Get free online training – please help

Jonathan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:33:17 +0000

We are drawing up our timetable for course development and we need help.

The people who can tell us most about what training they need are our blog readers – YOU

So we have drawn up a short survey

More details of each course are below

Course name	Brief details
How to find a job	Very relevant in the current climate, Would cover job boards, dealing with recruitment consultants, networking sites (twitter/facebook)etc
How to shine at a telephone interview	More and more companies are using telephone interviews as an initial screening tool. A telephone interview requires different skills to a face-to-face interview, which this course would cover.
How to excel at assessment centres	Many people will not have been through an assessment centre. This course would cover what to expect and how to stand out (for the right reasons) during the exercises.
How to recruit (without using a recruitment consultant)	This course would show companies how to recruit good quality candidates at a low cost. Aimed at managers, this course could save you
How to have an awkward conversation	This is a skill that all managers need but very few have. Without being able to deal with awkward issues managers will find that problems escalate.
Coaching skills for managers	All managers should be able coach their staff i.e. help them find out how to solve problems, rather than just tell them what to do.
Listening Skills for managers	Feedback from staff is always overwhelmingly that they want their managers to listen more.
Questioning Skills	All employees need to understand how to question to get to the nub of a problem.
Getting a job after graduation	A large number of graduates are entering a very difficult job market.
Take control of your own development	Individuals need to understand the importance of their own development. This course would suggest ways of doing this without having to go on a 3 day training course. Companies would find this attractive as training budgets are being cut at present.
Manage your manager	This course would how individuals how they can get good quality work, development etc by handling their manager carefully
Creativity in the workplace	In the current climate companies are expecting individuals to add more value. This course would cover tools and techniques that everyone can use to develop a more innovative approach to work
Event Management	Many people think events just happen. This course will take would be event managers through all aspects of the process from planning to "wash up"
English as a foreign language
Enforcement management	All aspects of the enforcement process from the Human Rights Act to actually collecting the money/making the enforcement
Cultural differences in communication	The world is getting smaller and "virtual teams" are commonplace. The teams may all speak english but they may be very different otherwise…

Click here to take survey

Speaking and listening skills

Jonathan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:28:33 +0000

Speaking and listening skills
In a recent post, we suggested that you should give your customers a good listening to. But what about listening skills? How do we listen ? Here are some suggestions.

Are you listening…..?

Then I’ll begin…

It seems funny to be speaking about listening when in fact this is actually writing and you are reading it.

But this is relevant, because to concentrate on what you are hearing you may need to see the speaker. Often our ears and eyes need to work together to truly listen.

We generally have to listen to learn.
Babies and young children spend a long time listening to inane babble as well as spoken words so that they can learn to communicate with those around them.
Older children listen to teachers, parents, television and music, learning and moulding their own thoughts and feelings into being the adults they will be.

We listen for our own enjoyment
All of us will have listened and enjoyed music in all its forms and got some enjoyment out of it. Listened to books being read to us, heard words said or sung that will live with us forever.

We listen to understand.
“My wife doesn’t understand me!” is a famous line for erring husbands. If we don’t talk to each other or listen to ‘both sides’ of an argument, we will never understand.

“Chinese whispers” is a children’s game which is a perfect example of what happens when you aren’t really listening. Whatever the speaker said in the first place often comes out totally different when the last person in the line reveals what they heard.

When it’s just a game nobody minds, but if this were to happen in a real workplace the outcome of misinformation and misunderstanding could be disastrous.

It has been said that when we are spoken to we will remember only 20% -50% of what was said.
Depending on the subject and how it was delivered could mean we remember even less.

How well you actually listen can have a big impact on anything you want to do.

5 ways to improve your listening skills

1. Listen to what the speaker says and try not to be become distracted.
If you are trying to listen while watching the TV, reading a book or even thinking about someone/something else -don’t!

2. Ask questions about what has been said if you missed anything. If you missed the speakers name or their initial sentences, try to concentrate on the rest and then ask for the name and information again at the end. If it is convenient ask them straight away. Don’t be worried about asking silly questions. You will look sillier if you do something wrong.

3. If you are taking instructions – repeat them.
Repeating them to yourself or the speaker is an aid for memory and lets the speaker know you understand.
Remembering and repeating; such as safety instructions for the way to use a certain machine or even how to get to a certain place, can save time

4. When speaking a person will use certain key words to get the point across.
Listen for the key words. If you need to, write them down. It is often easier to remember a few words rather than a whole sentence.

5. It is possible to only ‘half’ listen to what is being said – this is usually what we do when we stop listening and start thinking about what we are going to say next in reply. You should listen to the whole of the message then think about your reply in the pause after speaking.

6. To show that you are actually paying attention and listening appropriately you may need to show some feedback to the speaker.
Respond to what you hear with encouragement, using nods and sounds of agreement in the right place. This is where the importance of seeing when you listen comes in. It also gives the speaker feedback.

Finally, listening is an important part of effective communication. How we listen and who we are listening to affects our level of listening and the level of our response.

How you listen to the boss at work will be done in a very different way to listening to what your child at home has to say.

We need to practice our listening; not only to be aware of others (responding with a ‘no’ when what the person really wanted was a ‘yes’ can show lack of feeling or worse), but also to have an awareness of ourselves and how we affect others simply by listening or not.

Sharp End Training » Listening Skills

Get free online training – please help

Speaking and listening skills