Content Information
PDS is continually exploring opportunities to enhance our current offerings and identify additional opportunities for state employees. Our FY27 catalog includes targeted programs designed to strengthen core competencies, develop leadership skills, and upskill employees. While browsing this year’s catalog, you will notice several familiar topics have been reimagined with fresh titles and updated content. Check out our new and updated offerings available now, and courses coming this fiscal year.
List items for Newly Added
This course is designed for team leaders and focuses on building both a sense of camaraderie and a results-driven team. Participants will explore strategies to foster engagement, develop a shared vision, and strengthen collaboration. Through practical insights and tools, leaders will learn how to shape a high-functioning team that works toward common goals with clarity and accountability.
Enrollment information coming soon.
This course helps participants identify and understand sources of stress, along with the science behind it. They will explore how some stress can be beneficial and necessary for productivity. The session also covers strategies for coping, recognizing overload, and improving self-management.
Enrollment information coming soon.
This interactive course helps participants understand the importance of making a strong professional impression in the workplace. Through exploration of key success factors like proactivity, accountability, cooperation, and attitude, participants will assess their current strengths and areas for growth. They will develop a practical action plan to enhance their professional image and align their behaviors with personal and organizational goals. This course is ideal for employees seeking to strengthen workplace relationships and represent their agency with professionalism.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Today’s workplace spans up to five generations, bringing diverse experiences, expectations, and communication styles. This two-hour course helps managers lead across generational differences without relying on stereotypes or creating legal risk. Participants will learn practical strategies to improve communication, foster trust, and apply flexibility fairly, while understanding what employment law actually says about age and protected classes. The focus is on building unity, engagement, and performance across all ages.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Transform differences into strengths. Crucial Teams is designed to turn team differences from a source of friction into a source of strength. This course is based on the Strength Deployment Inventory® (SDI), a workplace personality assessment that helps you gain greater awareness of how you approach work and relate to others.
What is included: In this session, you and your teammates will complete the SDI assessment and receive a personalized report detailing the unique motives and strengths you bring to the workplace. Together, you will:
- Discover what drives your work individually.
- Gain a greater appreciation for one another’s styles.
- Learn practical skills to improve collaboration and communication.
Cost: $350 per participant
Schedule Your Team: To bring this training to your team, please contact PDS at pds@iowa.gov.
Now 1/2 day course!
Designed for all state employees, this course equips participants with practical skills to become more effective team members. Through discussion and strategy-based learning, participants will explore what makes teams successful, how to engage others, and how to positively contribute to both current and future teams.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Excellence in Public Service equips public sector employees with the skills, mindset, and tools to deliver high-quality, citizen-centered service. The course reinforces core public service values—integrity, accountability, respect, and responsiveness—while helping participants navigate real-world challenges. Through practical strategies and structured approaches, attendees learn how to communicate effectively in challenging situations and apply fair, professional approaches to resolving issues. The training emphasizes using these skills in everyday interactions to support consistent, respectful, and responsive service.
This course is designed managers, department heads, program administrators, and emerging leaders responsible for budget planning, oversight, or implementation.
Equip yourself with foundational knowledge and practical competencies in governmental budgeting. Examine how budgeting translates policy priorities into fiscal reality while ensuring accountability, transparency, and effective resource stewardship within Iowa state government.
Public service employees are regularly asked to solve problems, adapt to change, and work within policies, procedures, and limited resources while maintaining accountability and public trust. In this context, creativity is not about artistic talent—it is a practical skill that supports clear thinking, adaptability, and effective problem solving. This course helps participants move from ideas to actionable solutions by introducing structured approaches to creative thinking and problem solving. Participants will explore what creativity and problem-solving mean in a work setting, examine common misconceptions, and learn how different thinking and problem-solving styles influence outcomes.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Designed for new managers and supervisors, this course explores ethical leadership and influence, organizational ethics, and the development of a politically savvy organization. Participants will examine their own ethical awareness and approach to leadership, with a focus on integrity and influence in the workplace.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Now on-demand!
Unnecessary and unproductive meetings waste significant time in the workplace. Yet we all rely on meetings to communicate and collaborate with our teams, coworkers, and clients regularly. This course provides a guide to effective meetings. As a meeting facilitator, you’ll learn about your role and responsibilities, including how to create a meeting agenda, encourage equal participation, keep a meeting on topic, manage conflict in meetings, and develop follow-up plans and meeting summaries.
This interactive course helps public service employees strengthen problem-solving and collaboration by learning how to intentionally shift their thinking. Using a “hat” approach, participants examine everyday public-sector work challenges—such as balancing policy, service delivery, compliance, and stakeholder needs—through different lenses. Through hands-on activities and realistic scenarios, employees practice changing hats to reduce assumptions, improve decisions, and work more effectively across roles and perspectives. The focus is on practical tools participants can apply immediately to see the work differently while supporting fairness, accountability, and public trust.
Enrollment information coming soon.
Strategic thinking helps leaders apply critical thinking to solve complex problems and plan for the future. These skills are essential for navigating organizational change, addressing long-term challenges, and achieving results within real-world constraints.
Participants will explore the differences between strategic thinking, critical thinking, and systems thinking, and learn when each approach is most effective. Through guided practice and real-world examples, managers will apply structured thinking models and conduct a basic SWOT analysis to assess workplace challenges. The course emphasizes practical application, enabling participants to move beyond reactive problem-solving toward more intentional, forward-focused decision-making.
Enrollment information coming soon.
This class includes an individual strengths inventory, coupled with a 3 hour live virtual session.
Relationships are crucial to an individual's wellbeing and performance at work. As a part of the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) training, you will complete the assessment and receive your results prior to the class. In the training session you will learn how to utilize the SDI dashboard and measure your core motives, how you experience conflict, the personal strengths you use most productively, and the strengths you sometimes overuse. At the conclusion of the class, participants will have a better understanding of how they experience conflict to help improve relationships and results one interaction at a time.
Now offered as a free course and facilitated by PDS!
Designed for new managers and supervisors, this blended learning course builds essential leadership skills by combining foundational theory with interactive practice. Participants begin with a self-paced, on-demand module that establishes a core understanding of the supervisory role, including key leadership principles, methods for motivating employees, and the mechanics of effective delegation. Following this foundational work, participants join a facilitated live workshop dedicated to real-world application. This interactive session uses group discussions and practical scenarios to sharpen critical skills in feedback, coaching, and conflict management. By moving conceptual learning to a self-paced format, the live session time is dedicated entirely to high-impact skill-building and peer collaboration.
Designed for experienced leaders and managers, this course offers a clear, step-by-step approach to guiding employees through organizational change. Participants will explore the four key areas of the change process and learn practical methods to support their teams effectively and empathetically.
Enrollment information coming soon.