The village of Oak Park and Triton College are collaborating on a free, four-session masterclass for frontline employees in the Oak Park area.
Oak Park assistant village manager of economic vitality John Melaniphy said the idea for the classes came after speaking to Oak Park businesses about how to work together to tackle workforce issues in the village.
“This program will help to train frontline employees, will reduce employee turnover and assist those businesses in enhancing, not only their customer service, but their operations as well as their sales productivity,” Melaniphy said.
Frontline employees typically are the ones who are in direct communications with customers and handle day-to-day tasks in a business, typically retail stores.
Oak Park Workforce Academy, a free four-week program designed to help frontline employees at Oak Park businesses with their communication skills put together by Oak Park’s Office of Economic Vitality and Triton College’s School of Continuing Education’s Center for Business and Professional Development.
The sessions will be 2- 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays from July 14 to Aug. 4 at Oak Park’s Office of Economic Vitality, 1010 Lake Street, Suite 100. The four sessions will cover topics including building customer relationships, service and sales, managing conflicts and thinking on your feet like a team leader.
Class leaders will offer tips on how to handle situations such as maintaining composure while dealing with aggressive customers, learning how to make better experiences for customers, and learning how to make positive first impressions and turning new customers into repeat customers.
Officials said class sizes will be limited to 8 to 10 people at each session for a more intimate and hands-on experience. Those intending to attend are encouraged to sign up, though priority registration is given to businesses in Oak Park’s Hemingway Business District.
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Melaniphy has been in his position for about a year and one of the goals of his is to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders in working towards a shared goal of tackling some of the workforce issues in Oak Park, while enhancing their customer service operations and their sales productivity, he said.
The four sessions were created by administrators at both the village and at Triton and will be taught by Frances Vera, a contracted teacher at the college and an entrepreneur.
Shelly Ng, the manager of corporate partnerships for Triton College, said she’s looking forward to bringing the village and school communities together.
Frontline employees are the backbone of Oak Park’s economy, Ng said, and the upcoming sessions will be a way to solve some of the issues she’s heard small businesses are facing.
The village is funding the training and the location was chosen so workers could engage in the program for 90 minutes and then go back to work and apply what they just learned, Ng said.
“I have been having a lot of conversations with retail businesses hoping for training of this kind for their employees,” Ng said. “Oftentimes small businesses don’t have the resources to have onboarding for their new employees or continuing education for their employees, there’s no such thing for a mom and pop business. But this is really solving their problem.”