How to ensure your public speaking is pitch-perfect
Claire Rowland gives us public speaking tips from the perspective of a training venue. Although skills such as management, salesmanship and innovation are all perceived as key to the success of businesses and their employees, a similarly important skill, public speaking, is less developed within the UK workforce, with many employees lacking confidence. It’s easy […]
How to keep your ‘passives’ engaged
With the economy on the up and a dynamic recruitment marketplace in position, employees soon realise they can be more selective about who pays their salary. Gary Cattermole offers his advice on how to avoid losing the staff you’d like to keep. Normally we’re always talking about retaining top talent, but with the recruitment market […]
Why you can’t hire your way around the soft skills gap
Thinking you can cut corner when recruiting for soft skills competencies? Think again, says Bruce Tulgan. In fields, especially the STEM fields – where significant education and credentials are the very threshold criteria for most jobs, supply is far below demand. That puts most STEM field employers squarely in the middle of the technical skill […]
UK businesses lose out because of lack of cultural awareness
Gary Muddyman, CEO of global translation company, Conversis, and Bill Rivers, Executive Director at the Joint National Committee for Languages talk about how British businesses could be losing business to overseas competitors because of a lack of foreign language skills and cultural awareness amongst their staff. According to new research by Conversis, a quarter say […]
The 5 Ps of Vocal Impact in Presentations
When delivering a presentation, voice projection is essential. The 5 P's is a way of maximising all the vocal aspects. P ower – Too loud a voice can be annoying particularly for those at the front of the audience – Too quiet can say that the Presenter lacks confidence and others at the back can't […]
Insight: A quarter of UK workers suffer from uninspiring managers
As post summer holiday blues sets in as we return to our desks from breaks away, nearly a quarter (24%) of the UK workforce – 7.2m – are feeling the effects of uninspiring leaders in the workplace, according to new research by Investors in People, the standard for people management. Despite the importance of leading from the front, over […]
The four golden rules of persuasive presentations
Paul Carroll gives us some simple presentation tips. When it comes to persuading your audience while delivering a training presentation or pitching to a client, there are really only four golden rules – but what they lack in quantity they make up for in importance: Make sense and be brief You may remember the saying […]
The 12 most important missing soft skills
Bruce Tulgan identifies the top 12 missing soft skills among today’s young talent, pulled from research done by his consultation firm, RainmakerThinking, Inc. So many business leaders and managers at all levels fall for the myth that soft skills are 'nice to have' rather than 'must have' – simply a luxury they cannot afford to […]
Storytelling: Beyond the buzzword pt2
Fiona Quigley concludes her piece on why telling stories is such an effective part of corporate learning strategy. Why do people engage with a story? Storytelling is essentially about making meaning. As we listen to or read others’ stories, we integrate our own experience by trying to connect the stories to something we already know. […]
Storytelling: Beyond the buzzword
Fiona Quigley explains why telling stories is such an effective part of corporate learning strategy. So we’ve all been telling stories for ages and ages – it’s part of the human condition, right? It is, and storytelling as a ‘thing’ has become popularised in all areas of society and in business. In the last few years, […]
Email Frenzy – Professional email etiquette
“I know that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” RICHARD NIXON According to the Radicati Group an estimated 183 billion emails are sent every day. That’s around 2 million emails every second sent by 1.2 billion email Users! […]
11 top tips for good coaching
The sports world would never be without their top coaches, and neither should we. Here Gary Cattermole advises businesses of his top tips to coaching. Preparation is key The coach needs to understand what the business wants to gain from the sessions, as well as what the member of staff wants to gain. It may […]
20 Reasons Why people should join us – a recruitment interviewer’s toolkit
Starting my human resources career in a supermarket, a wily manage, George, said to me: "Remember, Bryan, if they're any good be a salesman". He was referring to interviewing candidates for jobs in the store. The supermarket was based in a rough area of London where a couple of C.S.E. s was applauded. High labour […]
Five communication errors we all make
Sometimes to solve a problem it's just a simple matter of good communication. Paul Russell gives us a quick guide to communicating well. Most of us consider ourselves great communicators. After all we communicate all day long through email, telephone, social media channels and blogs – we live in the communications age, don’t we? But did you […]
Assertive Skills: The Art of Saying No
Most people don’t want to get a reputation for being difficult or uncooperative. Yet there are times when, for your own well-being and ultimately, the well-being of your colleagues and company, you have to be able to say “no”. The way we look at it at Impact Factory is that saying ‘no’ is all […]
The 4D human being – development with a difference
Tom Bruno-Magdich and Philippa Waller talks us through the concept of the 4D Human Being. ‘If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.’ Abraham Maslow Most of us would agree that we want to feel fulfilled. We want to know […]
How to open your presentation with impact
Struggling with that crucial opening to your talk? Lyn Roseaman has a few words of advice. Whether you are delivering training or pitching for the business – when you stand up and speak you need your opening lines to make an impact. Research has shown that the first 90 seconds of any speech have the most […]
Caring as a career: The changing face of apprenticeships in the Early Years Sector
Fay Gibbin, training manager at Busy Bees Training offers her advice on recent developments, options available and what to expect from apprenticeships in childcare. There are fewer career choices more rewarding, or challenging, than childcare. Your daily activities revolve around the wellbeing and development of future generations, and the part you play in their early […]
L&D news round-up: 15 Jan
Here it is ! It’s this week’s new stories. The Cost And Benefits Of Career Coaching – Business 2 Community Continuous professional development: Take your coaching further – British Cycling Scots are biggest HR pay winners – CIPD Dr. Seuss And The HR Certification Crisis – Forbes Engineering skills gap could cost economy £27bn – The Yorkshire Post Campaign […]
Triggering behavioural change with bite-size video
Bite-sized videos offer a new way to inspire people to change their behaviour, says Martin Addison. Just because you understand how you’re supposed to react in a certain situation, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll behave that way when the situation arises. This is a crucial distinction because it means that the goal of management, leadership […]
