With graduation seasons in sight, we see an increasing number of university talented students pounding the pavement to look for a suitable job for themselves. As competitive as it is, graduates today seek for job opportunities that are able to meet their requirements at work. That being said, one of the important aspects that these new generation of employees look forward to is the ability to gain sufficient industry knowledge at work.

Traditionally as we learned from Frederick Taylor’s principles of scientific management, he proposed that the work productivity will only increase as we simplify each tasks at work. Fast forward to the present, it is the exact opposite. Most jobs today demand employees to continuously embrace the opportunities to learn, and to develop new skills and expertise for their professional development in building up their careers.

With millennials slowly taking up the majority of the workforce, this has also created a change of perception in how employees get hired and trained in the company. As mentioned by CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, higher career security is a function of employability, and that in turn depends on learnability. As much as academic excellence is essential to being one of the aspects in hiring, most organisations have to wake up to the reality that they are able to pay an equal attention towards hiring the “learning animals” who are able to be a standout among the pool of other candidates, by demonstrating their passion in asking insightful questions that may be beneficial to unlock a deeper insights for the clients.

As organisations step foot into providing lifelong learning for employee’s professional development, Tomas suggests how organisation leaders can do a better job at fostering learnability in the workplace by starting with the three (3) most simpler steps: 

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Select For It 

Don’t waste training budgets on employees who have yet to demonstrate learnability, even if those employees are otherwise skilled, collaborative, and productive. To maximise the benefit of limited training investments, focus on employees with higher learnability: curious and inquisitive individuals who are genuinely interested in acquiring new knowledge. Just like some people are more likely to benefit from coaching than others – because they are humbler, more open to feedback, and ambitious – certain individuals are more trainable than others because of their hungry mind.

Nurture It 

Managers who want their employees to learn new things will encourage that behaviour by doing it themselves. We are all time-deprived, but high learnability people make the time to learn new things. What is the last book you read that opened your mind? (Simply reading the articles your Facebook friends share doesn’t count.) When did you last devote time to study another industry? When was the last time you spoke to someone about stuff outside your area of expertise? How hard do you try to break up your default routine at work? How often do you ask “why”?

Paradoxically, instant access to information may suppress our natural curiosity and appetite for knowledge. It is to our learnability what fast food is to our diet: a ubiquitous vice with no nutritional value and the potential to make healthy food tasteless. High learnability enables people to dive deeper to translate information into actual expertise. It is the key intellectual differentiator between those who can go online and those who become smarter in the process.

Reward It 

If you want to change people’s behaviour, you should show them that you mean it. It is not enough to hire curious people and hope they display as much learnability as you do. You should also reward them for doing so.

One of the best ways to reward high learnability is to provide new and challenging opportunities for those individuals where they can continue to be stimulated to exercise their learnability and be rewarded by broadening their expertise and increasing their value to the company and themselves. Another suggestion is to promote people only if they have acquired sufficient expertise in other jobs in the organisation, not just their own.

Or you could give awards for individuals who organise events or activities to promote learnability in the company, for instance, running internal conferences, bringing external speakers, and circulating information that is intellectually stimulating and has the potential to nurture people’s curiosity. Even simpler habits, such as writing a blog, sharing articles on social media, or recommending books and movies, can be rewarded.

Though people differ in their natural curiosity and learning potential, the context will also determine how much learnability people display. Executives and senior leaders should be tasked with enhancing employees’ learnability throughout the organisation. Since leaders play a major role in shaping the climate of teams and culture of organisations, they will act as either catalysts or blockers of employees’ learnability. 

Inspiration: It’s the Company’s Job to Help Employees Learn

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Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will. 

Organisational leaders play an important role in the workplace structure, as words and phrases used by leaders have a significant impact on organisational personnel. At times, leaders struggle in managing his/her team because they fail to identify appropriate word choices in communication with employees. Despite having positional power, the lack of compelling authority jeopardizes their ability in leading his/her team. What organisational leaders say have a profound impact on their team’s morale and productivity. Employees respond positively to motivational and constructive language, and leaders should be aware and actively employ positive forms of language to foster an effective working environment.

For example, traditional forms of performance assessment involve one-sided, infrequent reviews of employees. Instead, assessment should be driven towards a more personalized direction, where the conversation is centered on helping the employee achieve specific career goals. By providing words of encouragement to those in need of it, organisational leaders increase the engagement level of employees, and instill confidence into the workplace.

Keeping employees involved with organisational goals is an integral part in driving the organisation forward, and effective leadership language entices employee involvement. Leaders can utilize communication to create a connection between employees and the organisation, and include them into the ongoing itinerary of organisational goals. Leaders can highlight how employees’ work aligns with the organisation, to generate inclusiveness and to effectively manage workplace efficiency.

It must also be acknowledged that cultural differences play an important role in deciding how certain words and phrases are interpreted. Although employees might share basic workplace commonalities, different linguistic and cultural backgrounds might have differing ways of understanding the intended message. Organisational leaders have to commit an effort in dedicated communication with employees of varying backgrounds to understand the most effective way of management and cooperation.

Effective leadership language allows organisational leaders to facilitate employee management, and increase the efficacy of the workplace as organisational personnel feel involved and appreciated. Included below are excerpts from interesting articles which highlight the importance of effective leadership language, and how that translates into a positive effect on the workplace. 

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“Despite these commonalities, it is still important to remember cultural differences that might impact the way your words are interpreted. Richard Stevenson, head of corporate communications at cloud-based ecommerce platform ePages.com, noted that having a clear, universal sense of mission is essential, but international staffers may expect and value differing styles of communication.

"I find that American and British talent thrive on very open and personalized feedback and an emphasis on development needs, while central European staff tend to relax more when there's a structure to feedback, numeric inputs and reference to agreed goals and KPIs," Stevenson told Business News Daily. "Be prepared to wear different hats day-to-day and do experiment in order to bring out the best in each of them."

Philpot reminded leaders that motivating employees takes dedication and time. A one-off message of encouragement or the occasional "pat on the back" won't be enough; you need to keep working at it and refining your message, she said.

"It can be like tossing a balloon into the air — with time, it is bound to descend," Philpot said. "Sincerity, repetition and consistency of communication over time is what really makes the difference." - Nicole Fallon Taylor, Managing Director at Business News Daily

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“Language is an important component of leadership. The words (and tone) that a leader uses in conversations with team members or peers are often a direct reflection of the individual’s leadership style. I remember a colleague who regularly used the term “relentless” in her discussions with others. And relentless she was: unyielding, tough and stubborn. By talking the talk as frequently as she did, she eventually walked the walk. 

We know that exceptional leaders are the key element in creating great workplaces. The quality of employee’s day-to-day work experience shapes satisfaction and engagement more than any other factor. Even the best and most innovative programs or benefits can’t compensate for a poor leader.

Certain words – such as the “-isms” - can quickly become anchored into our everyday language. You may not even be aware of some harsh, complex or confusing words that you frequently speak. However, you are surrounded by the very best “language auditors” you can find - your own team. Ask your staff (either individually or as a group) to point out these words and terms as they arise. Then work to change them, with emphasis on simplification and clarity. Big words aren’t always better words. A great leader always strives to connect with staff and in the process, conveys his or her belief that success can’t happen without each other.” - Lillian J. LeBlanc, Executive Leadership Development Coach at Baptist Health South Florida

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Benjamin Lee Cheng Han | Benjamin is a student of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, currently exploring unchartered realms in the Public Relations field. Writing is clearly his interest – a decisive contributor to his foray into the public relations industry. To date, he boasts the proud record of having tamed one of the office cats, and drinking expired tea from the pantry.

Good Grammar Matters

Effectively-worded business communication is imperative. The message/s become purposeful, professional and easily understood by the target audience; without guessing at the writer’s intent, transposing misplaced words or deciphering poorly-constructed sentences.

Messages that are error-riddled often feel off-putting. Poor grammar is often associated with ignorance of, or disregard for, established rules, as well as laziness or rushing. Businesses should strive to create thoughtful, polished messages that represent their commitment to accuracy and thoroughness, and reflect the effort put in to all dimensions of their branding.

Errorists are killing business. Their unkeyboardinated mistakes should be taken seriously and make sure that they practice proof-reading. This is to ensure that the business doesn’t fall prey to Grammar Nazis, and ending up immortalised over the net.

Cyberspace has given us access to witness many failed marketing efforts, from small to big business - thanks to content-hungry netizens. One of the most infamous was the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 billboard incident in 2013; which pretty much broke the Internet. We all came to realize that the billboard typo was fake and tampered with. There were no kerning mistakes, autocorrect error or a broken space bar, but it certainly got us judging all the same.

The “tampered” billboard at Cromford Road, London

The actual billboard at Cromford Road, London (credits to Google Maps)

Though unrelated (and faked), the Samsung kerning issue should serve as a precaution. Good grammar should be everyone’s business. Over the weekend, we came across an article that might be worth reading. The article - written by Amy Gesenhues - explains why poor grammar is killing your content marketing. Have a read, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Is Poor Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make The Grade

Using linguistic analytics software to measure grammar and style, Acrolinx finds most content marketing lacks quality.

While marketing teams continue to create more and more content marketing materials, a new study from marketing software provider Acrolinx claims brands are not spending nearly enough time on the quality of their content marketing efforts.

Using linguistic analytics software to evaluate grammar and style, Acrolinx leveraged a 100-point scale to score marketing, corporate, technical and customer support content from companies with $250 million or more in annual revenue.

When attention to quality is overlooked, things tend to fall apart quickly.

The report analyzed 20,000,000 sentences pulled from 150,000 web pages for 340 global companies, and found only 31 percent of the brands exceeded an “impact score” of 72 or higher – with the remaining 69 percent of companies earning below Acrolinx’s target score.

“To assess a company’s grammar usage, we examined its content against best practices for standard grammar conventions then calculated how many errors it contained on average per 1,000 words,” says Acrolinx.

Content Impact Score Distribution

To drive home the importance of quality content, Acrolinx referenced a 2013 UK poll conducted by Global Lingo that reported 74 percent of survey participants said they noticed the quality of spelling and grammar on company websites, with 59 percent claiming they would not use a company whose site included poor grammar.

The report also noted the importance of correct grammar in terms of search marketing, referencing a quote from Bing webmaster Duane Forrester. “If you struggle to get past typos, why would an engine show a page of content with errors higher in the rankings when other pages of content exist to serve the searcher?” asked Forrester.

The report did not attach any specific company names to content marketing scores, but it did call out Kohl’s, Caterpillar, the National Australia Bank and European mobile carrier EE for their high scores.

Looking at industry-specific content, the retail industry led with a 73.2 impact score, while the telecom industry came in last with a 66.2 score.

Earning a 70.2 on the 100-point scale, the US and Germany tied for highest regional scores.

Inspiration: Is Poor Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make The Grade

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Training and education are oft used as interchangeable terms, and might seem like synonymous concepts. Both are a way of learning something new, and involve transformational changes of the individual. For instance, if you learnt how to create a graphic on Microsoft Excel, it would be considered as training, since you acquired a task-specific set of professional skills. On the other hand, if you’d learnt about Microsoft Excel’s full functionalities and mechanics instead, it would be considered as education, since you’d have background knowledge of the software and can extend beyond graphic-making.

The main difference between both concepts is that education is concept-based, whilst training is more skill-oriented. Education provides the depth required for problem-solving and innovation whilst training increases proficiency and technical familiarity. The combination of both concepts allows us to combine thorough understanding of the task at hand with performance-enhancing competency. If training and education are ignored, one risks remaining stagnant in improvement as lose relevance as others keep up with market requirements.

For example, in the corporate environment, employers should take the initiative to educate and train employees to equip them with the necessary skills required. By training and educating your team, employees are able to stay up-to-date with current trends and technology, which allow the organisation to maintain relevance within the industry, and compete favorably against other competitors. Employers can also implement different training and education methods which suit respective organisational climates.

With the ever-increasing competitiveness of businesses, employers must ensure that their organisation possesses the necessary set of skills required to compete at the highest level. The excerpts below reflect and reiterate the importance for training and education in the workplace, and provide a solid perspective on the significance of both concepts.

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“The combination of both training and education enables another kind of innovation: everyday innovation. It empowers your entire staff to solve problems before or shortly after they happen, discover new efficient methods to streamline your operation, and propose solutions that will make seemingly intractable obstacles disappear.

They may not be as dramatic as an “Edison’s lightbulb” moment, but these are the kinds of small everyday leaps that can keep your business humming along in pace with the times and give you a competitive edge. And you won’t see them if you only train your staff to do only their assigned tasks, without giving them the tools to understand the how or why.

When it comes to training and education, it can be tempting to cut corners. Consider that investing in the abilities and potential of yourself and your team is one of the best moves you can make. Everything else you develop or invest in will one day be obsolete. But you and your team’s ability to improve and refine their skills through advanced training methods, and to innovate every day through superior, comprehensive education will keep you relevant and in demand.” – Daniel Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research

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“One of the most important reasons to offer further training and education to employees is to ensure that work skills stay current. Keeping employees up-to-date with software applications, the latest thinking on logistical methods, and ways to improve efficiency are all necessary to keep businesses on a level playing field with competitors. Training is also an excellent way to retain the best employees. An unsuccessful company is one that does not keep up with trends in business, that is reluctant to change, and that has an unmotivated job staff with stagnant skills.

One of the most popular methods of further training is that of computer-assisted instruction. Employees complete specific modules of instruction, usually at the employee’s own pace. Accurate monitoring of the employee’s progress is possible, and the amount of time an employee spends on a specific module is adjustable, dependent upon need. Another common method of training is the workshop model, where groups of employees learn through a combination of audiovisual aids, games, role-playing, and occasionally through lecture. This method encourages employees to get to know each other and fosters cooperation between different job classifications and departments.

Businesses wishing to retain their best employees and stay competitive must offer further training to their personnel. Employees respond positively to the opportunity to improve their job skills, which results in greater job satisfaction.” – Tushar Bhatia, Empxtrack

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Benjamin Lee Cheng Han | Benjamin is a student of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, currently exploring unchartered realms in the Public Relations field. Writing is clearly his interest – a decisive contributor to his foray into the public relations industry. To date, he boasts the proud record of having tamed one of the office cats, and drinking expired tea from the pantry.