First Thoughts on Developing Communication Skills
In this blog, I will be documenting my experience with improving my communication skills over the next couple of weeks. This soft skill is very important to me because I am currently a student at the University at Buffalo School of Management concentrating in Human Resources. I know that should I achieve my goal of having a career in Human Resources, my workplace communication skills will be essential to my success.
As a Human Resources representative, I will be communicating with others constantly. Current and potential employees will go to the Human Resources department for a variety of matters such as recruitment, new hires, employee benefits, and interpersonal concerns and conflicts at work. Anyone who is striving for a career in Human Resources will certainly benefit from reading and learning from the findings in my blog, but my audience certainly is not limited to those interested in Human Resources.
Strong communication skills in the workplace are important for every employee at every level of a business organization. Communication is a soft skill that is arguably even more important than hard skills in many business organizations. Those with strong communication skills are able to create goodwill amongst colleagues, clients, and customers, as well as persuade them of their opinions in many cases. The ability to communicate clearly and effectively often determines which employees will be promoted and eventually achieve management positions.
Before I begin my personal journey to research and improve my own communication skills, I have a few introductory questions.
- When is it appropriate to be more assertive and when is it appropriate to be more relaxed in tone?
- When is it better to communicate orally and when is it better to communicate through the written word?
I would like to be able to answer these questions by the end of the next few weeks because I think that having some guidelines on these points will really help me to decide the appropriate method and tone I should be using when it is necessary to communicate my thoughts and ideas.
My goal for the end of this project is obviously to improve my communication skills, but in particular, I am striving to become more confident in my oral communication skills. I have always found it natural to communicate through the written word, but oftentimes when i am faced with an oral presentation I get nervous, shaky, and I may freeze-up or stutter. I will measure my progress on improving my oral communication skills by reflecting on my reactions to important oral communication over the next few weeks. If I can reduce the amount that I shake, sweat, and feel nervous or faint, I will consider my efforts a success.
By controlling these nervous reactions I should be able to communicate more confidently and more effectively, which is my ultimate goal. I believe that I can achieve this goal by learning more about what makes an effective oral communicator and applying it repetitively in order to improve my skills. In my oral communications over the course of the next couple of weeks, I will focus on planning out what I have to say, focusing, and remaining calm and confident. Hopefully, I will significantly improve my oral communication skills by doing this.
