We engaged Dérene and her team to teach a Business Communication course to a group of our employees who speak English as a second language. The purpose of the course was to develop their language skills so that they would feel more confident in the workplace participating in meetings, presentations and professional discussions. As a result of the course, our employees increased their self-awareness of their communication behaviours and learnt useful and practical tools that they can implement in the workplace to enhance their presence during business activities. I highly recommend reaching out to Dérene if you are looking to support and develop your employees’ business communication skills and confidence. Aarti Mistry, People and Culture Consultant, Vista Entertainment Solutions When communication is key to our success it’s important that we do everything we can to ensure our people feel comfortable using both spoken and written English. We want everyone to feel included and valued…Everyone Counts! The diversity we have at Countdown is something to be celebrated, and this diversity means we’re able to partner with The Literacy Professionals who provide very successful Business Communication courses to any of our team who speak English as a second language. The programmes conducted on site at our Support Office began life at the end of 2016. Our hope at that time was to help a handful of team members whose English was of a quality too high to receive our government funded training, but also at a stage where they felt they could not progress forward in a business context. Their personal view of not being able to communicate effectively was having a profound effect on some careers, so our support was provided via The Literacy Professionals in the form of a 12 week programme focusing solely on business communication. For us, the positive impact on our team members’ lives takes on a greater significance than the business gains we have made. The confidence we now see in these people has been quite humbling to witness and the effect that then has on their work and engagement is quite astounding. Since this pilot group we have continued the programme, along with a number of one-to-one courses, which all now form part of our national scheme called The Literacy Project, which helps hundreds of team members per year to build confidence using written and spoken English. Special thanks with our success goes to Emma and Nick who provide us with a remarkable syllabus. Each outcome is always special and we look forward to continuing the partnership we have. Jenny Gunn, Leadership Development Specialist, Countdown I would like to thank Nick and Lizzie for supporting our cleaning team to grow to a new level through their numeracy and Literacy classes. The reason we chose to have this training done was we have a team of people covering many ethnicities with various levels of understanding and speaking English. The challenges also reflected low self-esteem and confidence in being able to interact with students and staff alike. As a management team we recognized we were not supporting our team and needed some help. Nick and Lizzie took the time to sit with me to understand our requirements and tailored the lessons around meeting the business demands whilst also growing our people. This process has been going for the past two years. The benefits have been huge in that we have seen certain individuals grow in self-confidence not only in the work environment but in their home lives also. The flow on from that has seen better customer service and people being able to raise their heads and be proud of who they are and what they do on a daily basis. As leaders we have seen a greater participation and engagement from the team in daily briefings and taking more ownership for what they do in the workplace. One of the highlights has been the graduation ceremony for the completion of each year’s work. The biggest learning here was that most of the team had never been recognized in this way before as most had been low achievers. I would strongly recommend Nick, Lizzie and the team to anyone who is considering doing these courses. The support they give to listening to your needs to achieve a good outcome is the key to what they do and they in turn deliver on their promise. Brian Austin, Campus Services Manager, Manukau  Institute of Technology What were your hopes for this project at the beginning? When we first started our literacy and numeracy project we were looking for solutions to operational problems. These problems included poorly written incident reports and entries in resident files, unreported incidents or hazards, and poor communication within teams or with residents and families. What happened? What did you focus on? We found a literacy and numeracy provider that we felt was listening to our difficulties and offering us options on how to proceed. With them we developed four goals for the programme. We introduced a pilot course and launched the opportunity to our managers. As we worked through the pilot we identified some difficulties and challenges but the team at The Literacy Professionals at  Languages International worked with us to find solutions. The focus of the programme was on providing employees with the skills to improve the quality and quantity of their written and verbal communication. What have been the benefits for your teams? As a result of the testing at the beginning and at the end of the course we know that employee literacy an numeracy scores have increased. This has resulted in better written communication. What we didn’t anticipate was the huge increase in confidence that these new skills gave our employees. As a result employees now speak up at handover and other meetings, they raise issues with registered nurses, they offer suggestions. Some have taken on increased responsibility and new roles. Others have achieved promotion. In addition we know that they are taking these skills back to their families and communities and helping to ensure that their families do well at school now too. What’s next? We are in the process of evaluating a second part to the course to offer further … Continue reading Testimonials