Equipping employees for success requires starting on strong footing with an organized onboarding plan and making continuous growth a priority for both the employee and the organization. We will share our experiences, lessons learned, and how professional development can be scaled to libraries of any size.

A few years ago Salt Lake County looked at what we were doing to help grow our employees for future leadership roles and recognized a need for a more formal program. A leadership development program was created, of which mentoring was a key part. Over the past three years we've seen what a critical part mentoring plays in helping employees grow and develop new skills, especially in a leadership development program. We'll be covering the benefits of mentoring for staff, good guidelines for mentoring interactions (formal and informal), and offering a look at how we structured mentoring within the framework of our own leadership development program.

We will provide a clear understanding of what experiential learning is through an experiential learning framework that has been successful at our institution. We will offer practical real-life stories and have table and partner discussion as we deliver each step of the framework. The session will demonstrate how implementing experiential learning can give time back, can teach us how to delegate more to employees and empower them in ways that will further their growth. Attendees will learn how to implement this framework at their library.

Who are you as a leader? What impact do you hope to have? These are some of the initial questions every good leader asks. Effective leadership is not confined to formal positions of authority and emerges from any level. Come learn about the differences between being a leader and a manager, using self-awareness as a foundation for success. Communication and community building are essential tools to effectively lead and manage onsite, hybrid, and remote teams. Informal leaders often emerge from unexpected sources, and can significantly impact an organization. Participants will leave with actionable insights and a renewed understanding of their potential to lead and inspire, regardless of their position within the library hierarchy.

Daily decisions and problem solving creates stress. We have latitude in spending our budgets, but not in creating them. We have amazing patrons and staff, but there is always the possibility of conflict. Our daily decisions and priorities can be questioned at any time by almost anyone. Steve Decker has been making library decisions for over 30 years. He hasn't seen it all. Nobody has. But he has learned about what can be "fixed" and what cannot. Join Steve for some insights about What You Can Fix - Don't Stress the Rest.