Sustainable English and the Communication-friendly Environment
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.
10 Key Points on Training the Aging Workforce
Will baby boomers retire at 60? Will there be a massive employee shortage in a few years? What can companies and government agencies do? This is a very important topic,
given demographic trends worldwide. Let me provide an overview with these 10 points.
1) The Conference Board published a good report in 2005
titled America’s Aging Workforce Posing New Opportunities
and Challenges. Quotes:
“Some 64 million baby boomers (over 40 percent of the U.S.
labor force) are poised to retire in large numbers by the
end of this decade. In industries already facing labor and
skills shortages, forward-thinking companies are
recruiting, retaining, and developing flexible work-time
arrangements and/or phased retirement plans for these
workers (55 years of age or older), many of whom have
skills that are difficult to replace. Such actions are
putting these companies ahead of competitors who view the
aging workforce largely as a burden putting strains on
pension plans and healthcare costs.”
“More older workers want to remain in their jobs for both
personal fulfillment and financial reasons. In a related
forthcoming study from The Conference Board, more than half
(55 percent) of older employees surveyed said they were not
planning to retire because they find their jobs
interesting. Significantly, 74 percent also cited not
having sufficient financial resources as a reason they were
continuing to work, and 60 percent cited the need for
medical benefits.”
Not only in the US: the largest single group within the UK
workforce in 2006 was comprised of people between 45 and 59.
2) Some consulting companies like Accenture seem to be
betting that the solution will be to improve technology for
knowledge transfer and train younger employees as soon as
possible.
The Problem With Sales Training
The vast majority of sales training solutions are action
oriented. They tend to focus PURELY on sales strategy,
consultative selling, sales management, effective selling
skills, closing skills, cold calling, account management,
negotiation skills, and so on. On the surface, this may
seem to make complete sense however sales training that is
purely action oriented will never improve performance in
any significant way over the long term.
The top 1% of sales people and sales driven organisations
operate completely differently from all the rest! Their
ability and approach to successfully selling higher margin
solutions, products and services than their counterparts
with less stress, sets them apart.
The M.O.S.T model recognises this approach and provides
quantum shifts in sales performance: M.O. S.TÂ stands for
Mindset, Objectives, Strategy and Tactics. If you want to
get the MOST out of your sales training and sales
development efforts read on:
M Mindset is crucial to sales success. Attempting to
improve performance in any significant way without creating
the appropriate mindset is a waste of time. Since most
sales training is focused PURELY on sales strategy and
tactics, this would make it a waste of time. The key is to
worrk with individuals and organisations to develop a
mindset and environment conducive to quantum shifts in
sales performance.
Training In The Maintenance Field
Today’s Maintenance Industry has one major obstacle,
Training. Both “Mechanical Training” and “Safety Training”
have been sore spots. With newer, faster and more powerful
machinery being used in today’s Industrial Factories,
Plants & Work sites, today’s maintenance professional must
also become a more knowledgeable and much more aware
employee. The risk’s on job sites and in plant facilities
is much higher with all the new advancements in machinery.
Employee’s simply must keep up with they’re maintenance
schedules for each and every machine. Having and practicing
Good Preventive / Predictive Maintenance,
Reliability-Centered Maintenance and OSHA Regulations -
Restrictions -Guidelines are fundamental in todays
maintenance field.
A large number of Veteran Maintenance Professionals are now
entering retirement, leaving the much younger and less
experienced worker to perform maintenance tasks that they
may or may not have been properly trained on. Training at
this point becomes a vital necessity for each facility and
the overall industry. The risk of machines & or lines going
down becomes extremely costly, when downtime could have
been avoided with the proper training of a Preventive /
Predictive Maintenance schedules.
