Effective Communication Training at Berjaya Redang Resort

I had just completed a fantastic and vibrant two days of Effective Communication Training at Berjaya Redang Resort (BRR). This fourth module is part of our Management Development Program which was designed, developed and is currently  facilitated by myself in our six hotels and resorts which is aimed at developing the Management and Leadership competencies of our Managers.

The session in BRR was attended by 16 Heads of Department, their assistants and selected line managers. The Management team in BRR was in their usual self, i.e energetic, participative and motivated towards learning new concepts and skills. This made the training all the more exciting.

When in the instructional design stage of this module i had a two options:

1. To focus on the elements of communication theories, its functionality and work place application. This will be of course very pedagogical in nature and my target participants, i.e Hospitality Managers may not be able to apply it in the work place fully.

2. To focus on Public Speaking which comprises of the 3V's, Vocal, Visual and Verbal, pratice of effective and active Listening and the what, why and how's  of other communication resources, i.e, telephone, newsletters, e-mails and social media.

After much thought given on work place relevancy and application i decided that if i follow the No.2 route the Managers will be to apply the functional and behavioral competencies almost immediately with the 3P's of course, i.e Practice, Practice and Practice. This will ensure a more focused Level 3 Behavioural evaluation to be done by their Superiors.

I started the training in Berjaya Tioman and eventually to Berjaya Langkawi and Berjaya Redang recently. In all these resorts participants seemed to relate to the importance communication in their daily job whether speaking to a guest, fellow collegues, superiors, conducting training and briefings and attending meeting. The idea of coming out and speaking to a group of 15 to 20 actually gave them the scare in the beginning, as all of were required to present three speeches with focus on Vocal, Visual and Verbal aspect of communication.

I faintly remember a saying i read many many years ago which goes like this (correct me if anyone is familiar);

There was once this sculpture artist who carves life like statues from blocks of stones. The villagers looked with awe on the final product. They told him; "You have been blessed with god given skills to be able to do this.". The sculpture said, "The statue was already inside the stone, what i merely did was just to remove the unwanted chips and blocks away".  The villagers were taken aback by his humility.

I would like to use the above story as an analogy to effective communication. Our Managers speak to guest, collegues, superiors and whatnots everyday which is part of their job routine. They are all good at public speaking i would say. The Effective Coomunication training just chipped off the unwanted blocks such as, wrong gestures, lack of silent pauses and vocal variety, to many unappropriate vocalised pauses, distracting mannerisms, facial expressions and lack of eye contact. They were initially using these which was signaled as nervous tension being channeled out or pure stage fright.

In the first speech which focused on Vocal Variety most of the Managers showed the above signs. However when they were made aware of the do's and dont's repeatedly though dynamic and constructive evaluations from me and the participants, the second speech with focus on Visual aka Body Language (day two of training), improved dramatically. Their body language became more natural, spontaneous and conversational.  This was noticed especially in the BRR group where self confidence was high as they were well prepared.

I was amazed with content of the speech which had a good opening, body which examplifies the opening and a "bang" closing. Due to this i even skipped the Verbal aspect which was the third speech they had to do, In conclusion the Managers realised that commnication is 38% Vocal, 55% Visual and only 7 % verbal.  Practise, Practise and Practise was mantra of the day.

I finished of with importance of "Active Listening", as we all know that we only retain 10 percent of what we learn if we sit passively, 40% if get involved physically and 85% if we start to get involved actively by para phrasing, asking questions and etc.

I  finished off with the importance of other communication channels, i.e company newsletters, telephone, e-mails and particularly the evolution of social media in shaping modern communication.

Thank you the great Management team of Berjaya Redang and will see you all again next year after the monsoon season closure.

Keep up the good work guys.

The Purpose of This Blog

I have decided to start this blog as  part of learning support activities to complement my active trainings conducted in my capacity as Manager for Training & Development, Corporate Office - Berjaya Hotels and Resorts. Training will become a mundane and routine activity without the Development element in it. Let me give you an example here, I am currently involved in design, developement and delivery of the Management Development Training Program which comprises of nine modules which are essential for developing the Management and Leadership skills of Senior and Middle Managers in our six hotels and resorts.

I am already going to start Module 6 - Conducting Orientation and Training. This is a pivotal and usable module for our Managers who will be conducting some form of Orientation, formal Induction and Trainings. We started this training with an end in mind. That is to improve the functional and behavioral competency of our Managers who are the foundation in building strong teams and be involved in the strategic development of our hotels and resorts to achieve the required standards in terms of service excellence, revenue and profitability.

As in any training we have to "Measure" and "Evaluate' the training conducted. The terms measurement and evaluation are frequently used interchangebly.  Measurement can be defined as a process of counting and assigning numbers to items being counted. Evaluation on the other hand is defined as an act of interpreting the data gathered in measurement phase. In my coming blogs related to the topic of training and development i will elaborate further about measurement.  Here I want talk about how are we going to evaluate the Management Development Training Program conducted thus far.

In 1959, an educator and researcher, Donald Kirkpatrick, defined four levels of training evaluation widely used in training and development field. The four levels are:

1. Reaction

2. Learning'

3. Behaviour

4. Results

In REACTION which by the way is the easiest to measure, satisfaction level of the subject content and facilitator performance. It is aimed at asking the particpants if they liked the session and  their feelings after the conclusion of the training program. I am already doing this by asking the Managers to evaluate on Leader Performance and Training Content.

The evaluation of LEARNING usually involve a pretest and a postest or uses a before and after measurement. I am currently using the latter where participants are asked to answer a pre-checklist questionaire before the start of the training session and one after the conclution of final day training. The questions are the same in both checklists however the achievement can be measured based on the incremental number of correct answers.

BEHAVIOUR evaluation on the other hand is more complex than either of the first two levels. This evaluation measures the change in the Managers behaviour in their workplace. It requires a high degree of skills to develop, implement and analyze the data collected. The property GM or repective HOD will usually be involved in conducting this type of evaluation towards his/her subordinate. This where i would like to lend support by setting up an E-Learning platform( via this Blogger site) for the continous learning of new concepts in  the Hospitality industry by our Managers. This E- Learning platform will also be used by me as an E-Coaching tool to condition the emotional (mind) state of our Managers via Q&A interaction via this site. In other words i will support the hotel operations via this method to make this level three a dynamic evaluation which is evolving in nature.

Evaluation of RESULTS helps to evaluate which training programs have generated the desired results. This is normally translated to high staff performance level, better performance of revenue centres and improved Guest Service Index (GSI). As this level of eveluation is also complex and can only be conducted after level three. lets focus on that level first. I will write further on Level Four in my coming blogs. Please stay tuned.

So to all the Managers from the six properties attending my Management Development Training Program please visit this blog frequently to keep yourself updated on the latest concept in Hospitality Management and Leadership and also give me your comments, suggestions and importantly ask me any questions you may have in relation to how to apply the knowledge and skills  that you have learned in the previous modules effectively. I will be able to provide E- Coaching to you while supporting the property to do the Level Three evaluation more objectively and  make it part of the performance appraisals.

Effective Communication Training - Berjaya Redang Resort

Just had an effective two days of training with the Management team of Berjaya Redang Resort. This is a part of the nine module Management Development Training program ongoing now since the corporate roll out last year November 2008.

As usual the Management team comprising Head's of Department and their Assistants actively participated sharing ideas, giving suggestions and real life scenarios which made the training all the more exciting and lively.

Coming in my next post photos, videos and testimonies of these vibrant and energetic participants.