Soft Skills Ltd

May 2023

Month: May 2023

Posted on

Archives And Records Management Program

Managing records and information is a pivotal piece in running any organization efficiently. This program is intended to introduce the industry standards in record management and enhance best practices in management of electronic data with a goal to establishing and managing successful organization-wide records management programs as well as mitigate the risks inherent in records management.

This Module is for newcomers to records management, and is also appropriate as a refresher for records veterans. 

  • Introduction to records management program
  • Core fundamentals of records management
  • Terms and definitions commonly used in records management
  • What a records retention schedule is
  • How to implement and apply retention schedules to your agency records
  • Electronic records management
  • Transferring records to the archives
  • Mitigating risks - disaster preparedness 
  • Beyond basic electronic records – critical issues to consider
Posted on

Customer Service Excellence Program

In today’s competitive market, Customer Service determines the Winners and the Losers. One of the best investments you can make in your company is to invest in the development, motivation and effectiveness of your frontline employees. This module will incorporate to a large extent aspects of Effective Communication which forms an integral part of Excellent Customer Service.

 

SOFT SKILLS LTD has provided training and services which have had a very positive impact on improving the quality of service to Clients, as well as developing employee effectiveness. Our Spirit of Excellence in Management practice establishes standards of service designed to elevate the Client experience while building and investing

Editorial Team Success Program

Newsletters, Periodicals, Bulletins, Journals and Annual reports are a function of Public Relations and are a vital source of information from the Organisation to its stakeholders. They provide a crucial channel by which the Organisation to its stakeholders – creating and maintaining the desired profile and character. It is therefore vital that the utmost care be taken to make these as relevant and professional as possible.And yet a majority of editorial committee members are not professional journalists. They have the technical knowledge of the Organisation and its operations but lack the skills required to disseminate such information in an interesting and relevant format to capture and retain the attention of their audience.

 

The Editorial Team Success Program is an intense hands-on boot camp to bridge this gap. In it we equip the participants with the skills required to make any publication a must-read thus raising the profile of the organisation as a whole. This involves lots of demonstration, exercises and even interactive feedback during the sessionParticipants learn the art of proposing editorial changes other than those required to correct errors or to achieve editorial style

Posted on

Communication / Presentation Skills Program

Contracts are not necessarily won or jobs secured by the people with the superior product / service – more often by those who make the strongest case – the best presentation. Regardless of your organisation – whether it is a large corporation, a small company or even a home-based business, you need communication skills if you are to succeed.

 

Since Public Speaking is a necessity of any leadership position, this program imparts the skills to allow you to capture and retain the attention of the audience, to turn on the charisma while being authentic and inspiring, the right use of PowerPoint and the microphone.

 

This practical module involves sessions of speech writing and delivery with participants giving and receiving feedback from each other 

Posted on

Personal Branding Program

Your organisation could have the best product or service in the world but if prospective clients don’t like or trust ‘YOU’ and what you stand for, anything thereafter can become irrelevant. 

 

Every staff member in your Company is the representation of the company. They carry the Company’s Brand and are how the organization is viewed and remembered by the clients

 

After all, people don’t buy from brands or products, people buy from people

 

In this module we teach the employee how to make a good first impression, how to make friends and gain the confidence of the prospective client

Posted on

Staff Wellness Program

Recent studies reveal that 48% of employees worldwide are dissatisfied with their jobs. Many of them feel stressed at the office, and sadly at least 18% are actively disengaged – that is, present at work but hating every minute of it. 

 

These facts are sobering and expensive. This lack of satisfaction and motivation costs employers a fortune in lost productivity. 

In this module we address the following areas to improve staff ‘wellness’: 

  • Personal goal setting 
  • Personal finance management 
  • Personal time management 
  • Personal career progression
  • Personal health and fitness 
Posted on

Professional Business Etiquette Program

The ‘soft skills’ that make you welcome 

Etiquette has been referred to as: The unwritten rules of behavior that you are expected to know except no one ever told you. 

The reputation and credibility of your brand rises and falls on how well your staff are able to carry themselves, to interact with stake holders and to represent the organisation. 

Our Professional Business Etiquette Program especially targets seasoned managers as well as new and upcoming leaders to give them the skills to build their confidence and credibility on the understanding that you never go any further than your people-skills will carry you. 

This is a very practical and fun module to equip staff with the do’s and don’ts of: 

Communication Etiquette 
  • Verbal and non-verbal communication 
  • Telephone manners
  • Text Messaging 
  • Email etiquette 
  • “Snail” mail and gifts
  • Right and wrong use of social media for work and personal platforms
Dress Etiquette
  • Addresses both ladies and gentlemen together as well as separately 
  • Formal and informal dress
  • Power dressing
  • Cultural considerations
  • Color choices for desired results
  • Appropriate choices for specific body types Fashion and style 
Dining Etiquette
  • Demystifying the foreign that is fine dining 
  • Figuring out the table setting
  • Right use of cutlery
  • Dealing with service staff
  • To tip or not to tip – who tips and how much? 
  • How to host vs not to be a guest
  • Handling foreign cuisine
  • Conversation around the table As a culmination of this program, we facilitate the development of the Organisation’s code of Conduct
Posted on

Public Relations And Media Training For Boards And Management Teams

Media can be a leader’s best friend or worst enemy. With the right preparedness one is able to covey messages positively both off the cuff and in in pre-planned press releases. Our program prepares the participant to be assertive while remaining likable and conversational and thus perform well in high stakes media setting. Our goal is to maximize comfort and minimize surprises.
A strong brand, a good reputation is not something that just happens – it is the result of intentional Media Management. Just like with the best speech delivery, any successful interview is nothing other than a rehearsed performance. By using interview simulations and video recording, we seek to give practical skills and experience to even the least experienced participant leaving them confident to face any PR challenges that may face them.This program is delivered by well-seasoned Media and Public Relations professionals with hands on experience in local and international media

Posted on

The 360 Degrees Leadership Development Program

“A fish rots from the head”. This oft quoted saying implies that the growth of any organisation or entity is directly proportional to the quality and capacity of its leadership. The 360-Degree approach to Leadership seeks to develop leaders who can influence people at every level of the organization. 

Lead-up

Leading up is the process of influencing the leader. This process includes lightening the Leader’s load by being willing to do what others won’t, while knowing when to push forward and when to back off.

Lead-Across:

Leaders in the middle of an organisation are leaders of leaders. These leaders help peers achieve positive results, let the best idea win, and garner mutual respect. These leaders must develop and maintain credibility, and continually exert influence. 

Lead-Down

Leaders at the top who lead down help people realize their potential, become a strong role model and encourage others to become part of a higher purpose. This involves walking through the halls, transferring the vision and rewarding for results. 

To grow the overall organizational effectiveness Soft Skills Ltd. has developed a program that first runs a comprehensive online diagnostic tool, a Leadership Skills assessment that takes a 360-degree approach and measures a leader’s competencies as viewed by self, peers, seniors and even their juniors. To this end Soft Skills Ltd. proposes a holistic assessment routine that will take into consideration:

  • Individual’s potential against critical leadership competencies for the organisation
  • Individuals’ current skill sets in terms of competencies for leadership With this information we’re then will be able to map the talent on the 9box grid, design specific recommendations for personal development and craft a plan that will promote efficient knowledge transfer and capacity development that will ensure continued development of all leaders within the organisation.
Posted on

Habits of a winner

The Ten Habits of a Winner

I read a quote somewhere (not sure where). It made sense to me in it’s simplicity

“All you can do is all you can do And all you can do is enough But make sure you so all you can do!”

I made a simple list of habits of winners – thought I’d share them here

This is reflected in your words and actions

The biggest difference between the people who make it financially and those who don’t is the way they spend their time.

I am yet to come across a situation where it helped to look less than your best. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. You rather be overdressed any time. You can never explain that you have a better suit at home . . .

In our school we always got merits for volunteering – the girls who did were sometimes jeered but their results today show.

Everyone is their friend. Remember God’s currency isn’t cash. God’s currency is people.

An eagle eats fresh meat! If you don’t stay relevant you will be replaced. One way to keep from becoming bored is to constantly learn new skills – read one new book each month. The change will be in your subconscious and will surely show in your results.

Giving creates a vacuum in your life – you will always have new things. Give 10% of your money away! That has nothing to do with your religious conviction – it is just a law of life. Give of your time, money and information.

There is something you do better than anybody – don’t ever be afraid of competition. There cannot be another you – be creative.

Do not look for ways how not to do it – rather look for ways how to do it.

There is nothing to be gained without paying a price – watch your health, your money, your friends. 

Posted on

Life isn’t Fair

For years I picked my girls from school and two of them (the younger ones) would usually fight for a place on the front seat next to me. :It’s not fair” the baby said when she found her sister already in the coveted seat

“And who has raised you to think that life is fair?” I asked. Life is not fair, came the chorus from the back seat. My children have all heard this from me over and over.

In the new testament Jesus told a story popularly referred to as the parable of the talents. For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with the story I will give a summary of it here.

A man went on a long journey leaving his servants with five, two and one talent each. This referred to a substantial amount of money. Not fair – don’t you agree? Why not give them all a similar amount – but remember that life isn’t fair.

Let’s ‘Kenyanise’ the story – say each talent represented a hundred thousand shillings.

The man who got the five traded them to gain another five and so did the recipient of the two. But our brother with the one talent went and hid it in the ground.

We all know what happened when the master came back. It is the man who had the most that was given even more.

But life isn’t fair – and God isn’t fair. Not by a long shot He’s not.

  • Abraham was chosen unfairly. It was not fair for God to choose Abraham out of all the people in the world at the time and give him all the promises he did. We are not told of anything Abraham did to earn that favor. God just exercised His Divine Sovereignty in choosing him.
  • Israel was treated unfairly – God killed people in the millions to protect His chosen people, He dispossessed Nations to give Israel a home.
  • Abel was blessed unfairly – we are not given any reason why God chose Abel’s gift over Cain’s. He just did.
  • Cain was to protected unfairly – even though Cain was punished severely for having killed his brother, God promised to protect, vowing to punish anyone who killed Cain.

We could go on and on giving example of how God chooses one brother over the other, in circumstances we would want to question.

But let us look inward. What has God given you that is an unfair advantage?

We all have something we have not earned – something for which we cannot take the credit. There is something you tend to do effortlessly.

Singing is not an effort for a singer, and neither is running for a runner. They have the innate ability to do these things. 

And yet when you are a singer you must sing. And so too the runner, the pianist of the holder of any other talent – having a gift only means you have an obligation.

How then do you make sure you do not become the servant whose talent is taken away for redundancy?

What is it that you find effortless to do. The reason we often miss our talent and gifting is that we are too familiar with it. Familiarity breeds contempt. We are always doing this thing, we do not think much of it. In my book I call it DEFINE SUCCESS – in other words – what would success mean to you – for what would you feel most gratified. Is it winning a Nobel prize? is it raising a lovely family? Is it winning a Marathon? This is one of those questions only you can answer. There are a few questions you could ask yourself as you try to identify you unique abilities:
 
  1. What do you do for free
  2. What do you do with your free time
  3. What have people complemented you for doing

A man is said to have asked the way to the Julliard school of music, to which the answer came Practice. Practice. Practice.

As we said already – when you have identified what you seem to do effortlessly, what you love to do, then you have no option but to do it

Remember it is not the most talented people who make it but the ones who make the most effort. The winner of any pageant is not the most beautiful woman in the land but the one who won among those who tried.

If you had to choose between talent and the right attitude,  good attitude and effort win any day – a less qualified person is a better choice any day than a highly talented but lazy person.

This is where the highly educated often loose out! This is where your education is your undoing – no disrespect to the faculty seated here with us – I am a university graduate myself, so I mean no disrespect at all. But the academics among us tend to analyze an idea right to death!

Some of the biggest achievements of our time have been accomplished by people who were too dumb to know when to quit!

Don’t focus on what you don’t have – focus on what you have. Start small. Do not despise the days of humble beginnings.

We sometimes lose out on the whole purpose of getting an education. We do not put in all this years of learning so as to make a better employee – rather we come to learn how to think, to do things better, we come to horn our God given talents and abilities.

So if you love to paint or to sing, to cycle or to build – use your knowledge to help you do it better – but get started

Get around people with a can-do attitude, those who talk about opportunity rather than those who complain endlessly.

In my book I call it SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SUCCESS.

Make no mistake – you are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. If a person not going anywhere, do not let them take you along!

We very many times loose opportunity because we ask the wrong question. Rather than ask – what do I get, it may be a good idea to ask – what can I give.

Business opportunity is often lost because we look for the money, the profit, what is in it for me.

The most successful businesses in the world were started by people were not necessarily looking to make money.