The information on this web site was very informative and exactly what I was looking for. I was able to see each days lessons and apply the information to what I needed to learn. Thank you!! It was great! :-)

~ Wendy McMahon
Melco Industries Inc

I just wanted to pass along my praise for your e-documents available for download. The price is fairly reasonable and they are helpful little tip booklets, including the one on performance and PowerPoint best practices, both of which I purchased. People are often busy and need short, easily accessible materials to help them learn and apply information on the job. Americans often call those "job aids."

As well, your performance booklet was "spot on" and alluded to the key factors in individual performance, based on Thomas Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model and Douglas McGregor's Theory X. I have a Master's in Human Performance Technology from the US, so I applaud you for that. Keep in mind, that there are also organizational or systemic factors at work that can prevent an individual from performing as they need to or want to. Of course, wider organizational issues affecting performance are a lot more difficult and expensive to correct.

Keep up the great document production!

~ Karen Carleton
Learning and Development Coordinator
Advocacy and Community Services
Alberta Motor Association

Just a quick email to say 'thank you' for yesterday's Teleseminar - 13 Ways to Deal with Bullying at Work.

I found it very useful and really enjoyable.

Kind regards

~ Andrew Bailey
GCDA

Hi, I've have just finished reading Nancy's book 'Difficult People Made Easy' which I found fascinating! I know some of the information from here will help me with a particularly difficult person in my organisation, I am reflecting on our interactions up to this point and revising my approach with some fresh ideas from the book.

A link to your site was sent to me by a colleague in HR and I have found the site and information available amazing, also the service I received when ordering some books - I ordered them mid-afternoon Friday 5th Feb and received them in the post on Saturday morning (6th).

Thank You

~ Julie Batson

Thank you for all the excellent and valuableinformation you have given me.

~ Andrew Smith
Etihad Airways

Thank you so much for such a terrific, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable session. All the feedback has been extremely and exceptionally positive. You were awesome and greatly appreciated by us all.

Your name will be advertised and recommended on all future invitations as a 'CAPD Presenter' and on the forthcoming CAPD web site. We shall certainly recommend you to any interested CAPD members and we wish you every good luck and success for the future.

Kindest regards

~ Alan Margolis
Founder & Co-Chair of The Corporate Association for Professional Development

I can honestly say that Grapevine is the one newsletter that I always read and frequently refer to. The newsletters are full of common sense, practical advice and interesting anecdotes - a pleasure to read and very easily applied in the workplace.

~ Christine Chalk
Operations Director
Moore Blatch Solicitors

I have really appreciated all of your very useful items over the time I have been a subscriber - always very practical, relevant issues dealt with with the utmost common sense.

Thank You.

~ Anne Lasckey

Your advice on writing objectives was really useful – I now whiz through a task that I used to agonize hours over!

~ Joanne Conaty
Sr Director, Clinical Strategy & Planning
AstraZeneca

Hi Nancy,
Just wanted to thank you for a very interesting teleseminar. I’d previously purchased the booklet which I read with interest and subsequently passed to certain members of staff to read. The teleseminar reinforced the contents very clearly.

I strongly believe the key to an effective workforce is objective setting, clear responsibilities and being consistent with all staff – if you have those three elements in place it’s much easier. We’re a business that’s grown rapidly from two members of staff to seven in five short, or so it seems, years. Finding clear information on dealing with employees can be a struggle so I’m extremely glad that I came across your website and services.

Keep up the good work!

Kind Regards,

~ Diane Styles
Accounts Manager
www.lightingstyles.co.uk
Lighting Styles Ltd

Thank You Nancy, that was very good. I think I'll sign my team up for your next time management seminar.

Kind regards,

~ Miss Alex Enness
Office Manager
E.ON Ruhrgas UK North Sea Ltd.

Vinehouse HR Services

'Nancy wrote a booklet for us to help our managers use our feedback and coaching tool. The feedback has been phenomenal. People have seen one and then said they would like some for their team. Originally we got 5000 printed thinking this would be enough and give us some spare, but now we’ve completely run out and are having to have more printed.'

Ian Schreeve

Management Development

B&Q

These are the main services we offer at Vinehouse. To find out more, just click on the links.

Writing HR Material

Objectives and Measuring Employee Performance

Performance improvement consultancy, coaching and workshops

Speaking Engagements

Writing HR Material for You

Nancy Slessenger will

Modify our material to suit your processes
Add in examples from your own organisation
Write material specifially for you

We will ensure whatever material we provide for you

Fits with your current material
Is aligned with your branding
Refers to your processes, forms and systems

We have worked with many organisations producing material to help them carry out training, implement new systems and get information to employees.

We specialise in designing material that is short, concise and easy to understand. If you'd like to talk to us about your needs, call us on 01483 811418.

Writing Objectives and Measuring Employee Performance

Nancy Slessenger will write your objectives for you or help you to do it. Yes, it's true. Most of our clients hate writing objectives. Do you? So we have found a way to make the process not only quick and easy, but also much more effective than before. Nancy will work with you and your people to produce a pick list of standard objectives which you can pick from and modify to suit each individual and their situation. Or Nancy will train you how to write them, or she will work with your top team to get theirs right.

Nancy will write performance definitions for you or help you to do it. Many organisations now use categories like 'not met' 'met' 'exceeded' and 'distinguished' to categorise performance at the end of the year. Often they find it hard to make these judgements consistent. We will help you to get that right. And if you like, Nancy will do it for you, making sure you have a set of definitions that mean your managers can assess performance and your people are clear what each level means and why their performance has been categorised as it has.

We offer these services in several different formats:

We can write objectives and performance definitions for you, starting with the material you already have and in conjunction with you and your people
We can train people through workshops to write their objectives
We can coach individuals through writing objectives

Our most popular service:

We work with the top team and get their objectives right. We do all the leg-work, sending through the drafts for their approval and comments.
We work with a few people in each job and produce objectives templates for each job that people can pick from and modify to suit.
We present these at a workshop.

Performance improvement consultancy, coaching and workshops

Are these areas where you would like some help?

Our purpose is to help you improve your performance or the performance of others. The key areas we can help you with are:

Improving underperformance. Many organisations have people who are just not producing what they should. Where do you start? How do you get their output up and the problems down? We help you to do just that.

Giving Feedback. Giving feedback effectively can improve performance by up to 39%. How would that help you and your organisation? Most people either don't do it or do it in a way that actually reduces performance.

Dealing with difficult behaviours. Sometimes problems are more around the way people do things, rather than what they achieve. (Of course it can be both.) We help you to deal effectively with all kinds of behaviour problems from bullying to negativity and just plain awkward.

Time Management. Too much to do and not enough time to do it? Too many people making too many demands on your time? Not enough hours in the day? Stressed to breaking point? We help you to solve those problems with straightforward, easy to implement strategies and techniques.

Confidence. Is it that you just need more confidence but don't know where to get it? We do and we can help you to develop it yourself.

Recruitment. Have you recruited people that just didn't work out? Would you like to know how to gather the information you need in order to make effective recruitment decisions? Would you like some easy ways to get it right more of the time? We can help you with all of those.

How to make the most of your training budget. How many of us have infinite training budgets? Would you like to get more out of yours? We can show you how and help you to make improvements that will get more from what you are already doing.

We can do any of this as consultancy, coaching you to do it yourself or by designing and running workshops to train you and your people. Most often we use a combination of techniques to give you the best result.

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Speaking Engagements

Nancy gives talks, presentations and workshops for professional associations and at corporate conferences.

Performance management

How to make the most of performance management and get what you need out of it

Objectives

What they are, how to write them and when to use them

Your Brain

The secrets of keeping your brain going till you are 100. What to stop doing and what to start doing.

Difficult Behaviours

How to deal with those annoying people who make your life more difficult than it needs to be

Usually Nancy presents to groups of managers and HR professionals. Her talks are highly interactive, thought-provoking and fun, even when dealing with apparently boring topics, such as objective-setting. They are packed with practical tools that people can use immediately. Each talk is designed with the specific audience in mind and she is always happy to talk to some of them before hand to make sure their needs will be met.

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The Quick Guide to Dealing with Difficult People

Attendance Management Tips and Techniques

How to Create PowerPoint Presentations that Work