Quarterly Learning and Development Programs
Hands On is a global boutique learning and organizational development firm. With over 20 consecutive years in business, we work with you and your organization to harness and maximize your talent.
Search our learning programs by category. Click on the category to be taken to the full list of programs offered this quarter.
Business Skills
Technical Skills
Communication Skills
Influencing Skills
Personal / Professional Development
Leading Others
Business Skills
Agile & Design Thinking (3 hours)
This is an advanced program. Design Thinking is a key framework that helps us think through new strategies, products, services, and ways of working in a creative, customer-centric manner. Agile Methodology has been used for years by high tech organizations to streamline and expedite operations and execution. Today, many other industries have adopted Agile and Design Thinking to improve their strategies, operations and execution. This program is running on 12 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Budget & Resource Management (3 hours)
If you are responsible for planning or managing a budget and/or planning and managing longer-term resource allocation, this program is great to help you understand the different techniques in budgeting and resource planning. This program is running on 27 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Business Process & Continuous Improvement (3 hours)
This program is mainly geared toward mid- and senior leaders who lead a function or department and have the opportunity to continuously improve efficiencies and operational excellence. This program is also great for anyone responsible for cross-functional business processes or who is interested in learning more about process engineering and continuous improvement. This program is running on 25 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Finance for Non-Finance Managers (3 hours)
If you are not in Finance and are keen to learn about foundational financial processes and tools that underpin business, this program will give you great context into how business finances work, and the role that we can all play in ensuring sound fiscal management of our organizations. This program is running on 11 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Ideation and Innovation (3 hours)
Learn about the difference yet connected nature of ideation and innovation. Learn how to structure and run ideation sessions to generate ideas and opportunities to innovate in your area of the organization. This program is running on 25 March at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Interviewing Skills (3 hours)
This program is great for anyone involved in interviewing, as it will help to ensure your interviews are structured to garner the information you need to recommend the best hiring decision for candidates and our organization. This program is running on 28 January or 27 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Leading Projects (3 hours)
This program is great for anyone who is not certified in Project Management. This program will help you better plan for and lead projects for optimal project engagement and execution. This program is running on 16 January or 20 February both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Managing through Change (3 hours)
Change in any organization is to be expected. If you are leading an initiative or project that requires change management, such as communicating and educating others on the change, this program will help you understand how to incorporate change management best practices into your work. This program is running on 19 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Personal Time Mastery (2.5 hours)
Advance your time management capabilities and effectiveness by targeting specific areas that enable you to work toward time mastery, such as balancing work versus personal life, developing habits that increase productivity while maximizing time, and more. This program is running on 23 January or 13 March both days at 12:30PM to 3PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12PM Pacific.
Risk Management (3 hours)
Risk management is among the critical capabilities growing and mature organizations develop and hone over time to ensure the organization’s readiness to effectively and efficiently manage different scenarios that can arise (foreseen and unforeseen) in business operations. Whether you lead a large function, a small department or team, a key project, or just generally want to learn about best practice risk mitigation and management, you’ll be exposed to different practices and models to help you play your role in managing your organization’s risks. This program is running on 20 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Root Cause Analysis (3 hours)
Learn the importance of Root Cause Analysis and how it is used in organizations for more robust problem-solving. Learn how to map problems to arrive at root cause analysis. This program is running on 27 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Scaling the Organization (3 hours)
This program is mostly aimed at mid- to senior leaders who are responsible for a function or department. The program will help leaders understand how to grow and scale their function or department as their overall organization continues to grow and evolve. You should only attend this program if you are at associate director level or above. This program is running on 26 February at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Strategic Planning (3 hours)
This is an advanced program. This program will help you understand the difference between strategy and strategic planning, but more importantly the program will give you key models to consider when building strategy and then developing and executing a strategic plan that enables your strategy to be achieved. This program is running on 23 January or 6 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Back to top
Technical Skills
Drug Development 101 (3 hours)
If you are not in a Science or Development role, this program will help you understand the broader context of Life Sciences’ drug discovery and development, which is important context for all colleagues who work in Life Sciences, as it will help you understand some of the primary functions of our business. This program is running on 6 February or 6 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Drug Safety (3 hours)
Everyone plays a role in drug safety from Phase I clinical trials onwards. Learn how Drug Safety works and also more about Pharmacovigilance. This program is running on 11 March at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
GxP (3 hours)
The Life Sciences and adjacent industries are governed by good, consistent practices. Learn what these are – the full range, organizational requirements and also some of the regulatory reporting requirements. This program is running on 12 February or 13 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Healthcare Economics (3 hours)
Learn the fundamentals of health economics and the role this field / function play in the biopharma industry. This program is running on 5 March at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Preparing for IND (2 x 2 hours one week apart)
Learn the fundamental requirements for a successful IND, including best practices and common challenges and pitfalls. This program is running on 30 January or 4 March both days at 12:30PM to 2:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 11:30AM Pacific.
Preparing for Phase 2 (3 hours)
Learn how to transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 clinical trial – what’s typically required to be successful and common challenges and pitfalls. This program is running on 5 February or 6 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Regulatory Affairs 101 (3 hours)
If you’re *not* in Regulatory Affairs, or brand new to the function, and want to learn more about the fundamentals of how Regulatory Affairs operates, including FDA requirements and various regulatory milestones during product development and product lifecycle management for life sciences, this program is a great foundation. It will also be facilitated by a former Regulatory Affairs executive leader. This program is running on 30 January at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Back to top
Communication Skills
Giving & Receiving Feedback (2.5 hours)
This program is great for all colleagues who want to improve their abilities to give good feedback as well as receive feedback in a constructive and productive manner. Feedback is constant; it’s how we give it, receive it, and process it, that makes all the difference. This program is running on 22 January or 13 February both days at 12:30PM to 3PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12PM Pacific.
Navigating Difficult Conversations (2.5 hours)
This program will help you learn how to approach more challenging conversations with greater ease, comfort, and confidence. This program is running on 28 January or 28 February both days at 12:30PM to 3PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12PM Pacific.
Presenting Technical Information (2 x 1.5 hours one week apart)
This program will help you learn how to better structure and present technical information – whatever your technical area of expertise. This program is running on 4 February or 5 March both days at 12:30PM to 2PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 11AM Pacific.
Storytelling (2 x 2 hours sessions one week apart)
This program is an alternative to Presenting Technical Information if you are interested in focusing purely on storytelling as a powerful technique in communicating with others, including using storytelling in presentations. It is not recommended that you attend both Presenting Technical Information and Storytelling programs, as there are certain overlaps of information in both of these programs. This program is running on 22 January or 3 March both days at 12:30PM to 2:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 11:30AM Pacific.
Back to top
Influencing Skills
Executive Presence (2.5 hours)
This program is great if you want to enhance your capabilities and confidence when interacting, communicating with or presenting to senior management. This program is running on 21 January or 19 February both days at 12:30PM to 3PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12PM Pacific.
Influencing & Stakeholder Management (3 hours)
We all have stakeholders and we all influence all of the time. This program will help you enhance your influencing and stakeholder management skills. This program is running on 27 February or 31 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Back to top
Personal / Professional Development
Career Development (2.5 hours)
Learn tips and techniques to identify your career interests, strengths and developmental areas, while creating more robust career and development plans for your own career advancement. This program is running on 24 January at 12:30PM to 3:00PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:00PM Pacific.
Managing Stress (2.5 hours)
Learn different ways to better manage stress, including using learned optimism. This program is running on 5 February or 5 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:00PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:00PM Pacific.
Back to top
Leading Others
Being a Leader (3 hours)
Advance your foundational understanding and capabilities for leading others, whether you’re a formal people leader or a project team leader. Through this program, you will learn several foundational practices of great leaders that will help you accelerate and advance your capabilities when leading others. (Note: if you’ve previously attended our Managing Others program, Being a Leader will advance your knowledge and capabilities, so this is a great follow-on from Managing Others, though prior attendance in Managing Others is not required.) This program is running on 7 February or 25 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Creating a Strong Team Culture (3 hours)
Learn how to enhance the culture of your team, which in turn increases team member engagement, commitment, and satisfaction, while getting the whole team moving in a shared direction. This program is running on 21 January or 25 February both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Delegating & Empowering Others (3 hours)
This program is designed for people and/or project team leaders. This program will help you build on foundational leadership skills to improve how you delegate, motivate and empower others. This program is geared toward both new and experienced people leaders. This program is running on 27 January or 24 March both days at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Developing Others (3 hours)
Learn how to develop your team members by understanding their development needs and aligning development opportunities while coaching to enhance their engagement, performance, and overall satisfaction at work. We do not recommend this program, if you’ve already taken Hands On’s Coaching program, unless you would like a refresher on this, as there is overlap. This program is running on 28 January at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Explicit Expectations – Part One (2 x 2 hours one week apart)
Learn advanced techniques in managing others and creating and sustaining clear expectations for performance, productivity, and more. This program is running on 4 and 11 February from 12:30PM to 2:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 11:30AM Pacific.
Managing Others (2 x 2 hours one week apart)
If you’re new to managing other people, this is a great foundational leadership program where you’ll learn a number of practices for effective management of other colleagues. This program is also great for experienced people managers who were never trained in foundational leadership practices or would simply like a refresh on these practices. This program is running on 29 January at 12:30PM to 2:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 11:30AM Pacific.
Mentoring (3 hours)
Learn about best practice tips and techniques and gain access to great tools to support a robust mentoring relationship – whether you’re the mentor or mentee. This program is running on 20 March at 12:30PM to 3:30PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12:30PM Pacific.
Setting Goals & Expectations (2.5 hours)
The importance of clear and specific goals and expectations cannot be overstated, as this is how we get our team members on the path toward working on the right things, at the right time, and in the right ways. As a people manager / leader, it’s always useful to learn new techniques or reinforce existing techniques to ensure you’re helping your team and organization focus on meaningful work, while setting your team members up for success. This program is running on 15 January or 26 February both days at 12:30PM to 3PM Eastern / 9:30AM to 12PM Pacific.
Back to top