generative AI, manager effectiveness, DEI, and much more. Together, we will:

Explore different membership views and tailor your homepage with What I Follow
Discover the Research Resource Centers, Tools & Benchmarks, and upcoming Webinars in areas of interest
Learn how to cut to the chase and find what you’re looking for with Advanced Search

Excel Power Pivot

Online: Thursday, October 17, 9:00am - 12:00pm

Advance your Excel skills with learning Power Pivot. In this class you will become familiar with the PowerPivot application and import data, manipulate data in a PowerPivot worksheet, create reports using PowerPivot data, use DAX functions in PowerPivot, and distribute PowerPivot Data.

*Participants must attend both sessions on Thursday, October 17 and 24 from 9am-12pm PT to receive credit for the course.

People Leader Forum - Equity Process Review

Online: Friday, October 18, 1:00-2:00pm

The People Leader Forum is a monthly opportunity for people managers to connect with one another to develop leadership skills, build community, share best practices, swap strategies for navigating current challenges and learn to better support themselves and their teams.

October 18: Equity Process Review – In this session, UCOP Compensation Manager JJ Lerma will explain the compensation equity review process.

2024 PLF Topics:

November 15: Tips and Tricks to Make STEP Work for You
December 20: Team Reflection Activities

Creating Accessible Documents

Online: Wednesday, October 23, 10:00 - 11:30am

Digital accessibility is about ensuring users with disabilities can easily access and engage with any digital content. In this course, you will learn the principles of digital accessibility, how to generate accessible Microsoft Office Documents and how to export these to PDF.

Social Emotional Learning at Work: Creating Connection and Belonging at UCOP

Online : Wednesday, October 23, 10:00 am - 12:00pm

Incorporating the principles of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) at work enhances the ability to communicate and connect with a range of people in healthy ways. Research indicates that focusing on the elements of Social-Emotional Learning at work can lead to greater employee satisfaction and retention across the organization. At this session, “Social Emotional Learning at Work”, SEL expert, author and educator Dr. Rachelle Rogers-Ard will provide frameworks and interactives to support the building of connections with your peers and teams. Participants will:

Learn the elements of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
Reflect on ways to embed SEL within UCOP competencies at work

Participants must attend both sessions from 10am-12pm PT on October 23 and 31 to receive credit for the course.

Influence Without Authority: Leadership as an Individual Contributor

Online : Thursday, October 24, 10:00 - 11:30am

How can ICs take ownership of their career growth, leverage their knowledge and skills, and make an impact without climbing the ladder? In this workshop we’ll dive into the leadership skills all “rockstars” need to become influential contributors: building trusting workplace relationships, managing up, carving out a niche area of expertise, and connecting the dots from your role to the organizational mission.

Attendees will:

Gain insight into their unique position of influence within the organization.
Explore the leadership skills of relationship building, managing up, honing expertise, and aligning work to the organizational mission.
Identify one skill they want to strategically focus on for the next month.

Additional session available on Thursday, November 7 from 1-2:30pm.

UCOP Learning and Development Cohort Opportunities Overview

Online : Friday, October 25, 11:00 - 11:45am

Whether you’re an individual contributor early in your career or a seasoned manager with years of experience, it’s always the right time to continue developing your professional skills. Join us at this info session to learn more about the various learning and development cohorts that will be offered in 2025. In the first 30 minutes, we will review each of the programs, their purpose, and intended audience and close out with 15mins Q&A. Participants will leave having identified the opportunity that best meets their professional goals.

Additional Sessions:

Thursday, October 31 | 9 – 9:45am
Wednesday, November 6 | 2 – 2:45pm

Smartsheet Fundamentals

Online : Tuesday, October 29, 9:00am - 12:00pm

Smartsheet Fundamentals is for users who wish to gain a foundational understanding of the Smartsheet collaborative environment and learn how it can be used to track processes and projects and to create reports and dashboards for different audiences.

Class curriculum includes:

Create a Project
Create a Grid
Create a Report
Create customized dashboards generated from projects, grids, and reports
Do easy math to discover data insights and share those insights
And more!

GROWing your Check In Conversations for Managers

Online : Tuesday, October 29, 10:00am - 12:00pm

GROW is a popular coaching framework used around the world for problem solving, goal setting and performance improvement. This interactive session provides managers the opportunity to discuss and practice using the GROW framework as a strategy and tool to support engaging STEP checkpoint conversations. GROW is a simple meeting structure that supports a growth and development stance in employee-manager coaching and feedback conversations.

Self Care in the Workplace

Online : Friday, November 1, 10:00am - 12:00pm

Successful employees have an array of unique skills, talents, personalities, and passions. One thing many of them have in common is self care. In the last few years, the term self care has become common, with little attention on its importance not just for self, but also for healthy teams. Adapting the necessary tools of self care improves emotional, cognitive, and spiritual capacity, while offering the opportunity for connection and thoughtful partnership. Creating the spaces and opportunities to care for yourselves opens the possibility of sustainability, longevity, and healthy personal and team dynamics. In this course we will identify the different components of self care, identify key attributes of each component, highlight self care specific for leaders, and create a plan for better self care.

Excel Power BI

Online : Wednesday, November 6, 9:00am - 12:00pm

In this 3-session course, users will learn about and practice using Power BI. Users will learn how to: Connect to data sources. Perform data cleaning, profiling, and shaping. Visualize data with Power BI. Create interactive visualizations. Enhance reports and dashboards. Publish and share reports and dashboards.

*Participants must attend all 3 sessions from 9am-12pm on Thursday, November 6,13, and 20 to receive credit for the course.

GROW Plus: Accountability Conversations for Managers

Online: Wednesday, November 6, 9:30am - 12:00pm

GROW Plus: Accountability Conversations for Managers is the second part in the required live training series on manager and employee performance conversations. This training answers the question: What do I do when my coaching is not improving performance? In this virtual, live, and highly interactive workshop, we will cover: providing productive critical feedback, managing emotions, creating efficient documentation, and holding effective accountability conversations. Managers will also practice having role Accountability Conversations using the UCOP GROW Plus framework. This training is part of the STEP training plan developed by the STEP workgroup made up of people from all divisions. The previous STEP trainings are all prerequisites to this training.

Additional sessions from 9:30am-12pm Pt:

Tuesday, November 19

PowerPoint Techniques

Online : Tuesday, November 12, 10:00 - 11:30am

In this session, you will learn powerful techniques that can help save significant time, better manipulate and format presentations, convey information in a compelling way, and collaborate with others more effectively.

Psychological Safety

Online : Thursday, November 14, 1:00 - 3:00pm

Research shows that a culture of psychological safety is the #1 determinant of team success, beating out average team tenure and IQ. But what is psychological safety, and what power do we have to influence the working conditions of our teams? Join us in this workshop designed for managers as we:

Define the benefits of building a culture of psychological safety on your team.
Explore the 4 Stages of Psychological Safety and the behaviors associated with each.
Assess your current team culture and behaviors that contribute to or reduce psychological safety.
Engage with the BICEPS framework for keeping a pulse on psychological safety on an individual level.

Box Fundamentals

Online : Wednesday, November 20, 11:00am - 12:00pm

This course will give you an overview of Box, the cloud-based service that provides secure file storage and file sharing.

How to use Box
How to collaborate with UCOP and non-UCOP people
Commenting directly on files, folder permissions, shared links, and many other tips that will help you when using Box.

Administrators from IT will be on hand to answer your questions and review the best features of Box. More info on Box can always be accessed in this webpage.

The Science of Managing Stress

Online : Wednesday, November 20, 1:00 - 2:00pm

Job stress can be all-consuming — but it doesn’t have to be. Find ways to identify your triggers, keep perspective, learn helpful strategies, and know when to seek help.

Additional Classes

UCSB Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification Training

Online: , Register for UCSB Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification Training on

This certificate course will be facilitated UCSB Lean Six Sigma instructors at no cost to participants. Each cohort will consist of 3- four hour sessions with hands on practice, project simulations, and intersession homework. Attendance at all 3 sessions is mandatory for course completion. At the end of the cohort, Participants will receive a Yellow Belt certificate of completion.

To register login to the UC Learning Center and type UCSB Lean Six Sigma into the search bar at the top right of your screen.

Using the UC Learning Center

Registration: Log in to the UC Learning Center using your UCOP login and password. In the Search box on the left, enter the name of the class you want. Select the session you want, then select the Register box and Submit.

Cancellation: You can cancel your registration through the UC Learning Center. We ask that you cancel 48 hours before the scheduled class time so that others may sign up, or contact the Learning & Development Team.

If you require any assistance or accommodation with finding, registering or attending a class please email the Learning & Development Team.