TasTAFE courses are supporting emotional intelligence and relationship skills in the workplace
Published on: 15 Dec 2025
TasTAFE Digital and Business Teacher Trish Davies in off-site teaching mode recently.
Today’s workplaces are heavily reliant on digital communication – and with increased screen-time at work, at home and everywhere in between, how can we stay in touch with the essential skills of human interaction?
TasTAFE is reinforcing these human skills with 2 new short courses – Elevate your Emotional Intelligence and Difficult Conversations and Relationships – upskilling employees, prospective leaders, supervisors and managers who want to excel in workplace relations.
TasTAFE Digital and Business Teacher Trish Davies – with great support from Digital and Business Education Manager Troy Anning – designed these 2 courses, drawing on her experience in the international business and business education space. Trish delivered both courses throughout 2025 and will continue in 2026.
The Elevate your Emotional Intelligence course focuses on self-awareness, self-regulation and conscious decision-making. The program aims to empower learners to navigate workplace challenges, capitalise on their innate strengths and take responsibility for their own professional development.
In the Difficult Conversations and Relationships course – which many learners complete after the Emotional Intelligence training – learners develop skills in effective communication, conflict resolution, active listening and relationship-building. The focus is on practical strategies to handle difficult conversations, tackle sensitive topics with confidence and empathy, and deliver constructive feedback.
For 3 hours per week over 8 weeks, learners in these courses are guided through online workshops, expanding into breakout rooms to complete practical exercises, including collaborative role-plays built around real-life case studies.
The challenge (and the irony) of trying to teach face-to-face-human skills in a virtual environment isn’t lost on Trish Davies – but by keeping group sizes small and bringing together learners from all organisational tiers, she has found the online workshop model to be very effective.
“The most important piece of these programs is the collaboration that goes on between the participants – that's where the learning happens. I give them the framework, and then they fill in those spaces, which is fantastic to see,” Trish said.
“We do a lot of practical stuff – it's not just teaching and delivering information. Of course, there are session plans and planning processes around exactly what must be delivered – but based on the conversations and collaborations that happen, there's plenty of spontaneous free-flow in there as well.”
But what’s driving the need for these skills to be taught? Why is it necessary to teach these hardwired human functions in the business realm?
COVID-19 was certainly a workplace interrupter, forcing colleagues to work in isolation, sometimes for years, breaking down levels of interpersonal understanding and collegiality. Trish added that the return to more normal work practices post-COVID has also presented some issues.
“There are underpinning challenges that people now face in the workplace: not understanding their team; not understanding their colleagues; not having a level of awareness around how others respond to stress,” Trish said.
“Rising stress levels are certainly playing a part. In the feedback we receive I’m noticing that rising workplace expectations, deadlines and the stresses of understaffing are causing relationship breakdowns.”
There’s also an economic overlay to the situation – the hidden costs of workplace conflict, decreased productivity and lost talent.
“Lost capability is a big one,” Trish said. “It's a hidden thing and it’s a quiet thing – mainly because we're taught not to burn bridges. So, when people leave an organisation because of relationships breaking down, they don't let the organisation know why. Very capable people walk away, and it's not until you get an organisational culture that would be considered ‘toxic’ that people start to ask questions.
“So, with that business overlay, you can see the benefits of sending people along to this training. The outcomes from a business perspective are very clear,” Trish said.
Learner feedback from these courses has been very positive, participants feeding-back to Trish with outcomes from their workplaces:
“I’ve already started applying the tools and reflections from the course, and I can see a real difference in how I respond to challenges and connect with others. Not just with colleagues but in my personal life and relationships.” – Denisa Woolley, TAS Health Care
“I now actively seek out opportunities to engage and find myself listening far more actively and communicating with intention, knowing and understanding that communication isn't just about having a chance to speak.” – Joanne Richards, Anglicare Tasmania
Congratulations to Trish, Troy and the Digital and Business team on these progressive training programs, resurfacing and reprioritising human skills in the modern workplace.
For more information and 2026 enrolments:
