Workforce Durability Skills | OSU Continuing Education

Build the skills that help employees adapt, communicate, collaborate, and grow.

Today’s workplaces are changing rapidly.

New technologies, evolving job responsibilities, shifting priorities, and changing workforce expectations require employees to continuously learn and adapt.

Workforce Durability Skills is a fully online, self-paced professional development program to help employees develop the essential workplace skills needed to succeed across roles, industries, and career stages.

Drawing upon the Oregon Employability Skills framework, this program focuses on the durable, transferable skills that employers consistently identify as critical for workplace success.

You will explore practical strategies for navigating change, communicating effectively, collaborating with others, solving problems, and taking ownership of your professional growth.

Who Should Enroll?

This course is designed for:

Early-career professionals
New employees and onboarding cohorts
Employees preparing for increased responsibility
Workforce development participants
Organizations seeking consistent, high-quality professional skills training
Supervisors looking to support employee growth and development

What You Will Experience

Each self-paced module combines:

Real-world workplace scenarios
Short videos and interactive activities
Guided reflection exercises
Practical workplace applications
Personal action planning

You are encouraged to connect course concepts directly to your own work experiences, making the learning immediately relevant and applicable on the job.

Course Topics

Current and planned modules include:

Professionalism
Adaptability
Accountability (coming soon...)
Collaboration (coming soon...)
Communication (coming soon...)
Diversity and Awareness (coming soon...)

Each module is designed to be completed independently and requires approximately one hour to complete.

What Makes This Program Different?

Many online professional development courses end when the learner finishes the module.

Workforce Durability Skills is designed to extend learning beyond the course and into the workplace.

Throughout the program, you complete guided reflections and develop short, practical action plans related to each skill area. At the conclusion of every module, you can download your responses and use them to guide conversations with your supervisor.

Included: Supervisor Companion Course Support

In addition to the learner course, organizations receive access to a dedicated Supervisor Companion Course Support.

The companion course support equips supervisors with tools to reinforce learning and support employee development through:

Coaching and discussion prompts
Practical workplace application strategies
Reflection and goal-setting activities
Suggestions for supporting ongoing growth and accountability

Together, these courses create a shared language around workplace expectations and professional development.

From Learning to Workplace Growth

By combining self-paced learning, employee action planning, and supervisor engagement, Workforce Durability Skills transforms online training into an ongoing workplace development experience.

You'll leave the program with:

Greater self-awareness
Clear professional development goals
Practical strategies for strengthening workplace skills
Action plans you can immediately apply on the job

Organizations benefit from employees who are better prepared to:

Navigate change
Communicate professionally
Collaborate effectively
Respond constructively to feedback
Solve problems
Take initiative and support team success

Ready to Strengthen Your Workforce?

Whether you are an individual learner seeking to advance your career or an organization looking to invest in employee development, Workforce Durability Skills provides practical, workplace-centered learning designed to support long-term success.

Coming soon!

Online

Free

Request More Information

Instructors

Patrick Kelley

Director of Professional and Continuing Education, Oregon State University

Patrick Kelley has 10 years of university teaching experience in areas of Management and Organizational Leadership, Organizational Theory and Design, and Professional Assessment. Patrick draws on his 15 years of team management experience leading high performing sales and marketing teams to bring real-world examples of leadership in action. He is passionate about using leadership theory and interpersonal dynamics to improve an organization’s impact on their customers, create new revenue, and drive innovative solutions.

Samantha Irwin

Samantha has amassed over 30 years of experience in leadership, from teaching in a classroom to private business ownership. Her experience has uniquely positioned her to empower, educate, and support business leaders as well as their front-line customer service staff.

Inspiring and educating teams to create exceptional Customer Experiences that foster loyalty and advocacy, driving financial success is, at its core, about empowering and retaining great people.

She brings real world experience (the wins and cringy moments) to workshops, teaching leaders and empowering teams to make their establishments preferred workplaces and favored customer destinations.

Past Students' Work

Take a look at some recent projects our students have created.