Corporate Speakers

Professionals in business have unique speaking problems. An employee may have excellent work skills but if they have difficulty communicating with co-workers or customers it can result in reduced profits and lost clients:

• An IT professional comes from Japan on an H-1B visa. He is an expert in his field but has limited English and pronunciation skills. Customers report frustration when having to talk to him. Accent Modification

• A supervisor in the Materials Management Dept. communicates adequately in one-to-one situations but chokes when he has to give a presentation or speak in front of a group during a meeting.

• A female executive in the Human Resources Dept. has excellent writing skills, but cannot convincingly portray her authority when speaking to male subordinates. Women's Speaking Issues

• A technical worker with an undiagnosed hearing loss is having trouble understanding directions and frequently misinterprets what is being said.

• "With our man in R&D, we can't figure out what the problem is.  He just talks funny."

The above situations are all fiction but based on real problems that have been reported to ClearSpeak. This is a sensitive subject that many find hard to address:

Typical Employer Concerns:

Is this politically correct?
Will I be seen as prejudiced?
Will the employee become offended and quit?
Will I be sued?

If classes are offered as part of a manager training perq, as part of a menu of classes, or as part of a package of continuing education these fears are usually put to rest. If the training is offered to all employees or all managers, and no one is singled out  or punished for not taking the training, it is usually seen in a positive light. The truth is many employees who have difficulty communicating are well aware of this fact. They are frequently eager to improve their speaking skills if they have the method for doing so and the support of management.

Typical Employee Concerns:

Will I be seen as incompetent or weak if I ask for this training?
Will I be singling myself out?
Will I be punished for not speaking well already?
(for those with accents or dialects) Will this affect my identity? My cultural heritage?
This is how I talk. There's nothing I can do to change it.

This is not an attempt to change who you are but to learn techniques to make you more understandable to others. Most employers see this as an attempt at self-improvement, like taking any other continuing education class. It's likely that others have seen you struggling and don't know how to help you. After this training you will feel more confident when speaking with co-workers and customers.