Discussion: Why communication and soft skills are the elephants in the room?

rafia-ali
Indians take great pride in education and the fact that English is learnt and taught from an early age. While the knowledge is great. The execution is flawed. A cross between Hinglish is born and in many cases, either the speaker has no idea it's wrong, or finds an exaggerated accent works better to "identify" with the West.
In my years of working in the support system (Training), why are budgets restricted or why is there no importance given to a substantial training period dedicated to building someone's soft skills or language communication. We can argue on the ROI. And I am willing to dwell into that subject. But I think it comes down to the positive correlation between impeccable communication skills - and the reflexive reaction by the customers' or clients. People are willing to work more, build relationships, compromise and negotiate with people who speak better.
And when training is organized- it's haphazard, without a purpose or goal and rather just to tick it off their client's expectations. You've got a classroom full of blank-stared employees with varied proficiency and a trainer just spewing out grammar rules and culture blips on American Basketball and hotdogs- for 2 weeks. And I specifically talk about the MNCs here, because face it, in India the culture of "up-skilling" their employees and investing - hasn't caught on. And the only reason why MNCs do it, is because their clients want it.
So my question is this? Why aren't more companies investing more in training their employees in communication skills that are more relative and relevant to them. Why is it, that when broached no company is willing to admit that they have a need. And why aren't more HR and L&D departments more willing to invest in their employees growth and capability.
Dinesh Divekar
Dear member,
You have written about the poor communication skills of the employees. You are also critical of the employers on not sparing enough funds to train the employees.
However, while writing this post, you could have done spell check of your post. More importantly, you have written your post in spoken English. If you had followed principles of business writing, you could have lent credence to your argument.
Therefore, before being rueful about the quality of other's English, why not start with yourself and leave a mark of quality post on this forum?
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
vmlakshminarayanan
Hi,
We can't say all Employers are ignoring the training. It depends upon the nature of business of the employer. When there is no need for Client communication either verbal or written, based on their business process, employer may not show interest to invest money for training of employees. On the other hand Employers running Business process outsourcing (BPO) either voice or non-voice services or Hospitality Industry, where the Client communication is very much crucial, those Employers spend quality time and money for training their employees purely based on business point of view. Also during their selection process they filter the candidates with average communication thereby their training costs are minimized to a greater extend.
However it is a matter of concern that many employers view training cost as a "expense" and not as a "future investment". Employers facing higher attrition rate are reluctant to invest money in training. Training is not a one time activity and should not happen as a ritual but training but Training & Development is a continuous process where the training needs are to be identified, post training evaluation has to be carried out and it should be a cyclic process.
Employers should come forward more to train their employees by hiring the services of Professional Trainers like Mr.Dinesh Divekar.
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