Enhancing Employee Communication Skills: Training Strategies and Motivation

Dear all experts,

I want to develop the personality of our employees, especially regarding communication. We have brilliant employees, but due to communication issues, they are lacking somewhere. As an HR professional, I need to improve in this area. Can you all guide me on what I should do to help them overcome this weakness? I do not have much practical experience because I am a fresher, so I would appreciate kind advice from all of you.

Thank you.

Hi,

I commend you for your initiative to enhance the effectiveness of your employees by focusing on improving their communication skills. My suggestions are as follows:

Focus first on identifying the specific weaknesses that you need to address. For example:

- Is it their poor use of communication tools like email?
- Is it their drafting skills?
- Is it their inability to express themselves in English, Gujarati, etc.?
- Are their interpersonal skills/social skills lacking?
- Does it also have to do with their dressing sense, manners, casualness, etc.?

This is critical for the proper diagnosis will enable you to find the right remedy.

Explore options based on your problem identification. These could include:

- Getting external trainer intervention or in-house training intervention.
- You could also look at standardizing your frequent/regular written communication and creating appropriate templates for the employees to use.
- Find ways and means to utilize the in-house magazine/newsletter (if you have one), notice boards, employee engagement activities to promote effective communication.

Get employees motivated to embrace effective communication skills. This would involve:

- Getting employees to recognize the communication problems that hinder their personal growth and, in turn, the organizational growth.
- You would also have to get them interested in accepting/volunteering for the various interventions you propose to remedy the malady.
- Find tools like awards/rewards/recognition to reinforce their commitment to the interventions you propose.

I am sure you can creatively enhance the list of suggestions given above and effectively implement the revolution that you seek to bring about.

I would also invite you to visit my Inspirational and Motivational blogs listed below, which could also give you some additional resources/inputs relevant to your needs.

- www.actspot.wordpress.com
- www.poweract.blogspot.com

Regards

Dear ACT,

Thank you very much for your excellent advice, sir. The issue you mentioned earlier does exist, particularly in the areas of drafting work, email communication, and spoken English. Do I need to bring in an external trainer for this, or is there a way I can address this internally to save on company costs?

Thank you.

Dear Vipul,

Besides the wonderful suggestions by ACT, I would suggest that you organize training on Business Communication for them. It does not necessarily have to be from an external trainer. Any expert in your organization can conduct the training. I suggest you prepare modules for training; for instance, in the first module, you may include topics such as nouns, verbs, passive or active voice, etc., and similarly for further modules.

You can schedule it twice or thrice a week for one hour each in different batches. This will have a positive impact on employees. Hope it helps!

Best regards, Vaishalee Parkhi

Subject: How to Motivate in this Matter?

Hi,

I appreciate that you are considering developing the personality and communication skills of an employee. The firm has a very good HR department.

To enhance their personality, you can organize a personality development training program. It's important that this process doesn't hurt them in any way.

When it comes to improving communication skills, employees should feel encouraged to communicate, even if they are unsure or make mistakes. It's crucial not to give up, and they should be encouraged to communicate in the language in which you want them to excel.

Drafting is a crucial skill that they should learn, and with the assistance of a trainer, they can make significant progress.

HR Executive

Dear,

I am working on improving their communication skills; however, they seem to be hesitant. Can you suggest any other activities to help with this? Additionally, yesterday, I organized a two-hour seminar in our organization for personality development. I will be leading it. Can you offer me some advice for that? Thank you.

Best regards,
[Your Name]

Fine if somebody does not use English for communication. Though they might speak horrible English, you need to tolerate them for a few months (maybe a year), but slowly things will improve. Necessity is the mother of invention. If you create the necessity for English, people will try to get a hold of it. As long as they find themselves comfortable with the local language at the workplace, they will never learn good English, no matter if you organize trainings or do whatever you can. I have witnessed this in my previous experience; employees had undergone many professional English trainings but showed no improvement. So, create a culture of using English at the workplace forcefully.

Thanks a lot, Vikas. I will definitely do this thing, and I think you are absolutely right. We need to tolerate a bit. I will tolerate, but the only thing is that I want to remove this weakness of theirs. Thanks again.

Hello,

You may not need communication training for all of your employees. The individuals engaged in manufacturing, for example, do not need this at all. You have to focus on the individuals who directly interact with customers, in one way or another, and in those cases, you need to pay proper attention. Mr. Vipul Badhik has rightly pointed out the details of this effort. You need to pinpoint first what type of training is required for a particular employee and then create batches of individuals with similar requirements and arrange suitable external training. The acknowledgment and appreciation of their communication talents should also be implemented and encouraged. I believe that recognizing talent is more important than distributing rewards or awards. If you don't mind, I would suggest that you also consider undergoing that training.

Mahavir Mittal
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Dear Mittal,

I never mind. We are an IT company, so it is a must requirement, and the most important thing is that 95% of employees are required to talk directly with customers. Therefore, I am required to do this, dear. Proficiency in English communication is a must. You are right that I need to identify the requirements of each and every employee.

Thank you.

Hi Vipul,

We have conducted this particular training on Communication Skills, including modules in English Grammar, at CASIO, and the participants found it to be quite useful. We are a group of ex-IIT-Roorkee professionals, each with over 40 years of diverse industrial experience. Our expertise lies in Corporate Trainings, Recruitments, and Management Consultancy.

Please email me the number of employees you require training for, which you may have identified through a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). If you have not conducted this analysis, we can perform it for you at a nominal fee as a preliminary step to the actual training. I look forward to your response via email, and please feel free to contact me on my mobile. For more information on our training modules, faculty, and processes, please visit our website at [We-Exl Consulting Excellence Delivered](http://www.we-exlconsulting.com).

YP Singh (M-9811054081)
Director - Business Development
We Exl Consulting
yp.singh@we-exlconsulting.com

Dear VIPUL,

My suggestions are as follows in a psychological perspective:

1) Your initiative to learn without inhibition is a positive trait.

2) To identify critical areas for development, you have to analyze every employee's personal details:

- Family environment
- Demographic setup they belong to
- Current office environment
- Previous company's culture
- Real hurdles they face (their own statement)
- Their initiative to learn, etc.

3) You can conduct a PERSONALITY TEST to assess their abilities. This will help you to refine your program.

Keep in mind, always use EMPATHY while discussing, dealing, and formulating your program.

Regards,
S.C. Kannan

Dear Vipul,

Try the below-given steps to teach them how to speak good English.

1. Can your employees write in English? They would have passed a degree by writing numerous papers in English during their exams. If so, they are well acquainted with the language, their vocabulary will not be too bad, and they will have sufficient knowledge.

2. Introducing a Trainer may complicate the issue by confusing them further in the workshops. It will only acquaint them with some phrases and introduce a bunch of new words.

I would like to start my suggestion with an example:

Example: Have you ever watched a child grow from age 1 to 3? They may not be introduced to any letters or words, but they will speak with a decent vocabulary and grammar just by hearing their parents and surroundings' speeches. This is nothing but imitation.

In our case, our employees are familiar with the language's words, letters, and phrases. Do you think it is really difficult to make them imitate good English?

Yes, it would be a tough task for them too. For example, when they think of the animal tiger, they have two words in their mind, "Sher" in Hindi and "Tiger" in English. So when they speak English, they are just searching or translating for the animal's name in the Mind Pool, which has two dictionaries, one for each language.

1. First, educate them not to translate. Train their minds to understand that Tiger has two names, "Sher" and "Tiger."

2. Ask them to think in English and deliver in their native language, though we usually do this vice versa in real-time.

3. Ask them to start thinking in English, but they need not speak in English. This will help them merge their vocabulary of two different languages in their mind.

4. Even if you notice, you may have forgotten some words in your native language. When speaking to someone, it can be hard to recollect the correct word and instead, you may use English words. If you can relate to this, you will understand what I mean here.

5. If they start thinking in English, within a week, you will notice changes. They will definitely talk in a mix of Hindi and English.

6. Later, they will gain confidence if you point out these changes in their speech.

7. Finally, they will start speaking in English.

If anyone follows this, they can speak decent English in a month's time.

Referring to the phrase "Think in English," I would like to add some suggestions as well:

1. Ask them to narrate to themselves what they did or are doing since they woke up.

2. If they are planning something, ask them to think in English.

3. If they are worried about something, ask them to express it in English.

4. Even when they are happy, ask them to express themselves in English.

When they go through this course, ensure they do not try to speak in English. After a month, ask them to speak, and they will do so with confidence.

Cheers, have a great time!

Varadharajan K
9841317087

Dear Sckennan,

Thank you so much for your guidance. I believe I have found the solution and I am committed to working on it. I also want to express my gratitude to all those who have supported me throughout this process.

Thank you again.

Dear Vipul,

Believe me, it has to be an outside consultant and trainer to do this job. The training programs internally recommended or taken are not taken seriously, both by the participants and the trainer due to their tight schedules. The thing is that the problem has to be sorted out without pointing fingers at the team.

Share your email ID, I will send you the details of our training program ARJUNA. Have a look at a systematic way of catering to this problem. The program will just need a bit of tweaking to suit your needs. Till date, it has been offered to the fresh management graduates with a high success rate.

Alternatively, write in to me or call me.

Well, it's better if you have some training sessions on a weekly basis and hire a professional trainer. It will surely improve the communication and soft skills in your employees. As for motivating them to improve communication skills, a professional trainer can do this effectively. Additionally, what you can do is add communication skill levels in the appraisal forms. This way, an employee with good or better communication skills can receive a better appraisal compared to employees with poor communication skills. Make your employees aware of this to encourage skill development.

Hello, Mr. Vipul,

Plenty of suggestions have come from the members, and I hope you would gainfully use them. In my experience, I found that there are two elements to what we refer to as communication. The first one is the language part. The second one is the behavioral part. If you are good in English, you can begin right earnest without any external trainer. If you can take care of the behavioral part, also plan accordingly.

1.0 Without referring to any name, put on the notice board the wrong sentence used by the employee and below that the correct one. Of course, it may be possible that a person gets identified. If people are progressive and positive about learning, they would take it in the right stride.

2.0 On a one-to-one basis, you can correct and send the email back to the individual concerned. Please start immediately, and good luck to you.

V. Raghunathan

1. Training in Communication Skills - The trainer should be skilled.

2. Training in Public Speaking & Presentation Skills to develop confidence.

3. Training in Attitude.

4. More exposure to the world outside.

Hi Vipul,

I really appreciate your sincere approach towards your employees. Although many people have already offered you some nice suggestions, I would like to add that it would be beneficial if you tried to involve them in small plays or skits in English language. This will help them understand simple things easily through fun. Moreover, you can give them simple words and ask them to learn synonyms through a dictionary, thus helping them in framing sentences. I have practiced this at my office, and it has really worked well. I believe it will benefit you greatly.

Thank you.

Hi Mr. Vipul,

I want to make one spelling correction in my posting. The last sentence should read:

"Please start immediately and good luck to you,"

V. Raghunathan