Featured post by Terry Kaufman from YourEnglishSuccess!

One day I went to HSBC to interview my customers and their non-native English speaking colleagues. I wanted to understand their communication case better and get greater insight into Anglophone and non-Anglophone interactions.

During one interview, I was amazed at how eloquently one individual, Mr. Boyer, clearly expressed the essence of Sustainable English:

“An environment is friendly when everyone understands the stakes, objectives, and viewpoints of others.”

As I was preparing my program and notes, I had originally defined it as:

An environment that is friendly towards non-native speakers – it consists of clear English, collaboration, and focus on mutual understanding.

Mr. Boyer expressed exactly what the communication-friendly environment has to offer, when it is implemented and fully operational.

Every native English speaker has the potential and ability to create his/her own personalized environment to accommodate non-native speakers.

Less frustration. More success.

Training is an essential part of your human resources to better equip your employees with the tools and skills that they need to perform their job functions. It will also add to your employees work performance and meet company goals. The business landscape changes dramatically over time with the advent of new technologies and business theories put into practice.

Training also makes your employees feel like they are important to your business. There is nothing worse than having employees who do not enjoy being at work because they feel undervalued. Training allows your employees to use their mind to learn new skills and utilize those skills at the workplace.

You can either have a training program directly at your business, or you can set up a training program online.

Having a computer based training program established for your business will allow your employees to complete training whether they are at work, or they are at home. If you have a small or medium sized business then an online training program would be beneficial so your employees can complete the work at home. This way, they won’t have to take off company time and you can run your business as usual.

Resource Bridge provides customized learning programs to fit your business needs and can provide training anywhere from the accounting department to the sales team. They have a methodology that will allow your employees to benefit the most from online training and put it into practice in the work place.

Make sure your employees stay up to date with the latest technologies and methods for effectively completing their job functions with proper training. Your employees, along with your business, will greatly benefit from it.

Copyright © 2006 The National Learning Institute

So, you’re a manager.  So, you know you have to run a training session or a team meeting for your team (for the first time) that needs to be motivational and you’re not a professional trainer.  So what!  With a good plan and a well structured session, training can be enjoyable and most of all rewarding for both you and your team.  Here’s how …

1. Get people involved in the topic before the session – issue what the professional trainers call “pre-work”.  This can be as simple as asking people to jot down some answers to one question about the topic.

For example, let’s say that you need to improve the service to customers provided by your team, then your pre-work question might look like:

“Assume that we have just had a very successful year, and that we have received heaps of feedback which suggested our service given to customers has been first rate over the last twelve months:

• What things did we do to get such great success?

• What problems or challenges did we have?

• How did we solve these problems and / or meet these challenges?”

Note:  for more information on these pre-work questions, see my article “Meetings – Management Meetings – Why are they such a waste of time?  How to follow the 80/20 rule and five steps to success!” (www.nationallearninginstitute.com)

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Copyright 2006 The National Learning Institute

Training courses!  The most recent had been termed
“Management for Senior Officers” and had been a minor
disaster – all psychology and how to be nice to junior
officers.  How to involve them, how to motivate them, how
to relate to them.  Rebus had returned to his station and
tried it for one day, a day of involving, of motivating, of
relating.  At the end of the day, a Detective Constable had
slapped a hand on Rebus’ back, smiling.

“Bloody hard work today, John.  But I’ve enjoyed it.”

“Take your hand off my f….ng back.” Rebus had snarled.
“And don’t call me John.”

The DC’s mouth fell open.  “But you said … “ he began, but
didn’t bother finishing.  The brief holiday was over.
Rebus had tried being a manager.  Tried it and loathed it.

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