Overview :
Read my forecast on the top 10 corporate communication skills that both you & your organisation need to thrive and succeed in our hybrid workplace during 2023.
This is the 27th year of my career training corporate communication skills. My profession involves not only training individuals and groups, but also listening and understanding the corporate communication challenges of our many clients. I also spend a lot of time with industry leaders, HR professionals and recruiters who continually share and help me to grow my knowledge of present communication challenges and trends.
Our company, Communication Guru, primarily focuses on developing communication skills for Financial Services clients. This industry is acutely aware of the importance of developing the soft skills of their employees, from entry graduate level right up to their senior leaders who shape, determine and grow their people and profits by leveraging the power of excellent communication.
It is a big part of my value add to analyse communication trends and guide organisations on how they can best develop their people. Without the confidence and skills developed through communication skills training, employees are often left anxious, ignorant and incapable of delivering and achieving their individual and collective business objectives.
I would like to share with you the top 10 corporate communication skills I feel you need to consider if you want to thrive and succeed during 2023:
- Hybrid Presentation Skills – The Covid Pandemic made us all cross over The Digital Bridge into the world of virtual communication. This forced all of us to suddenly and unexpectedly become broadcasters who require broadcasting (camera) skills to engage, build relationships, present, sell and negotiate via our laptop cameras. The old traditional live presentation skills are now largely defunct. You need to learn the new virtual communication skills which have become the new soft skills currency. You can e-mail me at john@johnfrench.co.za to find out more about our virtual and hybrid presentation skills training programmes.
- Post Pandemic company culture – I am sure you witnessed how lockdowns, remote working and cameras left turned off during virtual meetings largely destroyed both team and company cohesion and culture. A lack of employee cohesion destroys organisations and profits. In 2022, Communication Guru started helping organisations and teams to reintegrate back into the new hybrid workplace. We helped teams to debrief from the trauma of the Covid years. We also helped teams to define their new company values and cultures in our new hybrid work reality. Please e-mail me at john@johnfrench.co.za to find out more about our Workplace Reintegration & Culture workshops.
- Team reintegration post pandemic – Let’s face it – we were generally all engaged in long distance relationships with our co-workers during the lockdowns and through remote working. As mentioned in the point above, team cohesion generally broke down, as did many employees who suffered harshly as a result of the pandemic. You can e-mail me at john@johnfrench.co.za to find out more about our cutomised team workshops which help teams to rebuild relationships with each other. We teach team members how to leverage individual strengths and forge strong relationships with their new colleagues who generally felt like isolated imposters trying to onboard themselves over the last two years.
- Cross Cultural Communication – Virtual communication has brought with it the incredible gift of being able to offer services globally. International stakeholder engagement is now cheap, instant at the click of a button. Thanks to the possibilities of virtual communication, our business Communication Guru now has clients and trainers based all over the world.
As small as our global trading village has become, we really need to realise that different cultures have vastly different ways of communicating. We need to learn about different cultural attitudes to different topics and be respectful and use appropriate communication. This is especially important in the areas of client service, sales and negotiation. Ignorance around inter-cultural communication is the fastest way to sabotage business relationships.
TIP: Blogs like https://itechdata.ai/cultural-differences-in-communication-know-the-facts/ can help you to learn more about some of the finer nuances of inter-cultural communication.
- Sales training – The Pandemic has caused a massive global economic slowdown. Communication Guru has been helping so many sales teams to rebuild and take advantage of the new post-pandemic opportunities. You can e-mail me at john@johnfrench.co.za for more information on our sales and virtual sales training programmes.
- EQ & empathy – One of the most powerful lessons that the pandemic taught us is how collectively vulnerable we all are. This has led to greater calls for increased empathy and heightened EQ when dealing with both our colleagues and clients. The pandemic gave people time to reflect. This objective detachment created more independent mindsets where professionals have now started to set greater personal and professional boundaries. People have generally become more independent and assertive in our post-Covid workplace.
- Remote leadership skills – Our leaders guide and shape corporate culture and are required to manage more independent remote workers in our present hybrid reality. Over the last two years our leadership programmes have taught leaders how to lead remotely, how to manage remote staff and how to build and maintain an engaged company culture in our new hybrid workplace.
- Communicating across diversity & unconscious bias – I am sure you are aware of the massive trend we read about daily in the media regarding the explosive dangers of not respecting nor managing diversity appropriately. Corporate Emotional Intelligence involves becoming aware of our personal ‘unconscious bias’, the importance of learning and respecting the differences of our diverse colleague and client makeup, and knowing how you can best engage, show respect and win the trust of all of your diverse stakeholders.
- Curating your professional brand online – In the 21st century, we all have a dual identity. You also have a digital brand that you need to manage, grow and safeguard. We are all generally aware of our live real-time brands. In reality, we all need to also grow our digital communication skills to project the appropriate digital professional brands. This is not just for ourselves, but you also have a responsibility of being an accountable brand ambassador for the company you represent.
What often shocks me when I train some of the top sales teams in the country, their LinkedIn profile pages are often incomplete, outdated and project very weak digital brands. Unprofessional LinkedIn profiles undermine your impact and your ability to build strong digital relationships and grow your online following. For anyone who is serious about their career, leadership, sales impact or brand ambassador role, it is essential to learn the basics of how to create a professional LinkedIn profile page. You also need to master the rules about how to engage and post appropriately and effectively on Social Media.
- Futureproof yourself against your AI competitors – Artificial Intelligence robots are already in the workplace. You may be surprised to learn that they have employee numbers and are usually named after the people whose jobs they replace. The one thing which AI cannot presently compete with you is over human engagement, EQ, relationship building and all the communication skills that we at Communication Guru train. So, by improving your verbal communication skills, your EQ and general soft skills you can actually futureproof yourself and safeguard yourself against your expanding AI competition.
Summary: Communication skills for 2023
I hope my trendspotting and communication forecast has given you some food for thought as well as some direction about the communication skills you need to develop in 2023.
If our talented international team of communication specialist facilitators can help you or your colleagues to develop any of the skills mentioned above, please e-mail me at john@johnfrench.co.za and we can customise a proposal that will help you to achieve both your communication and business success.
