1-Day Workshops

Spend the day in one of our informative 1-Day Workshops, learning with the best in the support and service management industry. 1-Day Workshops are included in our Premier Passes, and advance registration is required.

Speaker: Chris Gillis & Mike Voss (University of Notre Dame)

Exceptional customer service is more than answering questions: it's about building trust, demonstrating empathy, and fostering resilience in every interaction. This interactive, full-day workshop provides IT support professionals with practical tools to strengthen emotional intelligence (EQ), enhance communication, manage stress, and confidently handle difficult conversations. Through immersive activities, participants will practice active listening, collaborative problem-solving, and customer-first response strategies that directly improve user experience and team collaboration.

Originally developed and delivered by the University of Notre Dame Service Desk leadership, this program has successfully trained staff across the organization. At HDI Support World, the workshop will serve as a "train-the-trainer" experience, giving participants not just skills but also ready-to-use exercises they can bring back to their own teams. Attendees will leave with both personal insights and a repeatable framework for developing customer service excellence, emotional intelligence, and resilience within their organizations.

Takeaway

• Strengthen communication and active listening skills to better understand and support customers.
• Apply structured problem-solving and resolution techniques to real-world service challenges.
• Use the RES Method (Recognize, Empathize, Strategize) to respond effectively to difficult issues.
• Embrace "I don't know, let's find out" as a healthy mindset for learning and collaboration.
• Identify practical strategies for stress management and resilience in customer-facing roles.
• Gain a "train-the-trainer" toolkit with practical exercises and a repeatable framework to build customer service excellence, emotional intelligence, and resilience within your own teams.

Speakers: Katrina Macdermid (BALMAIN, hitglobal.services)

AI isn't coming to IT service management — it's already here. But most organisations have jumped straight to automation without asking: Is this actually helping our people? In this full-day workshop, we rethink everything you've been told about AI in IT. Drawing on the globally recognised Humanising IT™ approach, this session introduces Humanising AI™ — a practical, experience-led framework that puts people back at the centre of AI design and deployment.

We'll explore the critical differences between generative and agentic AI, unpack common misconceptions about smart tools, and reveal how poor AI design is creating new frustrations instead of solving old ones. Through immersive storytelling, live examples, and practical frameworks, attendees will learn how to question vendor assumptions, challenge default logic, and redesign AI-enabled services that don't just function — they feel right. If you're working in ITSM, automation, product ownership, or transformation leadership — this workshop is your essential guide to making AI work for humans.

Takeaway

• Learn what real AI from "smart automation" and avoid misleading assumptions
• Identify how and where AI is already embedded in ITSM workflows — often invisibly
• Understand why many current AI solutions frustrate users despite being technically accurate
• Apply the three Humanising AI™ pillars: Human-Centred, Inclusive, and Trustworthy
• Redesign AI-enabled support journeys with empathy, clarity, and ethical responsibility
• Challenge the myth that AI is inherently efficient — and learn how to assess value from a human lens
• Gain the confidence to lead and influence AI discussions across service, ops, and strategy

Speaker: Kirk Weisler (Initiative Institute LLC)

Initiative is the fuel behind every breakthrough—every innovation, improvement, and act of leadership. Yet in many workplaces, that spark has dimmed. In this immersive and interactive workshop, Kirk Weisler helps teams rediscover what happens when people stop waiting and start doing. Through powerful storytelling, energizing activities, and real-world applications, participants learn to identify what kills initiative—and exactly how to reignite it. The result: teams that take ownership, leaders who model action, and a culture where doing the right thing isn’t rare—it’s contagious.

Takeaway

This isn’t a lecture. It’s a hands-on lab for personal and cultural transformation—filled with laughter, learning, and lasting results.
Participants will:

• Discover why initiative fades and how to revive it in themselves and others
• Replace hesitation and burnout with action, ownership, and confidence
• Design micro-moments of initiative that build unstoppable momentum
• Learn to recognize and reward initiative to make it part of daily culture