Soft Skills Coaching 

Does your organization have an employee (or volunteer) with great technical skills but poor soft skills? Maybe they're struggling with interpersonal communication, and don't understand workplace culture? You’re not alone.

 

Depending on your employment, cultural and educational experiences you may have not been well-equipped with the communication skills you need to be successful in a modern, diverse workplace.

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Employees who are re-entering the workforce after prolonged absences,  younger workers and those who are new to Canada may find they need to brush up or acquire new soft skills.

 

For example, New Canadians receive little pre-employment training for workplace situations. Without understanding workplace culture and the required soft skills, they often fail to reach their potential. In the worse-case scenario, employment is terminated and their confidence takes a blow resulting in  lost talent for the organization and lost opportunity for the individual.

 

Here are a few signs that an employee/volunteer could benefit from our coaching:

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• Poor customer and colleague relations

• Under voice or conflicting harsh tone to spoken and written communication

• Conflict occurs regularly

• Sexual harassment of colleagues

• Racist or bigoted remarks

• Spiral communication

• Defensive behaviour all the time

• Indirect style of communication

• Unable to offer a relaxed, participatory-leadership style

• Decline to offer suggestions for improvement after being requested to do so

• Lack of participation in meetings

 

Here is one of our many success stories:

 

CASE STUDY

 

Employee N has lived in Canada for almost 20 years. She uses highly developed technical skills and works in her chosen field. However, she risks losing her job. Her job requires daily engagement with the public and with colleagues. She's failing at her interpersonal relationships and doesn't understand why. Traditional forms of coaching and mentoring haven't worked. N considers herself polite and hard-working, yet complaints pour in to her supervisor. She has received a warning that she must change quickly or face termination.

 

She has no understanding of standard Canadian workplace practices because they were never explained; and she doesn't know how to change her behaviour. She feels attacked, and could lose her career. Her supervisor decides to give her one more chance and contacts us at Diversity at Work.

 

RESULT

 

After only 10 hours of Diversity at Work in-person, soft-skills intercultural coaching, N made a complete turnaround. She learned how and why the style of communication she used in her country of origin doesn't work in Canada. She improved her intonation and changed her aggressive style of communication into an assertive style. N was trained in the best way to resolve workplace conflict. She learned how to develop rapport with clients and co-workers, and received customized templates to support her new skills.

 

We worked on her intonation, and added colour to her voice. Her body language improved, and the public no longer complained that she's intimidating. She has begun to understand her supervisor's participatory-leadership style. Both N and her supervisor report a happier and more confident employee who has dramatically improved her customer and interpersonal relationships at work.

 

We can help your organization. We believe skilled, new Canadians have much to offer.

 

We have reasonable rates for all types of organizations. References are available.

 

We offer in-person, phone, and online sessions.

 

Be sure to checkout our eBook Meetings:  A Toolkit, a coaching guide to helping leaders coach New Canadians.