English for the Workplace - Business English course

1. TRAILER / INTRODUCTION VIDEO: Do you already speak English at work, but wanted to feel more confident and natural sounding when dealing with customers or colleagues. Do you want to stop feeling nervous when speaking on the telephone? Expressing yourself in meetings and in face-to-face situations. You want to feel more confident in interview situations when giving your opinion at work, or when you want to disagree with somebody in a polite way. If the answer to any of these questions is yes. And this is the right course for you. This course is for those who would like to apply for a better job, gets a promotion or change professions. It's for management who would like to learn to communicate more effectively with their team. And it's for anyone who wants to speak to customers or colleagues in the English language. My name is Mike Dewar and I will be your instructor on this language for the workplace course. I'm an English teacher specializing in teaching English to adults from all over the world. I also teach French and Spanish. And I have a successful Udemy course which has attracted many students all around the world. Recently, I've been running a course on English used at work and with my adult students. And I decided to do this course online because of the feedback that many of my students gave me at the end of this course. Many of them said that it helped them feel more confident about the way they use language at work and their ability to express themselves better around this whole topic. So that's the reason why I wanted to share this course with you. So how will this course be structured? The course will be divided into four clear sections. Section one, we talk about working life. That is, talking about what you like or dislike, your plans for the future in work. What skills you bring to the workplace, both hard skills and soft skills, and how you come across well at interview, as well as doing a covering letter and a CV. In section two of the course, we look at communication skills at work. This section will be all about how it's so important to effectively communicate with your colleagues. We look at how powerful effective it is to be a good communicator when you want to give your opinion on something that explain things, present ideas, and so on. In section three, we look at one specific area where language is critical, and this is customer service. You'll hear examples of good, bad customer service and some real scenarios to help you put into practice some of the tips that I share with you. Finally, in section four, we look at certain behaviors of work, mindset, motivation and creative thinking and how these can be super helpful in shaping the way we act at work and viewer. So that we can feel more engaged, more alive, and have a better chance of enjoying what we do. As well as listening to me. You're going to hear audio from different people. Talk about their work and role-plays about customer service. There'll be assignments and quizzes in each section of the course. And you'll have the opportunity to communicate with me both during and after the course. So if you feel like it's for you, sign up right now because you've got nothing to lose. 2. CH1 1 Working Life Introduction: In this section of the course, we discussed the language used when talking about our jobs, what we do now, and what we do or want to do in the future. We also look at how to describe the skills that we've got and the difference between the hard skills on the one hand and soft skills on the other hand. And finally, we go on a journey with Owen. Owen is looking for a job and he wants some help on his CV, covering letter, and how to achieve interview. 3. CH1 2 Describing Your Work: Every year in the UK, people spend around 2 thousand hours at work. That's a lot of hours. So it's important to find a job that you enjoy doing. Often. What you're good at is also what you enjoy doing. What are you good at? What do you like doing? Before we listened to various people describe what they do for a living and what they like and what they dislike about it. We're going to look at some of the language that we use when describing our jobs. There are different ways to describe what you do as a job. For example, you could use the job title. You could say, I work as a teacher or I am a teacher. I am a journalist. I work as a journalist. I am a barman. I work as Obama. The second way is to describe the industry or sector that you work in. So I work in education. As a barman. You would say, I work in hospitality. If you work in a bank, I work in finance. The other way you can describe what you do is to talk about the type of place that you work at. So I work at a further education college, or I work in a hotel. I work at a bank. Sometimes. This can be quite vague. So you can say, I work for the local council. But the local council could mean that you pick up rubbish for a living or that you could be an administrator. It can be quite general and unspecific. It's very common to combine all three of these structures. So for example, in my case, I would say, I work in education as a teacher at an adult community college. You can also describe what you do. So I design websites or I teach kids how to play music. I make furniture in a small furniture company. Another way to talk about work is to express your responsibilities. Words like, I have to manage. I lead, I take care of, I organize. I'm responsible for most of my time is spent. For example, if we put this into a job, you might say, I'm a marketing manager. I have to do the marketing for the company. I'm responsible for all the social media accounts. We have an all the press releases. Most of my time is spent writing articles and blog posts. Okay. Now it's your turn. Grab a phone and record yourself talking about what you do at work. If you have a friend who speaks better English than you do, send it to them, why not? If you don't want to do that, just delete it. No pressure. Here are a few sentence starters to help you. You can start by saying, these days are currently meaning what you're doing now. Okay, don't worry if you don't have a job, you could say these days I'm looking for a job. My job involves what does your job involves? What do you do? What are your responsibilities? For example, if you are a waiter, you might say, my job involves taking orders from customers and bringing them the bill. Alright? And the third one is, I'm mainly, now, I mainly is a useful bit of language in English, which is used to emphasize what you do most of the time. Alright, so I mainly teach adults English. I also teach kids occasionally, but for the most part, I teach adults. So I mainly teach adults. What do you mainly do in your job? Have a think about that. Okay. Go and grab your phone and describe what you do. And we'll be back in the next section. 4. CH1 3 Practice Listening Task: Now let's take a listen to seven real life scenarios of people describing what they do for a living. Try and remember those structures that you heard in previous video and see which ones they use in their dialogues. He ready? Hi, my name is Jay and I work as a landscape architect in a small company called BB UK, which is based in Kansas down in London. I've been in this profession for over a decade and find it very rewarding. It involves designing public spaces such as box and squares, and can be quite challenging because of its complexity. However, the hard work always fees like it's worth the effort when you see your designs being enjoyed by people for leisure and relaxation. I work as a composer in film, television, and advertising. Principally, my job is to help tell the stories of the films my clients are making. And to help tell those stories with music and sound design. This means I get to make a wide variety of music, everything from classical to jazz, to rock, to punk rock, to world music, and everything in-between. My job could be best summarized as the person who brings to life a film with the emotional language of music. I work as a link quick of citizens advice, which is a national charity organization. My work consists of me working with clients who are in need of advice and support. I link them up with services that will hopefully improve their standard of living, their mental health and well-being. It can be very stressful at times, but also very rewarding. I liked working with lots of different people and hopefully help them to achieve their goals. I work as a business development manager. I work in the third sector for a company called resilience learning partnership. I am responsible for external communications and marketing. I'm mainly deal with raising the awareness of resilience, learning partnership. I specialize in building relationships. My job is very rewarding as we are making a real difference for people in Scotland. I work as a front end developer. I am responsible for delivering small features and troubleshoot and smaller issues. I mainly deal with writing and debugging code. My work consists of creating new features, fixing bugs, and tested for usability. My work is interesting and can be challenging but fun at the same time. I work as a front-end developer for a tech company. I mainly deal with writing code and writing tests. My work consists of writing new features and fixing bugs. I specialize in writing JavaScript. My work is interesting and challenging. I work as a video editor and animator. I worked for a PR agency called ten group based in West Central London. I'm responsible for creating high-quality video content. Mainly deal with cutting together the footage to create stories and narratives that help deliver a message for our clients. My work consists of looking through video footage and picking out the best bits to sort of highlights the key moments that were filmed are recorded. I specialized in animation, which I use to bring to life the film with various graphics and visual style, which can really help lift a piece of work. I'm in charge of delivering high-quality content for our clients on time and to deadline. Whilst also managing the post-production team, who I work with. My job is fun. It's very varied. There's a lot of challenges, which also means that can be stressful moments, but sometimes they can also be the most rewarding. 5. CH1 4 Positives and Negatives: So in those clips that you heard, you heard people describe what they do in their job. Their job consists of. But you also heard them talk about what they liked and what they didn't like so much. And it's very common when people ask you, do you like your job to use a positive word and then a negative words afterwards or the other way round. Let me show you some examples of what I mean by this. The money is great. It's a lot of pressure. Or I liked the people I work with, but the money is not that great. Or I liked the job. It's very satisfying, but the management is not very good. Or the people I work with, uh, so friendly and supportive, but the job itself is very stressful. I feel like it's a bit of a dead end job at times, but it can be a lot of fun. The customers are so demanding, but the management can be really motivating. Most of the time it's quite boring. And then at certain times of the year it gets very busy. It's common to be asked if you like your job or what's your job like. There are different ways you can respond to this without just saying yes or no. For example, you could talk about the money. It's very common to talk about the money because we go to work to earn money. So if you want to talk about money in a positive way, you could say that it's quite well-paid. My job is quite well-paid or the money is pretty good. You could also use the verb to earn. So you could say, I earn good money or earn a good salary. On the other hand, if money is an issue, you're not, not Soufan, not such a big fan of the money. You can say that the money is not very good at all. It's poorly paid. If the money is really bad, you could say the pay is terrible. And if you want to draw attention to the fact that you would like to be better paid. You could say, I wish the money were better, but hey, what can you do? Another way that we talk about our jobs is the people that we work with. Unless you work on your own, you tend to work with other people. So there are various different ways of doing this. You can describe things that you like about the people that you work with. You can say, I worked with some great people. Or I loved the team I'm working in. Or I get on really well with my colleagues or my colleagues and coworkers. A great. These are all of the different kinds of ways that you can talk about people at work. It's also common to describe your work in just one or two words. People often use a wide range of words to talk about their job. Let's take a look at some of the common ones, both positive and negative. You can say that your work is stimulating. For example, working in a startup is a very stimulating environment. There's lots of different tasks that need doing. And quite often you end up doing lots of things that are not in your job description. You can talk about rewarding job, working in the charity sector, or being a teacher or being a doctor. Basically doing things that help people, is often described as a rewarding job. You can talk about your job is being varied. A very job is characterized by dealing with a variety of tasks and people. It's never the same from one day to the next. For example, working at Wembley makes meeting all kinds of different people possible. Here are some other ones. If in a positive light, you might talk about your job being sociable, glamorous, motivating, caring, fast-paced. On the other hand, it's a negative words. You could talk about demanding jobs. Demanding is when to describe a job that's mentally or physically hard, right? Laboring, for example, doing stuff with your hand, it's a demanding job. You can also describe a job as being full-on. Full-on, we use to describe something that is incredibly time-consuming. So maybe you work the weekends or maybe you have to work late into the evenings to meet deadlines. This is when we would use we would say, my job is quite full-on. Often. These are temporary things. Yeah. So if you're going through a particularly busy period at work, you can say my job at the moment is full-on. Have XYZ deadline to meet. You can also talk about your job is being menial, menial, or mundane. And these two words describe work that is very easy to do and requires absolutely no skill. It's also often termed as boring, but menial and mundane. Two different words that you can use instead of just boring. If you really don't like your job, you dread going to work. I hope that's not the case for you. You can describe your work as soul destroying. This characterises work that is, gets you so depressed. It feels like it's sucking the soul out of you. Here are some other ones. Exhausting, stressful, dead end, time-consuming, and thankless. Okay, Now it's your turn. Think about your job. If you don't have one, think about an imaginary job and think what positive word of what negative word would you choose from the list. Make a sentence about how you feel about your job. 6. CH1 5 Practice Assignment: Okay, now let's look at how you would describe some other jobs. Being a teacher, for example, you could say that it's quite a challenging job. You've got different abilities and different needs in the class, but it's also quite a rewarding job. Take a look at these pictures of jobs, tried to figure out what the job is, and then use a word from the list, negative or positive to describe that job. If you want, you can leave your suggestions in the comments section and I'll give you feedback. 7. CH1 6 Likes Dislikes Preferences: As we said in a previous video, we spent a lot of time at work. So it's important to know how to describe what you like and what you dislike doing. There are different ways to say this. In English. You can say that you like doing something very simply or you enjoy doing something. So I might say, I enjoy working with people or I enjoy helping people are designing things. Here you've said, I enjoy or I like plus the I-N-G form. I enjoy designing, helping, or working. Another way is to say what you're good at. Okay? I am good at languages. I like learning languages, so I would say, I'm good at languages. You might say I'm good at languages or programming. I'm good at music. I'm good at whatever. The next area that you might want to say is what you want from a job. And here are four different ways to say that. The first would be to use the form I would like, plus the infinitive. So here you would say, I would like to have a well-paid job. Okay. Common one. I'd like to work in the medical profession. If you wanted to be a doctor, I'd like to I'd like to work in a small company. If you want to work in a company that's huge. The next one is, I wouldn't mind. Okay. You can use this for something you would you would think about and you'd be happy doing. And again, this is I-N-G form. So you can say, I wouldn't mind traveling for my job. I wouldn't mind working for a not-for-profit. The next one is I would consider plus I-N-G. So again, I would consider working working part-time or I would consider getting a better paid job if I if I could. And the final one is I'm not interested in plus I-N-G. So these are used to rule out something to say, I'm really not interested in working in the finance sector. I'm not going to waste my time looking for any jobs in that sector. So let's go over the form again to make sure you know exactly how to use these structures. The first one is I would like plus the infinitive. Yeah, I would like to second one. I wouldn't mind. Plus I-N-G. I wouldn't mind doing something. Third one again, ING I would consider plus I-N-G, I'd think about I would consider doing whatever. And the fourth one also plus I-N-G. I'm not interested in. 8. CH1 7 Listening Activity: Now you're going to listen to a phone conversation between you and me ON is going to tell me a little bit about what he wants to do in a job. So listen carefully and make note of which structures you here ON use. I heard you're looking for a new job. Yeah. I don't have a job that pays well, yeah. Don't we all what other things are important to you? Well, I'm not interested in having to manage other people. It's too much responsibility for me. Okay. And then what kind of industry would you be looking to work? Still in the field of education as it's what I've got experiencing. I wouldn't mind having a more senior position at my college. Oh, you mean like a management position? That could be tricky if you don't want to manage people. Hopefully, you heard ON, say the following things. I'd like to have a job that pays. Well, I'd like to have a job that pays well, I'm not interested in having to manage other people. And I wouldn't mind having a more senior position at the college. Okay. Even though, as I pointed out, if he doesn't want, the responsibility is going to be tricky for him to get a management position. You can also use some different expressions to talk about what you want to do with work. And these are, I would prefer shortened to, I'd prefer likewise, I'd prefer not to go I'd prefer not to work weekends. Exactly the same thing, but in a different way. You could say I'd rather or I'd rather not. I'd rather, I'd rather work in a small company than a big company or I'd rather not work in a huge company. Yeah, you're just using the same thing. It's indicating preference. And obviously the the other way of just saying is, I don't mind. I don't mind if I work in X or Y. Okay. Again, just like you did in the previous videos, you're going to grab your phone and you're going to practice now talking about your job. Use these sentence, starters to help you. I'd like to have a job I'm not interested in or I wouldn't mind. And do it to describe you and your preferences. Once you've done that, you can take the quiz to practice the form of these structures. Here in the quiz you're going to listen to various people, describe their preferences for work. Do they use the two form or do they use the I-N-G form? I wouldn't mind being a teacher. I wouldn't mind being a teacher. I'd like to be given more flexi time options. I'd like to be given more flexi time options. I'm not interested in having a lots of responsibility. I'm not interested in having a lot of responsibility. You thinking of applying for that job. You thinking of applying for that job? I enjoy working as a freelancer. I enjoy working as a freelancer. I prefer not to work weekends. Prefer not to work weekends. I want to be paid more for the hours. I do want to be paid more for the hours I do. I wouldn't mind being a teacher. I would like to be given more flexi time options. I'm not interested in having a lots of responsibility. You thinking of applying for that job. I enjoy working as a freelancer. I prefer not to work weekends. I want to be paid more for the hours I do. 9. CH1 8 What Skills Do You Have: Think about what you have to offer an employer. What skills do you use in your current job? What skills do you think you have? Remember, we talked about what you enjoy doing is normally what you're good at. So make some notes, make some notes about what skills you think you have. A work place environment. It's important to know what your skills are and how they can help you succeed. When we think about skills, we often talk about hard skills and soft skills. Soft skills, also known as interpersonal or people skills. Soft skills are things that you bring to the workplace in terms of your personality. You might be a very good listener, a very good communicator. You might be persuasive. These are all soft skills. Hard skills, on the other hand, are things that you can do. They are teachable. They are measurable abilities. They are things like ability to do maps, to read, to write, to read, to do computer programs. Let's have a look at some more examples. Typing, speaking fluent Spanish, computer programming, IT skills, having a driving license. These are all examples of hard skills, are teachable and measurable. Soft skills, on the other hand, they're just more about the way that you are. Okay, let, let's look at some examples. Problem-solving, creative thinking, leadership. So think about your own skills. Hard skills and soft skills do have tried to think of three of each. That's your task now. 10. CH1 9 Skills Assingnment: You're going to see now ten skills on the board. You need to decide which ones are hard skills and which ones are soft skills. Video editing, customer service, multitasking, cloud computing, affiliate marketing, time management, SEO, typing speed, UX design, creativity. Just pause the video now and think about which ones are soft and which ones are hard. And I'll give you the answer in just a few seconds. Okay? Hopefully you got something like this. Soft skills, of course, our time management, creativity, multitasking, and customer service. These are things that you can learn effectively. Hard skills, also things that you can learn, but they're much more measurable. They're much more quantifiable and usually very specific for the jobs. So video editing, cloud computing, affiliate marketing, SEO, typing speed, and UX design. These are all hard skills. 11. CH1 10 Applying for a Job: In this section, we're going to follow ON as he applies for a job. We're going to take a look at a job advert from a website. And then we're going to look at CVs and covering letter, which is standard for many job applications. Job advert is quite simply where the job is advertised, where you see the job. This could be a jobs website. It could be newspaper website, or the company or organization which you're applying for. What's a CV then? Cv stands for curriculum vitae. And it's a written record of your work and education history and all the other information that an employer is interested in. A covering letter, also known as a supporting statement, is used to introduce yourself and explain why you think you are the best candidate for the job. Let's now take a look at a standard job advert example. 12. CH1 11 Job Advert: This is a typical job advert. It's organized in a very clear way with each part having a function which helps us identify the most important points. So at the top, you've got the name of the organization. Victoria and Albert Museum. Underneath comes the strap line, which tells you a little bit more about the organisation. So in this case, the leading museum in the world of art and design. Next comes the job title, front of house assistant. This is particularly important to look at when you're applying for jobs in a bigger organization where they have multiple jobs advertised. After that comes a short description of the role itself and the organization. Underneath that, you have the essential criteria. These are criteria that are absolutely necessary for the candidate to show in both the CV and the covering letter. And of course, at interview in order to get the job. In this case, there are three essential criteria. Next comes the desirable criteria. These are important, but not as important as the essential criteria. If you have them, it's really good to demonstrate that you've got them. But if you don't, it won't disqualify you from landing the job. Next comes the working conditions. This gives you a little bit more information about the working hours, the travel required for the job, as well as opportunities for professional development if there are any training programs. Finally comes the salary. Sometimes you will see the actual salary as a figure noted in this bit, in this part. But often you'll see the word competitive salary and sometimes in brackets, negotiable, depending on experience and qualifications. A competitive salary just means that it will be a salary that is in line with similar jobs in similar organizations. Finally, you have the details of how to apply. This is crucial as often, these will be time sensitive, so you need to look at the deadline, as well as looking at the address or the email address to whom you should send your CV and you're covering letter. So it's quite a short text, but it contains a lot of important information. Does it look like a job advert in your country? 13. CH1 12 Listening Assignment: You're now going to hear ON and me disgust the advert that you saw in the last video for a front of house assistant for a museum in London, we talk about whether ON is a suitable candidate for the job. So as you listen, try to identify the different points that you saw from the advert. Make notes if you if it's easier for you. Do you think ON is the right person for the job? Why? Why not? Hey Mike. How you doing? Good, thanks. Listen. I was thinking about what you said and I'd be looking out for a new job. I found it interesting alpha here. That's great. What's the job? Front of house assistance adds a well-known London museum. Does it say which museum? Yes. Victoria and Albert says they're looking for a person who speaks both English and Spanish. So I thought I could be a good fit for the job. Sounds interesting. Your Spanish is pretty good, isn't it? Yes. Pretty good. My wife is Colombian, so he speaks Spanish at home. Okay. What else does it say about the requirements for the job? Let me essential requirements. All applicants need to be a proactive and friendly individual who can interact with both staff and visitors. That's fine. You've got lots of experience of that in your teaching career. Yeah. I'll make sure I include that in my application. That's kind of a transferable skill, right? Definitely. Transferable skill, definitely. There any other essential requirements? Yeah. It says being reliable, punctual, and can work as part of a large team. Well, you're used to working as part of a group of teachers. And you do have to be punctual to arrive on time to class every day. Does it say anything about the salary? Yeah. It says competitive salary. So that's good. Negotiable, depending on experience and qualifications would suit someone who has worked in education or customer service fields will ask you, perfect. You've got everything they want. If it interests you, you should definitely apply. What about the working conditions? You don't want to work on Saturdays, D does it say anything about working hours? Yeah, it does. Successful candidate will work normal business hours Monday to Friday. And we expect it to work one weekend each month. One weekend a month is okay. Actually, it'll be great to have some weekends again. All in all, I'd say go for it may keep me posted about how you get on. 14. CH1 13 Owain's CV: There are lots of different ways to write a CV and different people prefer different ways. There isn't one perfect correct way. But Owens CV is a good example. Let's take a look. It's neat and easy to read, isn't it? A one-page CV is good. Two pages are okay too. But if you have any more than that, you definitely need to cut it down to one. At the top of the CV. Owens name is very clear. That's important. And in the top section here, he also has his personal information like his address and how he can be contacted. He could include a heading that says personal information, but it's okay without that too. Next, we have employment. That is employment history. The places where Owen has worked, and what professional experience he has. If you've never had a job. You can still include this and mentioned, for example, any volunteering you've done. Next, we have education. Your academic background. Don't include where you went to primary school here. Just secondary and university and any other courses or training that you've done. Then o enlists his skills. This is where you can show and employ the skills that you have, especially the skills that are right for this job. Then interests. Employers like to have an idea of what kind of hobbies and interests you have. You don't need to go into too much detail. And finally, references. Your references are people like your former managers are college professors. People and employer can contact to perhaps learn a little bit more about you. It looks like Owen's done a pretty good CV, but there are some bits that need changing. Can you see what they are? 15. CH1 14 Owain's CV Feedback: It looks like Owen's done a pretty good job with his CV, but there are a few things that could be improved with it. Listen now to the conversation between ON and me where I give him feedback. It's always a good idea to get advice on your CV from a friend or a colleague. If possible. They may be able to notice things that you didn't pick up on. Listen to me, then give ON some advice and try to answer the following questions. What do I advise ON about including the date of birth and the nationality on his CV. What do I say about the employment or previous work experience section? What do I say about the education section? And finally, what do I say about the references section? Hi. Hi Mike. How are you? I'm very well. Thanks. How are you doing? I'm good. Thanks. I just wanted to ask you about that CV I sent you. Have you had a look at it? Yes, I have. Yes. You are applying for the front of house assistant role at you in the museum? That's right. Yeah. I have a look and there were some really positive parts to it. I just have a few changes that I would make if I were you. You want me to go through them with you? Yes, please. Alright. So let me just bring your CV up. The top. You've got your name. That's really clear. It's always good to have your name at the top of the CV so that it's nice and clear. Then your contact details, your address, your mobile phone, and your email. So really well done for that. It's very clear. Next, you've put your date of birth and your nationality. Now. Does your age effect your ability to do the job you're applying for? Probably not. Here by including it, you're actually opening yourself up for age discrimination. And the same goes for nationality. So you don't need to include your date of birth or your nationality. Okay? So the next stage is your profile. It's really important to include a profile which tells the recruiter something about you. So here you've gone for proactive, hardworking and enthusiastic education specialists. That's great. You've shown, you've actually used the very same word that's in the job description, which is proactive. So that's excellent, that you've shown that you've read the job description and included it in your profile. I would just add one sentence here to tell the recruiter that even though you don't have experience in customer service, you are going to look to use the skills that you've learned in education in a customer service facing role. The next stage is the employment history. Here you've mentioned what you've done in the past and highlighted the most important jobs. So you've talked about your hospitality experience, the weight-bearing, and the bar work. What I would add to that is to say what you did in these jobs. You can do that by using action verbs, which make it easier for the recruiter to visualize what you did in the job. So if, for example, you could say that you interacted with customers to provide them with a positive dining experience. In your teacher role, you could say that you participated in, you lead a team of teachers. This just makes your application a little bit stronger for the recruiter. Moving on to the education. Great, that you've only included your recent education and not where you went to primary school. That's not so important. But one thing that's missing is the dates. You have to include the dates of where you attended these schools that you went to or universities that you attended. The next stage is your core skills and that's your chance to show the recruiter that you have the necessary skills to do the job. Here you've put your interpersonal skills, the fact that you've been a good listener and you can advise people that's really good. And your languages which are essential in this role. It's always worth to put down your IT skills because every employer values the IT skills. So a nice one for doing that. Finally, you finish up with your interests. Your interests are a really good way of showing the recruiter a little bit about your personality. So you don't have to go into huge amount of detail here. But they do want to know what kind of person you are. I think, by mentioning these three activities that you enjoy doing gives a flavor of your personality. So that's all good. Under the reference section, the only thing I would add, rather than leaving it blank, is you might want to just put the sentence available on request. This means that if the recruiter asks for the references that you are able to and willing to provide them. Does that help me at all? That's brilliant. Thank thank you so much. I've got a clearer idea now of what I need to include in my CV. You're very welcome. I think as I said, I think you're a really good candidate for the job. So let's get that covering letter sorted. Okay. Great. Thank you. Speak to you soon. Bye. Bye. Do you agree with my advice? A CVs different in your country? If so, tell us how is there any information that you would include or you don't include? So now it's your turn to practice what you've learned so far. Go ahead and do the quiz in the next section on CVs. 16. CH1 15 Assignment: You've looked at OpenCV. Now think about the information that you would include in your own CV. As we saw in earlier steps, there are different ways to write a CV, but they all include some basic information. What information would you include for the following headings? Skills, education, experience, and interests. Why don't you at this point, pause the video, go ahead and grab a biscuit, cup of tea or whatever. Come back and write some notes for those sections, a guarantee this will help you in your efforts to think about what are those things that need to go onto your CV? I'll see you in the next section. 17. CH1 16 Covering Letter: So here is Owens covering letter. Like this one. Covering letters are quite short and formal and use short paragraphs. Let's look at the layout. On has his address on the top right-hand corner and the employer's address here on the left-hand corner. He uses a formal greeting. Dear Ms. Collins, not high and also not her first-name. It also ends formerly with yours sincerely. That's the appropriate ending for a cover letter. Now, what does ON actually say in the letter? Well, he starts by letting the employer know which job he's applying for. I'm writing to apply for the position of front of house assistant. Next, he points out that he has the essential requirements that he saw in the job advertisement. Here in the next paragraph. This is very important. He's given a little bit more information about himself that isn't in his CV. He says he has transferable skills and can solve problems quickly and communicate with people well. This helps to give Ms. Collins a better sense of what type of person ON is. Here. In the final paragraph, he says again, how good he would be for this job. It's a good example of a short covering letter. 18. CH1 17 Interviews Introduction: In the next few videos, we'll look at some of the hacks. If you'd like to a successful interview process. Maybe you've got an interview coming up, or maybe you just want to develop your skills in this area for future interviews. We know job interviews can be stressful things, but there are some tricks to minimize the stress and maximize the chances of landing a job that you really want. So we're going to have a look at the do's and don'ts of interviews. The things that you should keep in mind before, during, and after the interview process. And we'll look at the tricky area of salary negotiations. 19. CH1 18 Things You Should Do at Interview: In some situations in life, it pays to be spontaneous. Job interviews, however, are not such an occasion. You must be prepared. As the quote from the old US president goes, by failing to prepare. You are preparing to fail. What does this mean? Well, it means that preparing yourself to distinguish yourself from other candidates, to stand out from the crowd will be the most valuable thing you can do. Get some practice interviewing in. This could be with friends who could ask you some of the most common interview questions and get you to reflect on your answers. But even better than that would be to go to interviews. Get some practice by interviewing for positions that you don't really care too much if you get or you don't get. Because by practicing in real life situations, this way, you learn how you present yourself. You learn about the stories that you tell, your interview, your strengths, your weaknesses. And if you end up being given the job, then great. You know, you've not lost anything if you don't. So getting some practice in is really, really crucial to landing that job that you want. Tip number two, do your research. You need to find out as much as possible about the organization that you are interviewing with. To do this. Go on their website, check their social media, find out who their competitors are. If they've been in the news recently for something positive or negative, find out what projects they've recently completed. What are the organization's culture, what are the organization's values? Because quite simply, the more that you know about that organization, the better prepared for the interview you're going to be. You should also try to find out who will be interviewing you. So depending on the size of the organization and the role that you're going to be doing. You might be meeting an HR professional, your boss, your future boss, or other employees in the organization. But it's really good to find out who is going to be interviewing you. And to do this, you can just call or e-mail the person who scheduled the interview with you. Find out it's okay to ask. If you do find out the name of the person. Tried to do a bit of research around that person. So you can go on the company website and click under About Us section. Or perhaps go to LinkedIn and see their profile. If you can find out something about the interviewer, you're already helping yourself to connect with that person at the interview and create a positive impression during the interview. Tip number three, go back to the job description or the job advert. You need to remember what exactly is the wishlist from the employer. In other words, what are they looking for from a candidate? You should read this. Again, read the job description several times before you go into that room and have your interview because you need to show off what the qualities are, what your experiences are, and just why you're the best candidate for the job. Because some interview panels will literally have a checklist and they will tick off each desirable or essential criteria as you demonstrate it in the interview. Others have a more informal process. But either way, they are measuring your answers that you give against the job description that they have, either in their heads or in front of them in the room. So you need to be as comprehensive as possible and match each requirement to your personal story. So in order to demonstrate that you have these essential and desirable criteria, don't just list them, but instead, prepare your story. Go into your memory to show how you have x, y, z qualities. Tip number 4, first impressions count. As the saying goes. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So you need to make yours count. Being punctual. Wearing the right kind of clothing, making eye contact, and giving a firm handshake are going to be super, super helpful for you to build this first impressions. Research says that people make up their mind about you within 20 seconds of meeting you. So the way you greet somebody when you enter the room, you walk across the room and you take your seat, could be key in determining the outcome of the entire interview. Okay. They're not as important as you're actually experienced or suitability for the job, but they really count. And big time. Tip number five, physical appearance. The importance of your physical appearance in an interview can go a long way. If you want to act the part, you have to look the part. So taking the time to ensure that you look good can increase your confidence, which ultimately helps us perform in an interview. So this doesn't mean that you have to wear a suit or dress. It just means that you have to wear something that you think suits the culture of the organization and which makes you feel good about yourself. So think culture of the organization and think, what do you feel comfortable wearing? Those two things are going to be vital in deciding what you're going to wear for the interview. Tip them or six, body language. Non-verbal communication is as important as what you say. There are certain things you need to bear in mind how you present yourself with your body. The first easy way is to smile. When you meet your interviewer for the first time. Smile generously. It connects with the interviewer and shows that you're confident and that you're relaxed. Even if you're going to be nervous. The other things you should bear in mind is to sit up straight to keep eye contact with the interviewer. And if you are going in for a handshake, that's up to you to make sure that you offer a firm handshake, not a limp handshake. Just overall on this, is that a good body posture, a good body language awareness at least can change the perception of the interviewer towards you. The final tip, tip number eight, is the follow-up. It's really important to know that your interview doesn't end the moment that you leave the room or the office that you've had the interviewer in. Because the truth is that if you follow up after an interview, you stand out in the interview as mind, somebody who really wants the job, Who's keen enough, Who's keen to make the effort and take the time to thank the interviewer for their time and show that they really, they really want the job. So this doesn't have to be too long. It can just be a quick email to say, thank you very much for the interview. And you don't need to repeat anything that you said in the interview or that you've said in your covering letter? Certainly don't do that. Just a very quick follow-up to say, thank you and I look forward to hearing from you. So here's a quick summary then of the do's. Be prepared. Okay, try to practice if possible, by going to different kinds of interviews or otherwise, just practice with your friends. Practice trying out your questions and your answers. Do your research. Find out as much about the company, the organization that you're applying for. Reread the job description. The job description is your friend. It's the wish-list that the employer has. So you need to make sure that your answers fit. That job description. First impressions count. Remember such a small window to create that first impression. So make sure that yours is a good one. How you dress your physical appearance for the interviewer is super important as well. So look at the culture, the values of the organization, and dress appropriately. Your body language. Just make sure that you give us smile and you maintain that eye contact and presence with your body in the interview process. And finally, the importance of the follow-up. Just a quick email to say thank you. 20. CH1 19 Things you Shouldnt Do at Interview: In the previous video, we looked at some of the things you should definitely do interview. Now let's look at the things that you must avoid at interview at all costs. Tip number one, don't be late. Make sure that you prepare your journey to the interview place before so that you avoid any possibility of you being late. Of course, there's things that happen that are unavoidable, being stuck in traffic or having a transport strike or, or other things that are unpredictable. But being late is a really, really bad start to the interview. So plan your journey really well. Make sure that you leave with plenty of time to spare. Generally, people would say, if you can get there 1010 minutes before the interview is a good time, you don't want to get there too early because it will make people feel nervous. And also some interviewers, they don't have the space to have you. They're busy busy places at work. So you don't want to get there too early. But whatever you do, don't be late. Tip number two, never complain about the previous employer. It's really tempting, isn't it? To want to go to an interview and talk about your previous employer because chances are that's the reason why you're there. You had a bad experience or you're looking to leave your current place of work because you're not satisfied. But this is not the place to do that, spare that, talk to your friends about that. Don't get in front of an interviewer and complain about the previous employer because it really just reflects badly on you as a person. The employer might be thinking that you're just a morning person, someone who's going to talk badly of people in general. So really spare your, your emotion to conversations with your friends and family about your previous employer. Tip number three, don't speak over the interviewer. Now this is a tempting one to do. If you are a chatty person at talkative person. And you are really keen to sell yourself in terms of your experience and why you think you're the best person for the job. But this is not about you as much as it is about the interviewer asking you questions. You really need to learn to not interrupt the interviewer and instead, listen and wait for your turn to speak effectively. Tip number four, do not falsify information. Don't forget that the interview is a two-way decision-making process where the employer and you get to understand if you are going to benefit each other mutually. So if you're not honest with each other, then what's the point of the interview? Being successful in an interview with fake attributes might get you the job. But sooner rather than later, the truth is going to catch up with you. Let's say you do get the job. And if you're hired based on the skills that you don't actually have, it's only a matter of time before the employer will know the truth. So don't falsify information. The final tip, don't think of it like an exam. Interviews should be thought of as a conversation. That's it. Simply put, it's a conversation between you and a recruiter and you're trying to figure out if you are fit for each other. So don't think of it an exam and answer the questions with closed answers. More about closed answers and closed questions in the next section of the video. 21. CH1 20 Salary Negotiation: Salary negotiations is typically one of the things that people find toughest and lease comfortable about the interview process. In one sense, you and your potential employer, or approaching the issue from opposing perspectives, you're looking to be compensated for as much as possible. And the employer is looking to secure the best person for the least amount of money. And yet, with many employers struggling to attract candidates with unnecessary skills and experience, you may find yourself in a stronger bargaining position to negotiate a higher salary than you think. While you need to be careful of pricing yourself out of the market, you also need to ensure that you're paid what you're worth, or ideally slightly more. This section of the course will attempt to share some of the insights that I've discovered from recruiters and coaches around the web about how to negotiate, when to negotiate, and what can be up for negotiation in salaries. So essentially, if you're going to just watch this one bit and go no further, just remember this point. You may feel uncomfortable about asking an employer for more money. But in order to maximize your earning capacity, it's important to overcome any reluctance to do so. Employers will always be eager to get a good deal financially of the person that they're hiring. So there's really no reason for you not to do the same. As the saying goes. If you don't ask, you don't get most of the time, you should wait until the employer brings up the subject of salary before you start negotiating the amount, they have to bring up the subject anyway. So there's no point really in you initiating it as you're going to come across in patients and greedy and carrying excessively about the money and not the job itself. So when they do bring it out, how do you answer that awkward question? What are your salary expectations? Well, the first thing you need to do is to do your research. So just like in the interview process, it's really important to do your homework. You can check online what the standard salaries are, four sectors and industries in your area that you're applying to work. There are also salary survey websites you can look to check equivalent salaries. And even better if you have a friend who works in that sector that you're applying for, colon, find out what kind of money should I be looking at to get this kind of job? The second thing you can do is to give a range and not a number of the salary. So rather than say, I want 40 grand, I want £40 thousand for my job. Better to say, I'm looking in the range of X to Y. Because by showing them that you're not fixed on a specific number, you're showing a flexibility that employers really appreciate. It also leaves room to adjust the figures. If, once you've learned more about the job and what the employer's expectations are, you can then adjust accordingly. So you could say something like this. You could say, I've done some research and I know that the people who work in this industry, in this role, in this particular city make between x and y. So taking into account my experience, my expertise, I believe I love ice fit in the higher category, higher range. So here as well as you're showing your flexibility, you're also showing that you can negotiate and that you're confident about what you're worth, which the employer may value, especially if you're going to be working for them. The third thing you can do with salary negotiation is to turn the question around. So at an early stage of the interview process, if you're asked, what are your salary expectations, you could say something like, well, I'd like to learn more about the position and the duties first and what the team is like before we discuss money. But can I ask what the salary range you're considering for this position is delivered in this polite way. You're going to demonstrate that your priority is learning whether the role is really what you're looking for. And later, you can then talk about the salary. Patients can be key to the salary negotiation process. Because if you do ask an employer to offer more money than what they originally prepared to offer, it's pretty unlikely that they'll be able to agree to your requests straightaway. They're going to have to ask their managers, their colleagues, their superiors, following your meeting. So it's important to not get anxious or agitated and just remember that this is a game of patients. Also, if your negotiations fail and you don't get a salary increase that you wanted or the highest salary even. It's important to react in a gracious and composed way. You shouldn't take it personally. Because after all, this is a business deal that's going on. You can also ask for additional or alternative benefits instead of a higher salary. Example of this could be, do they offer or would you be prepared to offer me more holiday? Have you got any training budget? Because potentially the hiring manager could sign off on these requests even if they can't offer the additional pay. Finally, if you don't get the better pay off or that you wanted, it's not the end of the world. After all, you've got the job that you wanted. And you're now in a very good position to impress in your first few months doing the job. And then maybe the next conversation you have around salary could be more fruitful. I hope this video has been helpful. Now, it's your turn to recast and remember what you've learned about this salary negotiation by doing the quiz. I'll see you in the next section. 22. CH2 1 Communication Skills at Work Intro: In this section, we explore the importance of effective communication skills at the workplace, especially in how we deliver information, how we give advice and guidance to our clients and our colleagues. We also look at what makes a good meeting, including the language of presenting ideas, solutions, and suggestions. I'll give you some tips on how to sound more persuasive. Checking someone understands what you've said and expressing solutions to problems. In the final video of this section, we'll look at how to disagree in a polite way. I not to lose friends at work or upset customers. 23. CH2 2 Questions Questions Questions: Have you ever wondered why as children, we ask questions all the time. If you have young children of your own, you'll know this very well. And if you haven't, you'll probably remember yourself. But then as adults, something strange happens and the number of questions we ask falls off a cliff. Now, I'm not here to explain why this is, but I do know that the power of questions at work is something that shouldn't be underestimated in building relationships with people. You've probably used many different questioning techniques before in everyday life and at work as well. But maybe you haven't been so conscious, so aware about the effect of these questions can have in your relationship with your colleagues and clients at work. By applying the most appropriate kind of questioning, you can encourage communication and have a much stronger connections with your colleagues and your clients. In fact, asking the right question. At the heart of effective communication. By using the right question when dealing with a client, you can gather better information, build stronger relationships, and be much more helpful. So let's look at a few different kinds of question types. Generally speaking, there are open questions and closed questions. A closed question is one that can be answered in a single word. For example, have you used our airline before? Yes or no? Have you been to this restaurant before? Yes or no? Do you know our brand? Yes or no? They normally are always in fact, are used to get a factual response from clients or colleagues. Open questions require the client or the colleague to give you a more in-depth answer. And they're normally used to find a client's opinion or their feelings. For example, what do you think would be helpful for you? Or what are your thoughts on a particular service or system or organization? So open questions help develop conversations and ensure that there's a flow. There's a natural flow between when you're discussing between with a client or an advisor or whoever it is you're having the conversation. If you overuse closed questions, this can make the conversation very difficult and very short, and a result in you not fully understanding the client's requirements or the colleagues requirements. So another technique here is the use of funnel questions. Now, this technique involves starting with very general questions, which are yes or no questions in fact, and then honing in on a point to get more detail at each level. So you could start by saying, Have you used our IT service before? Have you used our IT help desk? Yes or no. And then what aspects did you find helpful? What did you find good? What did you find difficult about it? So I hope this video has planted a seed about how important it is to ask questions at work. Not only does it build relationships, it makes you curious about what other people do, what they're experiences. Be that a client or somebody you work with asked loads of questions, it's really going to be beneficial to you. So now let's take a look at the power of listening as another way of building relationships in the workplace. 24. CH2 3 Listening Skills: As important as having good questioning skills is the ability to listen well. Good listening skills are so important in effectively understanding and guiding your colleagues and your clients that you work with. So before I go any further, I want you to stop and think. What do you think is meant by having listening skills? So stop the video and just jot down on a piece of paper. What do you think? The strategies for effective listening? I'll see you in a bit. So what is listening? Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. Listening is key to effective communication, because without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. Here's some steps to help you with your listening skills. First, tried to face the speaker and maintain eye contact throughout. It's really easy to not do this, especially if you're distracted by something that you're doing at the time that somebody's talking to you. So if you work in a busy situation, a busy environment, and let's say you're concentrating on a task and somebody comes up to you and starts talking to you, it's very easy to just think, well, I'll just ignore you, listened to you, but I'm actually going to focus on my task at the same time. Does this sound familiar to you? Well, I would argue that it's really detrimental. It's very harmful for the communication process. So you have to remain a 100% focused with your eyes and your body posture when dealing with customers and clients who are talking to you. Secondly, and very similarly to that is the idea that you can show you're listening by using your own body language. The most simple way of doing this is to nod. Nod your head. Occasionally, you don't want to do too much, but you can nod occasionally when your client or your colleague makes irrelevant point. Just nod to show that you understand and that you're listening. The third thing that comes to my mind with listening is you should try to keep an open mind. So customers or colleagues at work will often tell you things that might alarm you, that might throw you a little bit. Try not to pass judgment or to offer any advice. In fact, too quickly without hearing everything they need to say. So try to understand the issue from their point of view before you give your own opinion. Number four, and very similar to the third really is you should try at all costs not to interrupt. Don't interrupt and impose your own solutions because ultimately that just shows that you're saying to the client or your colleague that you think you're more important than they are. But what you have to say is more important. Of course, if you don't understand something or you need clarification on something, It's perfectly okay to wait for a pause in the conversation and then ask for an explanation. You can then use funneling questions to clarify more details. For example, if somebody says, Let's say you work in a housing association and you have a client that's got evidently problems with their housing. You might say. I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell me more about why your housing needs are not being met? So really pay attention to this idea of not interrupting somebody, listening to what they have to say. The final point about listening is like you are nodding and use your own body language. Lookout for body language in your person. You're talking to. Anything in their facial, facial expressions, their eye contact, gestures that they're using will show you if they are disagreeing with you or agreeing with you and giving you these nonverbal communication cues. So talking of nonverbal, we're actually now going to look a little bit more detail about what do we mean by this nonverbal communication. 25. CH2 4 Non Verbal Communication: So again, stop and think at this point, what do you understand by nonverbal communication? If we think of communication in general as being the process of sending and receiving messages that enable humans to share knowledge, skills, jokes, even usually communication is equated with speech, but actually it's composed of two-dimensions, isn't it? It's the verbal and the nonverbal. So nonverbal communication has been defined by people as being with communication without words, right? This includes facial expressions, eyes, your tone of voice, as well as less obvious messages like the way we dress, the way we sit or stand, and the physical distance between two or more people. Nonverbal communication allows people to reinforce or modify what is said in words. For example, people might nod their heads when saying yes. To emphasize that they agree, agree with somebody that will not have the head. Very, very powerful thing. Likewise, a shrug of the shoulders or a sad expression when saying, I'm fine, Thanks, may imply that things are not really, actually as they see. It allows feedback to be given between people. It regulates the flow of communication, for example, by signaling to others that they've finished speaking or that you wish to say something. Broadly speaking, then there are three areas of nonverbal communication. The first one is eye contact. Really important to establish eye contact when you talk to other people. Making a direct eye contact shows that you're interested in what they're saying. For example, if you're helping clients in a really busy environment, it helps to show the client that you're listening to them without becoming distracted by the environment around you. The second is facial expressions. Facial expressions are broadly understood no matter what culture you're from. So if you're frowning like this, it shows that you're upset or angry with someone. Conversely, if you smile, it shows that you're in a good mood. So using these facial expressions and recognizing them on other people creates an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness, allowing other people to feel comfortable. The other area of body language, your nonverbal communication is your posture, the way you sit, or the way you stand? If you slouch, for example, it shows that you're not particularly interested in what person is saying to you. Likewise, if you shake your legs around or you move a lot, also indicates that you're impatient, you're bored, you're not interested in what somebody is saying. So just bear in mind the way you carry yourself, the way you use your body in communication is as important sometimes as what you're saying. 26. CH2 5 Describing Systems: So as well as communicating through questions, listening and body language, often we find ourselves describing how things work, describing systems or describing processes. And if I take the example of apps, ask yourself, how often do you use apps? Probably quite a lot. What app do you find most useful? How does it help you? We're using apps is just one example of a system or service that's designed to make our lives easier at work. There are others, right? Think of how the system is to book a meeting room, or to book a holiday leave, or to do the onboarding for new employees. And typically, we use a lot of the same expression to talk about systems regardless of what the system is. So for example, verbs like let, allow, an enable, all describe how a system is designed to help a user. For example, this app allows you to keep track of your investments or Zoom video conferencing enables us to keep in touch our international colleagues. So a quick grammar point here is that help allow, enable, usually followed by an infinitive with two. Okay? So for example, this simple apps helps you to book a taxi. You wouldn't stress the two so much, you'd say just this simple apps allows you to book a taxi. In contrast, LET is followed by the infinitive without the two. So the easyJet Apps lets you download your boarding pass. You wouldn't say the easyJet Apps lets you too. Okay, that would be grammatically incorrect. Listen to these recordings of reviews of the following apps and see the kind of language that they use. Highly recommended typing can be a time-consuming task, especially when you need to make multiple urgent notes. However, speak task, the smart productivity app solves this problem and lets you write just by speaking. From creating notes to making lists. Speak task can make your life easier by supporting 63 languages. A handy app, five-stars. With the calcium blood pressure tracking app, you do not need to worry about losing your health care data. The device allows you to login and retrieve data on other devices with the same account information that you use to save the data. That's why you did not lose access to your health care records even if your device is broken or lost. Simple and user-friendly. Our app enables users to purchase anytime of the day or night, right from their phone. And all documentation is easily available on the phone, making the whole process easy and convenient. When traveling to another country, it's stressful enough. Ensuring your vehicles shouldn't be something that adds to the stress. 27. CH2 6 What Makes a Good Meeting: Do you have to attend meetings for work either online or in the office face-to-face with colleagues or with clients. Will this section we'll consider what makes your meetings effective and the role that you play in them. Maybe you're the organizer or maybe you're just a participant. With the aim of this section is to give you a toolbox of expressions that you can use in any meeting situations with colleagues or with customers. In general, it's really important to be prepared for meetings. That is, to know who is coming, why they're coming, and what they already know before they come. So having an agenda, a plan of action, especially if you're running the meeting to know what the aim is. Why, why is everybody coming to that place? Secondly, follow up. This is really important. People are busy. We have busy lives. Often. We go to these things and we forget what's said, what's agreed. So somebody needs to follow up with everybody who attended that meeting in an email. What was discussed, what was the most important points? And then the action points. How do you want people to act afterwards? The third is exploring this idea of taking turns. And this is really super important, something subtle which we'll go into in detail a bit later. How you turn take and how you offer suggestions in meetings. Let's take a look now at some of the language you use when you host a meeting. 28. CH2 7 Hosting Meetings: It's common in meetings to ask colleagues for an update on things. And there are various ways you can do this. You can go for an informal approach or a more formal approach. In formal, you could say, how are things with XYZ? Or how far are you along with something? Or how is the project coming along? Then more formal way. You could talk about status of something. Alright, what's the current status of your customer? Xyz or how could you tell us or could you tell us rather, how is something progressing? So that's the update. And then another way that we host meetings or another function of hosting meetings is when you want to hand over control to somebody else. Alright? You've been talking and you want to let somebody else in to lead the conversation. A couple of ways you can do that. First would be to say, now Joaquin is going to talk about something else. Or I'd like to hand over to Fatima who's going to take us through something else. Another function of hosting a meeting is asking people in the meeting for contributions. So simply asking, Has anyone got anything to contribute or would you like to add anything? John Latimer, whoever. Finally, another function is the ending. How do you close a meeting when you're hosting it? How do you bring that meeting to an end? One function, one way of doing that would be, I think that covers everything. I think that covers everything. Second way is to draw attention to the fact you're going to follow up by saying, I'll sum up the main points in an e-mail. And finally, asking if there's any questions. Making sure that everyone has said exactly what they are understood, exactly what's what's been said in the meeting. Are there any questions before we finish? 29. CH2 8 Attending a Meeting: Everyone has different skills and knowledge that they bring to the table in a meeting. So why do we meet in the first place? We meet to present, to discuss, to debate. And finally, to decide. There are four main functions that you need to do individually or collectively in meetings. Let's look at some example sentences for each of these functions. And I'll explain how we set them up grammatically and what function they serve. When it comes to participating in discussions. Individually. There are four main functions that you need to be able to do. Make suggestions, give opinions, agree and disagree. Let's start with suggestions then. The first way you can make a suggestion is to form a simple question. Would you like to hear my opinion? This is a good one because actually, it's very unusual that somebody would say no to that. So it's quite an effective way of making a suggestion. Would you like to hear my opinion? Second example. I think we should see what our customers think. I think we should see. Here we use the modal verb should plus the infinitive. So not, not should plus two, just should indicate a suggestion. I think we should I think we should do, I think we should see, I think we should send. The next example is using a question with a negative present simple verb. So, why don't we give a discount for those who book early? Why don't we sell such and such a product at a cheaper price? Why don't we make a suggestion? The next example, how about how about plus I-N-G? Okay. How about covering their registration fee? How about spending selling, reducing, discounting, whatever that is. You can also say how about we cover the registration fee, but more common is to use the I-N-G form. The final way to make a suggestion would be to say, to use the phrase good idea plus the infinitive. It might be a good idea to contact all of our previous customers. There are of course, variations on this. You can strengthen the suggestion by changing Good to Great or another adjective. You can also change the might. Be a good idea to, is a good idea. It is a good idea to contact all of our previous customers. Or it would be a good idea to contact all of our previous customers. Moving on to opinions. The first example of an opinion is to use the modal verb, have to, to express obligation. So this is quite a strong opinion. We have to, or we've got to do something. The next way of expressing opinion is to use an adverb. I think we should definitely adverbs always end in LY. If YOU very strong opinion, to express a very strong opinion, you'd say, I think we should definitely. If you want to change that to a less, less strong opinion when cases where you're less certain, you could use the word probably. I think we should probably give them a discount. And the third way that you can express an opinion is to use the hypothetical would okay? Would plus the word certainly. Again, this is for a strong opinion. It would certainly be popular. Then we move on to agreeing with somebody. If you're a 100% in agreement with somebody, you might say, I completely agree. If you're less certain and you want to soften the agreement? I think I agree. I think I agree with that. The third one, I suppose we could do that. Or I suppose we could do that. We can use different intonation and stress to indicate how much we agree. So listening the first one, if I put the stress on the word, suppose, I suppose we could do that. I'm indicating that I'm not that certain. There's a degree of uncertainty there. Likewise, if we, if I emphasize the second one, could say, I suppose we could do that. There's a strength, there's a sense of uncertainty in my voice. Tone of voice is really important here in agreeing. Finally, you can use adverbs again to modify the strength of agreement. So yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Indicating that you think they're right or yeah, you're definitely right to indicate that you're a 100% sure that you agree with somebody? Moving on to disagreeing? I don't know. I don't know about that. Sometimes we use these filler sounds to signal that we're not sure about something to signal uncertainty. It's quite a useful one, this one, because we don't always have to use words. Sometimes we just use sounds that come out of our mouth. I still think it's a good idea. Here we use the word steel to indicate that we've heard what the other person is saying, but we really don't agree with them still. Alright. I heard what you're saying, but I still don't agree. Okay. You're sticking to your original point of view. In the third one, you can express your uncertainty by saying, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I'm not sure it's a good idea. You can also signal disagreement by using an apology. And we're going to look at this in more detail in the next view, in the next video on how we disagree politely. But you can say, I'm afraid or I'm sorry, I disagree. The final way we can disagree with somebody is to concede on 1, but then make a contrasting point. And this is very, very common. So we can say, I agree that something is true, but I think that something else is also true or different. So those are some of the ways that we agree, that we disagree and they give opinions and suggest things in meetings. 30. CH2 9 Disagreeing Politely: When you disagree with somebody, it can often be a challenge to express your point of view without offending that person, without causing a fence. The same time, it's important to express your honest opinion. So here are some ways to disagree politely without offending the person that you're talking to. The first way is to start by acknowledging the other person's point of view. Expressions like, I see what you're saying, but I don't agree or I understand where you're coming from. But that's a valid point. But in all of these examples, you're making it clear that you understand what the other person is saying and that it's a valid argument before you disagree. So it shows that you are listening effectively to the other person, and that makes your argument even stronger. The second way to disagree with someone politely is to use an apology to introduce your disagreement. Now, this might sound very strange to some of your ears, but in fact, it's very, very common, especially in Britain. So this is another way of making your disagreement more polite. And also it can soften the impact of your argument in a good way. So you could say, for example, excuse me, Helen, but I'm sorry. I don't agree with you about this or I'm sorry, but I disagree with you about this. Okay. So you're using an apology to introduce that you don't agree. You're not sorry. That's the genuine point here. Not really. Sorry, you're just using it as a device to soften the impact of your, your argument. In other words, to come across less confrontational. The third way is to pretend to be unsure about agreeing. So again, this is a very common way that people from the UK disagree. So expressions like, I'm not sure I agree with you about this or I don't think I have the same opinion as you. Really just mean, I don't agree. But you're pretending to be a little bit unsure. The fourth, which I think is probably the most important, is to effectively argue for your position or your opinion. It's best to finish your disagreement by offering an alternative or a solution. So this is an a, this is a solution-focused argument, and it can also help to soften the disagreement. So here's some very useful expressions to use after expressing your disagreement. So my suggestion would be to do X, Y, Z. Maybe let's think of an alternative solution which might be x, y, z. I would recommend that we do this. Or how about we do this? What do you think about doing something instead? Or if you ask me, I think we should do X, Y, Z. So all of these examples I've just shown you are all ways that you can disagree with someone in a more polite way rather than just saying you're wrong or I disagree with you. 31. CH2 10 How to Interrupt Politely: We're generally discouraged from interrupting, as it can be perceived as rude or disrespectful. But there are occasions where it's necessary and their expressions we can use to do so in a polite way. So there are different reasons why you would want to interrupt someone. Let's look at what these are. First, when you don't understand what someone is saying, when you want clarification on something. Second, when you don't agree with what the other person is saying. Thirdly, when you want to add to something or extend a point that the speaker is making. And finally, when you want the person to get to the point. For each reason, let's look at some example sentences which can be used in either formal or semi-formal circumstances. So first, when you don't understand something here, a couple of ways to convey this. Sorry to interrupt, but could you go over that again, please? Or Fabio, sorry to interrupt. Would you mind explaining that one more time, please? Second, when you don't agree with what the person is saying. I'm very sorry, but I can't go along with that or excuse me for interrupting, but I don't agree with that. Third, when you want to add to something sorry, but can I add something here? Or Marina, I hope you don't mind me interrupting, but I received an update on this today. And finally, when you want someone to get to the point martyr, can I just stop you there for a moment? Can you skip the background is we've got limited time in this meeting. Or sorry to interrupt, but we're a bit short on time. Can you just give us the most important facts, please? It's important to note that there are also more informal ways to interrupt, which are common in everyday situations with colleagues. For example, sorry to jump in. It's a very common expression in English, British English, sorry to button. I think it's more American. But equally, you hear it in Britain as well. So sorry to jump in. So it's a button but we're a bit short of time. Can you just give us the most important bits, please? So hey Fabio, sorry to jump in, but can you explain that part again, please? Instead of would you mind explaining, which is a little bit more formal? 32. CH2 11 Assignment: Look at the following examples of disagreement from conversations. Although they all express disagreement with the previous speaker, they differ in the strategies used to express the opposing view. Rank the examples using the following scale. Not polite, polite, and very polite. You'll find my own score in the next lesson. 33. CH2 12 Summary of Chapter2: So hopefully in this section, you've learned some useful language to communicate more effectively with people at work. From asking questions, to build a rapport with colleagues and customers, to actively listening to people and using body language to show that you're doing so. We looked at language to participate in meetings, whether you're hosting them or just attending, and the different ways to give your opinion and to agree or disagree with somebody. Tried to use these tips in your interactions at work and see how people respond to you. You may find that it makes you come across more natural sounding, more fluent and more confident. Let me know if you have any feedback, questions or doubts in the comments section. 34. CH3 1 Customer Service Training Intro: In this section, we focus on English for one very important area of our work. Customer service. Isn't it frustrating when you have to deal with an unhappy customer, especially on the telephone, and especially when English isn't your first language. It can be a very big challenge to express yourself clearly and help a customer resolve their problem. While at the same time trying to show empathy and remain professional. We're going to focus on customer service situations. And we're going to talk about how you can express yourself politely and effectively to communicate with customers. We're going to look at case studies to help us focus on the most appropriate phrases. I designed this part of the course to help you get the confidence and English expressions that you'll need to resolve issues with even the most difficult clients. Each lesson is designed to prepare you for nearly every situation you may face. From keeping an angry customer com, to explaining steps in a detailed process, to telling a customer they were wrong. And much more. Let me ask you some questions at this point. When have you been on the phone to someone in a customer service situation? What was the problem? Did you feel? Listened to? Have a think about your answer to these questions before you start the next video. 35. CH3 2 Example of Good and Bad Customer Service: You will now go into here two examples of customer service. And you need to decide which is the good example and which is the bad example. Think about your own experiences on the phone. Either giving customers advice or being a customer yourself. I'll see you afterwards to analyse these conversations and what makes them good and bad. Hello, Angie services. My name is Mike. How can I help you? Hi, Mike. I've had a problem with my delivery and I'd like to speak to someone about it and resolve it really. Sure. Let me see if I can help. Can I start by taking your name, please? Yes. My name is O Wilson. Thanks. So tell me what's the what's the problem? Well, I placed an order for grocery shopping for days ago and it was supposed to be delivered the following day. They would arrive yesterday or two days late. And there were several items which I didn't order, and some of the vegetables were very poor quality. I'm really sorry to hear that. This is very unusual and I can see how this must have been really annoying for you. Just to find out exactly what's gone wrong here. I'll need to get some more details for my colleagues in the product team. Can I get a contact telephone number, or email to get back to you? Yeah, sure. It's 07856787654. And my email is Owen, 55 at gmail.com. Thanks. So in okay. I'll make sure that someone calls you in the next 24 hours. And don't worry, we will get we will get to the bottom of this. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Take care. Have a good day. Thanks. Bye. Hello. Hello. Is that AG groceries? Yes. Yes, it is yet That's right. Can I speak to someone about a delivery problem I've experienced? Well, that depends on what the problem is. Okay. Well, I placed an order for grocery shopping for days ago and it was supposed to be delivered the following day. The order arrived yesterday, two days late, and there were several items which I didn't order and some of the vegetables were poor quality. Right? I say. You need to to our product team, you've come through to general inquiries. Oh, okay. You able to put me through as I've been on hold already quite some time. I'm afraid not know. You can find the number on the website. There. Anything else I can help you with today? Well, no. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, Cool. Bye. 36. CH3 3 Breakdown of Conversations: So in those conversations you had, hopefully you realized that the first recording was the good one and the second recording, the bad one. Let's now have a closer look at what made them good examples and bad examples. When the first recording, I pick up the phone and I say, hello, Angie services. My name is Mike. How can I help sanely name and the name of the company is very important as it reassures the customer that they've called the right number. Compare this with the second recording where I answered the phone and I just say, hello. Can you also hear the difference in the tone of the voice? One is very disinterested and the other is much more warm and friendly. Then went ON explains in general terms the nature of the problem. There are two very different responses. In the first one, I say, Sure, Let me see if I can help. Can I start by taking your name? Please? Compare this to the second one, where I look to deflect the problem to someone else, making it sound as though I'm not really that interested in helping? Well, that depends on what the problem is. In the good example, by first try to take note of the name of the customer before I go any further to ensure that I have this information. Next, after Owen has described in more detail the problem, there are two very different responses. Did you notice how in the first one, I use an apology immediately and that shows empathy to his situation. Using a sincere apology from the beginning shows that you care and that U2 would feel irritated or upset if you were in their shoes. Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that. This is very unusual. And I can see how this must have been really annoying for you. In comparison. In the bad example, I immediately pass on responsibility for the problem to somebody else. This is really bad customer service as it does nothing to help the customer. After all. They've just called the number as instructed on the website most probably. Right. See, you need to talk to our product team. You've come through to general inquiries. Finally, in terms of resolving the problem, there is a marked difference in-between the two recordings. In the first, I make sure to take Owens contact details so that I can get back to him after speaking to my colleagues. I reassure him that I will get back to him within a timeframe, making him feel that he knows that there are clear steps being taken to resolve the problem effectively. In comparison in the bad example, the only suggestion I give him is to find a different number on the website to talk to a different team. In other words, making him do more work. The last thing that you might have noticed in the bad example is committing one of the worst sins in customer service. Which is to ask there anything else I can help you with today? Asking this question when you haven't helped solve the problem in the first place, is a mistake to be avoided at all costs, as it's a sure-fire way to drive your customer crazy. Now take the quiz in the next lesson to find out what your customer service score would be for telephone customer service. 37. CH3 lesson 4 5 Tips for Phone Customer Service: I'm now going to share with you five tips on great phone customer service. You might like to pause the video anytime to make some notes. So tip number one, make sure that you are up to speed with your product or your service. In other words, know what you're talking about. There's nothing more frustrating than talking to a customer service representative who doesn't know what they're talking about. And there's probably no worse feeling them being in that situation yourself. So if you are in that situation, make sure to ask colleagues, your manager or whoever really to feel more confident that you know your organization inside out. Tip number to be competent and sympathetic. Take the customers feelings into account and let them know that you understand their frustration. When a customer is angry, whether it's justified or not, the most important thing is to communicate, understanding, and sympathy. You can do this by starting with a sincere apology immediately followed by an offer to resolve the problem. So before we look at some ways to do this, note that overuse of words like very and sincerely when you're apologizing actually can have the reverse effect and make you sound insincere and not genuine. So it's much better to just to say, I'm sorry. For example, I'm sorry that happened to you. Let me see if I can find a way to make this right. Or I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell me exactly what happens so I can help? Or I'm really sorry about the mistake we made. Let's see about what we can do about fixing your order. I completely understand the frustration you're feeling. I'm sure I would feel the same way. Can I ask you a few questions so we can get this resolved? Or in a more formal way. You might say, I'd like to sincerely apologize for that inconvenience. Thanks for bringing the issue to our attention. I'll take action on this straightaway. Tip number three, allow your customer to be heard and listened to their needs. Do not interrupt or tell them they're wrong. There's almost nothing worse than being interrupted as customer. And you need to avoid the temptation to interrupt. And instead, just allow the customer to get to the end of what they're saying before you offer your solution. Tip number four, take the contact details of the customer to revert back to them. Doing this reassures the customer that you're actually going to take action and solve their problem. Even if you already have this information on your computer, it sounds a lot more professional and reassuring if you ask for their contact details and repeat them back to them over the phone. Tip number five. Be clear, concise, and above all, smile. Okay. Yes, smiling always helps with customer service on the phone. This does sound a bit crazy given that you are on the phone and you can't see that person. But research shows that people who smile when they're talking over the phone convey, transmit positive emotion. So I hope these tips are useful. Let's look now in the next video how to defuse an angry customer. 38. CH3 5 How to Defuse an Angry Customer: Sometimes customers can be pretty tough to deal with, right? We've all seen scenes where we see a customer getting really angry at somebody. So here are some tips which I hope you're going to find useful if you're in this situation yourself as the customer service person. The first thing, you must remember that the customer is not upset with you. They're upset with the situation. So don't take it personally. No matter how much customer contexts you have, you never know exactly why a customer is angry, okay? It's usually because of some negative experience with your company, the product that you have. But you're not privy to the additional stressors involved. Certain customers may be under a lot of pressure in their personal life. They might be exhausted by current events or simply they're not very good at controlling their own anger. So don't ever take the customer anger personally. It's no fun bearing the brunt of these irate callers. It's important to remember that they're not upset with you, but the situation. Tip number two. Before trying to resolve the problem, understand the angry customers struggle to be objective. So you will need to diffuse the customer's frustration before you offer any solution. This is really an extension of the point number two I made in the previous video. But I'd like to add a further point here. And it's this allow the customer to vent, to get it all out. Don't try to interrupt or contradict the customer as they let out of their frustration, because this is just going to make things worse. So allow the customer to vent and this will make your life easier. Point number three, restate what they've told you, but in your own words. So they explain the problem to you, tried to summarize and repeat back to the customer what you understand the nature of their problem is because doing this show that shows that you've listened and you've genuinely understands why they're angry. This should help them calm down and make them trust you that you're going to help them. Number for. Ease the tension by showing positive intent. In other words, give the customer a clear plan for what comes next after your phone conversation. If you can't resolve the issue straightaway, it's crucial that you reassure the customer that the problem will get solved. Clearly explain the next steps that you're going to take. Walk the customers through a definitive plan that lays out what you're going to do right away, what will happen after that? And then when they can expect a resolution. For example, you may need to schedule a call back the next day or an appointment with a manager, or to seek advice from a colleague. But people will respect you if you are upfront and transparent about it because it shows a positive intent to solve the problem. So every customer action is unique, but they often follow the same pattern. If you can follow this pattern when defusing an angry customer, I think you'll find your life gets easier. Here's a summary then of these points. Don't take it personally. Allow the customer to vent. Don't interrupt, restate what you've heard, but in your own words, and show positive intent. Let me know what you think of these tips in the comments section of the course. And I'll happily feed back. 39. CH3 6 Listening Activity: You're now going to hear some scenarios in which there is an angry customer, listened to each one and decide in each case, what would you do? Option a, B, or C on the screen is the context for each scenario. And as you listen, think about the tips that you learned in the previous video. Yes, hello. I've reported this problem with my internet connection two days ago. I'd like to speak to a supervisor straightaway. Again, someone is using my bank card is the third time this month, I'm really fed up and losing my patience. Something more needs to be done than just compensating the money. Yeah. Hello. I placed an order about an hour ago with your restaurant. The food is still hasn't arrived. Can you just tell me what is going on, please? 40. CH3 7 Listening Activity Answers: How did you choose then in each scenario? Was it an easy choice or was it maybe difficult sometimes to choose which response was best? Let's have a look at each one. In the first scenario, choosing option a is not realistic. Your supervisor might be busy dealing with another core, or you might have a special protocol when dealing with extremely angry customers. Option C could be perceived as rude and not really understanding the need of the customer to vent their frustration. So option B is the best option. Start with an apology, get the details of the customer so you can help resolve the issue. In scenario two, the unhappy bank customer who's had her bank card stolen and wants further action and just compensation. Option a would be patronising and assuming that the customer hasn't checked the basic facts before they call you. Option B is just repeating the same solution as was previously given to the customer, who's still not satisfied. And once a genuine solution this time. So it has to be option C. Clearly show positive intent while saying that you'll need to get some more information from your systems about the background of what's going on. And in scenario three, with the hungry customer waiting for their food, option a, you're basically saying to the customer, sorry, it's tough luck. You called it a bad time. Options. See, you're acknowledging it's late and you're apologizing. But it can be seen as a pretty soft solution. It doesn't convince the customer that the order is really on its way. Whereas in option B, you're reassuring the customer that you're going to find out exactly what's going on and coming back in a minute with some further information about the order and perhaps with a solution to compensate them by throwing in some extra Papa John's or whatever. 41. CH3 lesson 8 5 Principles of Customer Service: In this video, I thought I'd share with you some of the principles of good customer service. This section would be especially useful for any managers following the course. Because getting these principles right has the biggest influence on the customer experience. Even though businesses at different in their approach to customer service. These are the techniques which are key in any institution. So what are these principles? Principle number one, speed. This is critical to many organizations. In simple terms, speed and responsiveness will determine the quality of service provided by an organization. As we all know, the ability to respond to the customer need has an impact on both the customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For companies to improve on their customer service, they must ensure they have good responsiveness. Essentially, if you solve the problem quickly, the customer may forget that there was a problem in the first place. Second principle, accuracy. This is also another principle of customer service. Besides being fast in delivering information to the clients, the information provided should be correct. If any information provided their customer is not accurate. This can lead to dissatisfaction. The organization always has to ensure they contain information that's accurate. So that this is done in the right way. Employees should be trained on the crucial part of accuracy. This training should be focused on the skill and the efficiency in expanding their knowledge. Teamwork will also be crucial here because it'll solve issues when one person doesn't have the whole story required to give a solution to the customer. The third principle is clarity. So this is the what and the how information should be provided. Simplicity is the mother of clarity, but it's never really received the respect that it deserves. Employees talking simply to clients is what makes the difference between a client feeling reassured and feeling like they're talking to a robot. The organization should always ensure that they have a structure to increase the processing of fluency their customer service reps. The fourth principle is accessibility. So this principle is always fundamental, especially when the client has a complaint on an issue or they want to get in touch with the organization. Many organizations have worked really hard on ensure they delight the customer. However, reducing the effort that the customer has to make to reach customer service should be top priority. For the principle of accessibility to be successful. The institution should always be accessible at all times of opening hours. If you put a customer on hold, you should do so as a last resort. And always make it as easy as possible to transfer the customer to a different department or a colleague. Final principle is friendliness. And I feel like I've saved the most important principle to the end. Customer services should always be friendly to the client. No matter what the issue is raised. There should be a human to human approach whenever interacting with clients. In fact, a friend once told me that the best advice you can give as a manager in charge of customer service is to say, if your employees feeling sad or depressed, tell them to stay at home. Okay. This may not be realistic and practical, but at its heart is some useful advice, which is you have to be able to transmit friendliness and positivity at all times when dealing with customers. This doesn't mean forcing a fake smile or agreeing to everything that customer says, or making promises that you won't be able to keep. It just means being human and wanting to connect with that person and solve their problems for them in a friendly way as possible. 42. CH4 1 Motivation at Work Intro: In this section, we explore how certain behaviors at work can be really beneficial for our sense of meaning and well-being in the workplace, and also to our chances of getting a job or promotion that we want. We're going to look at three different areas where we can dramatically improve our employment prospects. These are mindset, motivation and creative thinking. As well as me outlining each of these areas and what they mean. I invite you to reflect on how they relate to you. There will be assignments linked to each of these videos, which will be over to be downloaded as a PDF. 43. CH4 2 Mindset: In this video, we discussed the topic of mindset. First of all, what does it mean? Well, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, mindset is the established set of attitudes held by someone. Another way of thinking about this is the ways that you feel or you think about people and things. So one example of this is the question, your glass, half empty or half full? Optimist will usually say that the glass is half-full. Whereas pessimists will usually point out that it's half empty. Optimists tend to focus on the good, that there's still water available to drink. Whereas pessimists see the negative. There's water missing from what would otherwise be a full glass. Is mindset the same as skillset? Know, your skill set is what you're good at, such as IT or music or programming. Mindset refers to your attitude. So how does mindset relate to me? Well, employers are looking for a certain mindset. So it's important that you are aware of your own mindset. Think about these questions. Do you have a positive attitude towards your work? Does your employer see this positive attitude? Are you prepared to be flexible at work? Here's an employability fact for you. Employers want people with the right skills for the organizations. So they definitely going to look out for their qualifications, the experience, and those hard skills that we talked about in previous videos. But also the correct mindset is super-important. In fact, 96% of UK employers think that mindset is more important than skill set. At this point, it's useful to describe two different kinds of mindset. On the one hand, you've got fixed mindset. This is where people believed that basic qualities, like your intelligence, your talents, your attitudes are simply fixed traits. They often don't think that they need to, or they indeed that they can develop these. They're just born with them. You're born with your natural intelligence or your ability to run faster or your ability to play tennis. So they believed that talent alone creates success without too much effort. In a growth mindset, people believed that your most basic qualities can be developed through dedication and hard work. And this positive view creates a love of learning and embrace of failure as experimentation. So it's important to note that mindset can be changed, it can be worked on, it can be developed. If you have a fixed mindset about something, this can also be changed. The benefits of this growth mindset can include higher self-esteem, greater confidence, and an improved ability to enjoy life. 44. CH4 3 Employers and Mindset: So how do employers view the subject of mindset? Well, there's a book called The three G mindset, written by the CEO of the largest recruitment company in the world called read. This book states that employers are essentially all looking for the same important qualities in their employees. And these can be placed into three main categories. The first is what they call global. This refers to openness, flexibility, and innovativeness. In other words, openness, being open to new ideas. Flexibility in terms of not being fixed in your ideas and innovative. In other words, introducing new ideas or methods. The second they termed as being good, being honest, being sincere, and being loyal. This one might be surprising, especially if you've worked in a sales role, for example. Because you might not think that these qualities are as important as ambitions, being hard working, dedicated x, and so on. But actually, when, when people were interviewed, most company bosses said that being honest, being kind, being sincere would just as if not more important than all of the other qualities. Sincerity, by the way, is termed as being a mixed really of seriousness and honest. So if you do things in a sincere way, people will trust you. The third quality they called grit. And this referred to the commitment, the resilience, energy and accountability that employs show in the workplace. The workplace can be tough sometimes. So having real grit is vitally important. People with grit can persevere and get through difficult times. Like when the organization has had a setback and needs to pull together. Commitment is likewise important, showing that you're dedicated, you're faithful, and loyalty your employer. These are things that really make you stand out as an employer. Likewise, accountability. Accountability here refers to taking responsibility for things. Being the person who says that's on my, on my watch, that's on my core. Proving your winning mindset to employers might be the difference between going empty-handed and landing the job that you want. So you need to think at this point of concrete examples when you've used these qualities in your work or your personal life. Before you go any further. Do these assignments as it will help you to reflect on how mindset relates to you. The first thing, make a list of examples that you could use to show employers that you have a winning mindset. Remember we said that mindset is something that can be developed over time. So after you've done that, take a look at your own mindset and identify where you can make these changes. So what do you need to change with regards to your mindset for work? And secondly, how can you make these changes? Leave your answers in the comments section and I'll get back to you with my feedback. 45. CH4 4 Motivation: In this section, we explore motivation in a work context. If mindset was looking at how we change our attitude to work, motivation is the what and the why to our behaviors at work. In everyday terms, the word motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something. But knowing what motivates you will help you shape your own behavior. Motivation results from a number of different factors and is likely to vary from one person to another. Something that motivates you is not always going to motivate a colleague or a friend of yours. Motivation can come from many different factors, including need. For example, the need to learn a highway code. If you're a 17-year-old and you want to pass your driving test. Desire. If you want to go on more holidays, you want to earn more money. Incentive. In other words, if you want to get a promotion at work, reward expectations. If you're wanting to satisfy the expectations of a parent or a loved one or a colleague. And often these factors are combined in a way that make doing something worthwhile. So let's take, for example, running a marathon. You might want to do this because you want to prove to yourself that you're capable of doing it. You might have expectations such as running for a charity and promising to raise a certain amount of money. Or you might have the reward for the feeling of feeling good about yourself and being in better shape. And that could act as a separate motivator. Let's take a look at motivation in more detail then. So it helps to know that there are three major components to motivation. And these are activation, persistence, intensity. Let's take, for example, doing an exercise in class. So let's say for example, one day you decide to go and get fit. And the best way to do so is to join a fitness class at a gym. Activation is the decision to enroll in the first place. It's the very first step. Persistent is the continued effort to pursue the goal despite the obstacles that come up. So if you feel lazy or tired or something other, like your friend, Johnny invites you round for dinner that night. Persistence is the ability to to keep going despite other pressures. And intensity can be seen as the amount of energy and the concentration that goes into pursuing that goal. So in other words, when you go to that exercise class, rather than just being half there and thinking about your beer that you're going to have afterwards. It's about being fully in the moment. So what are the things that motivate us to act? Well? Different types of motivation are frequently described as being extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic, as the name suggests, comes from outside of us. It usually comes with a reward like money or trophies, or social recognition or praise. Intrinsic motivation comes from inside of us. So completing a long course, for example, or learning a second language or solving a DIY problem at home. All of these things are intrinsic motivators. Stop the video at this point and think of an example of how you are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. Let's now look at the factors that motivate and de-motivated people at work. One thing we can agree on is that the more motivated you are at work, the more productive your output is going to be. At its most basic level, motivated staff work harder. They get more done in less time. Higher productivity for the organization of the business. Sounds good, right? So how do we find out what are motivators are? Here are some motivational techniques used by successful entrepreneurs in their experience and also the companies that they've run. First of all, treat everybody as an individual. Praise good work, and offer feedback. Lead by example, give ownership to your team. Listen to your employees ideas and offer benefits that boost morale. Free language lessons, for example. So if you were to ask motivators, on the other hand, what makes them unhappy and de-motivated? You might hear some of the following demotivators. A lack of recognition. Being over managed, poor communication, lack of confidence in senior management. So these demotivators can lead to a loss of productivity, high staff turnover, absenteeism, and ensure an unhappy work environment. So let me ask you these questions. Have you ever felt motivated or D motivated at work? How did it affect your job performance? How did it affect your overall happiness? Understanding how motivated and de-motivated employees can influence the workplace can make a massive difference for recruitment on the one hand, but also for you as an employee. To understand how you feel at work. You can take the quiz now on this section to consolidate all the concepts that we've just explored. 46. CH4 5 Creative Thinking: In this section, we're going to take a look at what creative thinking is and how it can be used in the workplace. What do you think of when you hear the term creative thinking? Does your mind go to musicians, artists, inventors, people like Steve Jobs or James Dyson. Do you think of talented friends who are often described as creative types? Will. I'd like you to think of creativity in more general terms. Things like looking for lots of possible answers rather than just one. Not judging yourself too quickly for thinking of something different. Allowing yourself to dream or clay with a theory or a suggestion. Allowing yourself from time to time to make crazy suggestions, as well as those that seem sensible. Because creative thinking is really just the process by which individuals come up with new ideas or new approaches. If you're a manager, I think hanging out and thinking about this idea of creativity at work might be really helpful for making your team feel more empowered to come up with new ideas and ways of making things better. I mean, how many times do we stigmatize or put people down for coming up with a slightly crazy idea. And how many ideas that first sounded crazy before in fact, they became best-selling products. I mean, I can think of a few. Amazon for example. Amazon started off selling books online, which seems intuitive now. But back in 1990 for buying books online was considered risky. There was bookstores in every major city. So why not buy a book from them? The idea, however, was sound. Books were in high demand. They were inexpensive and they were easy to ship. What seemed nonsensical was actually brilliant. Obviously, in a matter of years, Amazon became one of the most popular sites. So the Internet and started expanding to offer products that went way beyond books. But the point is, is that all of this started with someone being given permission by their managers to be creative. So let's take a moment now to see how confident you are about being able to think creatively. Complete this questionnaire on creative thinking. For each statement, decide how often do you do it using the following scale. Never, rarely, sometimes. Often. It doesn't matter what answers you gave to these. As in effect, there's no right answer. What's important is that you're open to using creative thinking in the workplace. But first of all, why is creative thinking in the workplace important? Well, here are four reasons. Firstly, creativity builds better teamwork. The creative process encourages employees to collaborate, so they're more likely to work together. One person may be able to come up with new ideas. However, it takes a whole team to make them a reality. To. Creativity allows for better problem-solving. A big part of creativity is being able to think outside of the box. So a creative workplace gives employees the ability to come up with unique solutions to challenges instead of simply being told, that's what you've got to do. Three, creativity makes employees feel more motivated. Allowing for creativity gives employees more ownership of their job duties and responsibilities. It also increases the sense of agency. And this sense of agency and responsibility can make them feel more motivated. For creative thinking in the workplace can also lead to less stress. Big moment when you realize this. Because when you encourage employees to be creative, there approaches will reflect their individual personalities. In a thriving creative workplace, they can feel that they are their true selves, rather than just being sort of corporate drones, if you like. So finally, here are some creative thinking techniques that you can use in your own workplace. Brainstorming ideas on a large piece of paper. The key here is that any ideas are welcome. So don't get the red pen out and start editing too soon. Just accept anything goes at the beginning. Be open to new ideas. So R1 with an idea that somebody suggests in your, in your team meetings, rather than introducing barriers or obstacles. Like yes. But what about this? Just put all of the ideas down. Don't come up with any barriers. Even a simple thing of changing your routine and trying to do things in a slightly different way. For example, going for a walk at lunchtime if you don't normally do that, or taking a new different route to work in the mornings. This small changes in routine can really help us get out of a static fixed way of thinking and into more of a creative space. So I encourage you to use some of these ideas that you've just seen in your own workspace. If you're a manager, try and implement them. Implement them at your next meeting. If you're an employer, employee, even ask your management, say, can we have this new idea in a new meeting? Can we start to brainstorm ideas? Because ultimately, Creativity at Work starts with you and then it will spread. 47. Thank You: If you've got to this point, you've reached the end of the course. Well done, and thank you very much for watching 1 I'd like to share with you is that none of the concepts I've outlined in the course has been rocket science or anything dramatically new for that matter. It's more about using these techniques in your daily routine and at work where they become valuable. And I can guarantee if you implement them in your life, it will make your workplace more positive for you. Customers that you work with, your colleagues. If you like this course, please leave a review. And if you have any feedback, please send me a direct message or leave a comment in the comment section. Thank you very much. See you soon.