Tips to Establish a Supportive Workplace for Transgender Employees – By Sanjay Kaul, CEO, InnovaWorkSpaces
India is a young country, with its majority population under the age of 30. The new generations come with their own beliefs and individualities –changing India’s consumption and economic story. Where most organizations fail in attracting the right millennial talent is the right culture. The culture doesn’t imply a fun environment, a high pay scale or gaming zones, but an inclusive and diverse workspace, that accepts people as individuals, and not on the basis of their gender.
Creating a trans-inclusive workplace will be the focus for many companies across the world, in the next few years. These younger generations need a workplace that doesn’t burden them emotionally, based on their gender identity, or disregards them. It’s high time companies realized this and looked into some ways to make their culture more gender agnostic for trans people.
Supporting the LGBTQ Community With More Inclusive Policies
The very first step in this direction would be more transparent gender agnostic non-discriminatory policies –which protect the trans community and promotes their rights as individuals. Such policies with strict bearings on violations will help the section of the trans workforce be more open and confident in professional settings, and in the long term will also contribute to people accepting the community and their ideas.
Education and Awareness Drives Within the Organization
Thrusting inclusive policies for an organization will never be enough. The population needs to be educated about different gender identities, and the trans community, in particular, to help them clarify their assumptions and encourages sensitivity. One of the reasons the transgender community is neglected is that they never feel open and accepted by their colleagues. This will eventually come through additional efforts by companies that educate and train their employees about gender discrimination issues, and diverse identity cultures.
The Pronouns and Their Usage
A trans-inclusive workplace needs to normalize the pronouns, they, them, their and let people use them freely and unapologetically. This should be one of the key steps of the organizational trans-culture policy. Normalize asking for accepting preferred pronouns and titles that the trans community would like to use to define their identities.
Ensure Inclusivity When It Comes to Workplace Amenities
When it comes to implementing and achieving the inclusion of diverse communities and genders in the workplace, organizations need to ensure that this is embedded in the physical space. This implies amenities, restrooms, medical facilities and so on. The workforce, HR managers and leaders – all need to accept the new aspects of this inclusion, while it helps employees feel more comfortable and connected to their workplace.
Ample Opportunity and Fair Exposure
It is essential that an organization is not only trans-inclusive in its books, but also needs to provide ample opportunity for trans people to showcase their creativity, collaborate with other employees, and get the right exposure that they deserve in their roles. They should be valued and feel fulfilled considering that they are impacting the business.
Some Trans-Community-Focused Initiatives or Benefits
While an organization is expected to be fair and gender agnostic in its policies, some benefits and initiatives designed specifically for the trans community will help boost their confidence in the workplace. It also speaks to the inclusion of such minority communities, an example of which can be fertility benefits and policies, in which transgenders are often excluded.
Conclusion
Trans people often experience stigma and discrimination, hostility from others, and pressure to “manage” their identities in social settings, including the workplace. It is important to have a positive and supportive environment to work in. Governments have taken a series of steps and policies to support trans people but until the common people do not change their perceptions, the situation remains the same.
Today’s world is all about showing your best social skills and communication skills for marketing yourself. The budding entrepreneurs constantly need to sell themselves and market their business ideas. To bucket up the investors for the business, one needs to attend social gatherings and socialize with people to get them involved in their venture plan. However, in the workplace, these skills can be an essential aspect of staff interaction, planning, and collaboration. In this article, we discuss what social skills are, how to apply them in the workplace and why developing social skills is so important.
However, it’s very important to impress the person with your witty remarks and steal the show with your knowledge. Many people are not comfortable with the words and not everyone can express their thoughts clearly which forfeits the chance of great investment opportunities from our hands. It is necessary to improve communication and social skills. So in this article, we will talk about ways to improve your social skills and effectively communicate in your workplace.
Social skills, also known as interpersonal or soft skills, are used to communicate with others. There are several types of communication skills we use daily including: verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual. Verbal skills involve the spoken language, while nonverbal communication skills include body language, facial expressions, and eye contact. Strong social skills can help you build and maintain successful relationships both professionally and personally and also help you in being a good public speaker.
Methods of Improving Social Skills
To be a better communicator, one has to improve their social skills, improving social skills will help you in every aspect of life. Some of the methods to improve Social Skills in life are:
Instead of shying away, try to start a conversation with a stranger, your acquaintances and family. Ask an open-ended question that keeps the communication going, the need to engage is extremely important here.
Try to broaden your answer, when answering someone’s question. This led to deeper communication and you can practice your conversation skills.
Observe the social skills of the people around you, especially your colleagues. You can learn a lot of things from your surroundings. Observing their way of non-verbal and verbal communication will help you in improving yours.
Main eye contact while conversing with the opposite person.
Just talking is not enough, you need to develop your listening skills as well.
Take the help of books, podcasts and YouTube videos to improve your social skills.
There isn’t any rocket science behind alluring the people, it is easy to behave in social gatherings. There are some basic rules which you need to regimen before entering any social event. So, draw your attention here.
Make a Killer First Impression
When we meet someone for the first time, the very first thought that pops into our mind are to make a long-lasting impression that they stay lifelong with us. The points that will help you to make an ebonics first impression for the audience are –
Smile often, will exude positivity. Smiling makes you appear more friendly and gregarious and, others will feel more comfortable in your presence. Don’t smile like a fool, just a little, to look friendly and easily approachable. Smile as you mean it.
Make eye contact with the other person while talking and that will define your confidence in the other person. Eye contact displays confidence and is one of the quickest ways to make people gravitate toward you. There is a simple trick to show your strength and social skills that will improve your confidence in the other person. So make eye contact with the person while talking to them with your striving confidence.
Your body language should be open to the public. Rigid body language is the definition of nervousness and lack of confidence. The body language should be relaxed and no need to be prim and proper. Positive body language includes good posture, leaning in slightly when someone is speaking (displays interest), and smiling/eye contact. This will helps in improving communication and social skills.
Be a Good and Patient Listener
You need to develop good listening qualities in lieu to get the attention of others in a social meet-up. Take time to understand the other person’s view and, only after understanding it reciprocate your answer. Some people confuse listening with hearing. They both are different things you need to understand, what is being communicated to show your interest by:
Giving them your full interest and showing that you’re understanding their words.
Take time to ask questions on the topic of the discussion.
Make valuable remarks on the topic and share your valuable opinion with the person.
Give Compliments
Giving compliments to the person while making the introduction will give you the right start. Give genuine compliments where applicable and be honest about them. If you notice something nice about a person don’t be afraid to let them know. Phrases such as “That is a nice shirt by the way. Where did you get it?” or “You have a very admiring personality makes you much more amiable and breeds pleasant social interactions.
So, these are a few simple tricks to make social gatherings your show. But after reading this topic and observing the experiences you will get to know that confidence is the key element here. This will helps in improving communication and social skills. If you have the right amount of confidence in yourself, then no one can stop you from becoming successful. So, try to embed confidence in your body language and you will see the changes yourself.
Effective Communication
What Are Communication Skills?
Communication skills are the activities that make your performance ultimately a good one. Communication skills are very important in every human being’s life it is used in both, as in your personal life and your professional life.
It is also the abilities of when you give and receive different kinds of information from different sources. When you communicate ideas, feelings, or even any update regarding your work or project. Communication skills involve listening, speaking, observing, and empathizing. Having good communication skills helps to develop your personality and one can also be given the top priorities as a leader. Communication is so important that entire careers and fields are based almost entirely upon communicating, like these 13 communication careers listed here.
Whether it’s written or spoken, reading, or listening, these skills are crucial in any workplace and can make you a better, more effective, and more efficient employee,
Ways to Communicate Effectively in the Workplace
When the employees have good communication skills, superiors can better understand the potential, willingness, talents, and skills of their employees. Some of the ways to communicate effectively are:
Encourage open discussion: In this, a manager acknowledges his\her employee’s, views which is important. They ask their employees for valuable inputs. Encourage managers to clearly show that they have heard employees’ opinions and engage the employees on a personal level. The managers recognize their employees and acknowledged the employee’s inputs.
More face-to-face or phone conversations: A face-to-face conversation will last longer as more people talk together, which makes them stronger and better relationships with employees, managers and the boss. As, in a face-to-face conversation one can perceive each other feelings, facial expressions, and body language. Having, eye contact will also help to get an understanding of the communication and good internal networking might help you in the future.
Be careful when wording emails: When you are writing the mail to your manager or your boss, don’t write like the reader is your best friend. Don’t assume the reader knows who you are and why you are emailing. Don’t use informal language. Don’t forget to proofread for spelling and grammar mistakes. Write in a way that will boost them to open your mail.
Be aware of body language: Your body language can influence the way others respond to you. It can also impact how they perceive you and your intentions. Being highly aware of your body language can influence your productivity and reputation in your workplace.
Make meetings meaningful: While making the meetings one should have a clear agenda, so that everyone in the workplace has a clear idea about when and which meetings have to be scheduled at which time.
Conclusion
Effective communication is integral in your life. Without communication nothing is possible. One can eliminate unnecessary, unwanted problems and can promote better performance with the help of communication. The ability to communicate depends on your social skills, so before communication improving your social skills is extremely important as well.
FAQs
What are 5 essential communication skills?
The top 5 essential communication skills are:
Written Communication
Verbal Communication
Non-Verbal Communication
Active Listening
Contextual Communication
What are the 5 social skills?
The 7 social skills are:
Sharing
Listening
Maintaining Eye Contact
Using Manners
Cooperating
How to start a conversation with someone you don’t know?
To start a conversation with a stranger, you need to:
What’s Emotional Intelligence? Described as a concept that involves the ability, capacity, skill, or self-perceived ability, to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, others, and groups.
Emotions affect our behavior and also hold the power to influence the way we think. Referred to as Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EIQ). Emotional intelligence can be described as one being aware of the emotions of one’s self and that of others and using them to guide behavior.
There are two sides to Emotional Intelligence, including being able to recognize emotions in ourselves and responding to them. And being aware of the emotions of others, using it as a guide to managing behavior.
There are two sides to emotional intelligence, including being able to recognize emotions in ourselves and responding to them. And being aware of the emotions of others, using it as a guide to manage behavior.
Focusing on the following abilities:
To assess how others feel
Be conscious of how others feel
Connecting with others
Identifying emotions
Controlling one’s own emotions
Using emotions to aid social communication
The four main elements of Emotional Intelligence include:
Self Awareness
Self-awareness refers to the ability to recognize one’s emotions correctly and be aware of your thoughts and handle your feelings. Keeping track of your emotions and being conscious of how they affect others as well.
Self Management
Most of the time you cannot control what’s happening around you in your surroundings but you definitely can control how you respond to it. Self-management is precisely the same; it includes managing stress, motivating oneself, controlling one’s impulses, and regulating your thoughts and emotions in various situations.
Social Awareness
Social Awareness includes considering things from another point of view. Understanding different perspectives and standpoints of others. Social awareness plays a great role in society helping one be an empath, collaborate and share information with others. Lastly, it makes the process of communication easy.
Relationship Management
As the name implies, Relationship Management in context with emotional intelligence includes enhancing your listening and speaking skills, conveying your emotions in a non-defensive way, the ability to deliver and accept feedback, resolving conflicts, and being respectful and appreciative of others. Leaving others with a positive impact.
Why is Emotional Intelligence More Important Than Intelligence?
Having a high level of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is not the only essential aspect of guiding a leader. EQ is equally critical to having balanced leadership. Studies have shown that emotional intelligence might be even more essential than cognitive intelligence. Asking how you feel could be a key question in understanding and being self-aware. How? We will explain that further.
In relation to Entrepreneurship, There’s so much buzz these days with emerging startups, entrepreneurs, and breakthrough products in the market. But what is the meaning of entrepreneurship, anyway?
Entrepreneurship can be described as the ability to build up a business with a new business model or improve an existing one with the aim of building profit or making a social impact.
Being an entrepreneur is cool. But it comes with its own set of challenges. Being one requires you to be more than an innovator, risk-taker, or just a leader. Sure, these do fall into the categories of three qualities that are required for being an entrepreneur, along with the ones listed below:
Managing people
Having an open and easy-going attitude
Following their passion and being highly motivated
Having a spark of creativity
Being well-rounded and having a passion for the work they do
Curious to learn
Let’s take a look at the challenges faced by an entrepreneur:
Hiring the right people and staff
Managing time and budget
Making the right decisions
Building connections and collaborating with other organizations
But being an entrepreneur is more than that. It also requires emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is so valuable these days that companies consider choosing one’s employees based not only on their IQ but also on their EQ test. An article from Forbes has also stated that empathy is the most important leadership skill.
Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Entrepreneurship
Wise Decision-Making
While decision-making, rational thinking is critical. Making the right decisions for anything has a huge impact on your business. Be it investing in something or making changes to the packaging of your product. Keeping your emotions in check, and self-regulating your emotions from time to time will help keep the bar of making irrational and impulsive results low. You act wisely rather than make careless decisions under the influence of your emotions.
Create and Improve Relationships With Empathy
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s position and see and feel from their point of view. Empathy makes a person better listener, and creates better connections and relationships with others. You practice sharing how you feel and based on being aware of others’ emotions you also understand the power dynamics that influence the social dynamics in different situations. You learn to respect other people’s experiences and respond appropriately.
Empathy helps people to be seen and acknowledges their presence. This helps your employees to develop and also gain their loyalty and respect. Increased empathy levels also mean better health and quality of life with reduced stress. Other important soft skills such as interpersonal awareness, self-esteem, resiliency, stress management, and motivation all fall under emotional intelligence.
Diffuse Conflicts
Arguments may occur when differences in opinions may arise, things might take a quick turn when things turn heated and neither is ready to understand the importance of being aware of the other person’s feelings. Turning it into a conflict that makes the surroundings stressful. One learns to be able to handle distressing emotions effectively by adapting to situations and practicing flexibility. Handling communication tactically and effectively managing conflict helps maintain harmony.
Effective Communication
Communication is important in any relationship. It involves the encoding and decoding of the message. Communicating does not only involve the message, but also the way you say it and decode it. Technology has made the process of communication so much easier now. It only takes seconds for you to deliver your message to the other person exactly the way that you want it.
Proper and effective communication is a very important part of Entrepreneurship. In a business setting, it can make or break a deal. Communicating consists of both verbal and non-verbal communication. A higher level of EQ makes you good at reading the body language of a person, making you better at non-verbal communication and working in group environments better.
By gaining a sense of self-control, you can communicate clearly rather than letting your message be clouded by your emotions and respond to a situation in a calm, measured, and reflective manner. You can control your reactions. You are confident and communicate your thoughts with clarity and with effect while communicating. Not only that, but you allow yourself to communicate better, you tune into other people and notice them. EI strengthens your communication skills.
Your employees are the most valuable assets to your company. So, you have to be careful with how you connect with people and understand them. With a higher EQ, you can build stronger relationships at work, and create environments that are best for your employees. Making them feel valued and appreciated. When you are critically aware of their emotions, you can better manage them, Change the magnitude of the efficiency of your employees’ performance, predict their job performance as well as retain them.
Establishing a Clear Vision
Leadership requires you to have a clear vision and be able to communicate it continuously and creatively. It’s important to look at how your employees feel about certain goals and challenges in your team. It helps you read and manage the energy in the room and better understand how to channel it.
With Emotional resilience learn to bounce back at the challenges, crises, failures, setbacks, or difficult situations thrown at them which happens more than often in the business environment. Entrepreneurs adapt to them in a positive manner. With higher emotional intelligence comes confidence, positivity, and stability for a leader to bring the organizational vision into the light and turn it into reality.
Inspire, Motivate and Tackle Self-Doubts
EQ teaches you how to bounce back, which leads to a better flow of emotions between your rational and emotional brain. Allowing the rational brain to understand the emotions better. Rather than acting impulsively and preventing you from drowning in them. It transforms poor experiences into great ones rather than just assuming the worst-case scenario. You become more introspective.
Practicing emotional intelligence makes one aware of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, which is beneficial to tackling self-doubts that come your way. You are intrinsically motivated and driven by passion which makes you action-oriented, and committed to what you do and enables you to take initiative. Emotional intelligence is important for one to be able to achieve new goals and better ways of learning to do things.
Improves Social Skills
Social skills are a huge part of being an entrepreneur. Collaborating with other people or organizations with whom your goals align requires social skills. Being able to persuade others and coordinate and cooperate with others to collaborate with other organizations working towards similar goals. Guessing social cues, taking initiative, and negotiating are some significant skills that are required for you as an entrepreneur to thrive.
Team building
With a high level of EQ, you become proactive and take the initiative to manage those around you, becoming well aware of their emotions. People want to feel valued and appreciated. As an entrepreneur with high emotional intelligence. You not only perform better but also build a cohesive team that enables problem-solving, and creates a positive environment with empathy. And direct the team towards working on the main objective of the group.
Make it a practice to connect with your emotions. Being vulnerable takes courage. Talking about your emotions and being self-aware will help you so much rather than just blocking them and not acknowledging your emotions. Talk about your emotions with someone you trust. Remember, there is no just thing as good or bad emotions. Let your mind process what you are feeling. Align your head with your heart. Accepting and acknowledging your emotions can be the first step in practicing emotional intelligence.
Connect Emotionally With Others
When someone is talking, actively listen to them. Be present and observe their body language and gestures and read the non-verbal cues. A professional surrounding does not mean there shouldn’t be an informal conversation, if so, create the space for non-professional dialogue to flow. Conversations around non-professional matters will help you connect and understand the other person better. Respect the emotions of others, offer new perspectives to them, and give them where necessary. Not everyone can understand emotions naturally but emotional intelligence can be practiced and put to use.
Use Your Team’s Feedback
Let your colleagues all chime in when you understand what they are saying. You can better understand the problems existing in your organization and find a way to change them, which in turn makes room for everyone to grow. Conducting feedback sessions can be a great tool for group improvement.
Other tips to improve emotional intelligence include:
Use gratitude practice
Tune into your emotions. Monitor and track your own emotions and see how they affect others. You can maintain a journal to help understand how you feel.
See how you as a leader are affecting the people that need you to guide and direct them
You can make space for emotional intelligence to grow by surrounding yourself with people who have a positive outlook on life and are willing to support you
Try listening to the problems of the people, give regard to their feelings and try to look at what’s causing them
Practice empathy by accepting and being respectful toward the feelings of others
Create a positive atmosphere in your office spaces where everyone’s opinions are welcomed. Which will help the members be proactive and innovative.
Conclusion
Success is not just based on measuring one’s IQ, it also involves the essential elements of one’s behavior and character. Emotional intelligence has the power to encourage entrepreneurs to do better and redefine what entrepreneurship means. These practices are sure difficult to put into practice but can be induced in our day-to-day activities in an organization.
Reviewing the outcome of practicing emotional intelligence, one will realize that we can create entrepreneurs that are better leaders, working in fast-paced environments that can effectively manage their teams as they have their teammates have their emotions in check with what they do. They learn to manage conflict, change and create space for collaboration and connection. Remember emotions hold the power to move.
FAQs
What do IQ, EQ, and EIQ stand for?
IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient; EQ stands for Emotional Quotient and EIQ stands for Emotional Intelligence Quotient.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence can be described as one being aware of the emotions of one’s self and that of others and using them to guide behavior.
What is Entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship can be described as the ability to build up a business with a new business model or improve an existing one with the aim of building profit or making a social impact.
There is no denying Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, etc. are dominating today’s social platform. The future of social media will probably be bifurcation with performing sites such as TikTok on one side to fulfill our insatiable need for social capital and interstitial media and message platforms like WhatsApp on the other to manage interpersonal contact and improve our social ties. The social media future would probably be one of bifurcation. This dual set of social roles, which today in most social media are conventionally under one roof, can no longer tolerate a shifting user’s desire and must therefore be unbundled.
The evolution and future of short video platforms
Users from all over the world are using these platforms to promote their brand, blogs, creating challenges and getting viral. TikTok and reels have completely taken over today’s short video platforms. Nowadays, live streaming video is fast becoming king in the world of social media, as innovators like Snapchat pave the way and push rivals to innovate quickly and adjust to remain important. Facebook released its feature Stories, an almost accurate copy of the model from Instagram. The rivalry is strong and consumers have plenty of choices, with live video streaming and disappearing content on social media. We must first understand how social video has begun, struggled, and succeeded to predict how it will evolve.
Interacting using Social Media Stories:
It can be hard to stand out on Instagram stories, especially if you are a brand. As a brand, you have to compete with influencers and friends and a follower’s family for publicity. What makes it even harder is that brands on Instagram Stories are supposed to deliver consistently high-quality, entertaining content. If the content of your brand is not the same as a user’s friend or power, you can expect to swipe next. Social Media helps influencers and bloggers interact with users on a day-to-day basis. Help them grow their fan base and grow their business too.
Instagram Stories as a platform for users to reach their fans
It is really easy to concentration on what you can do and not what others can do for you when you find out how to use your Instagram to promote your blog! In fact, you can expose your content to new audiences who could benefit from your latest blog post to create a powerful community with others in your niche! Instagram Stories provide your fans with a true, direct relationship and help to build a clearer image of what people really are like. The stories provide more precise insight into life behind the scenes and more possibilities for manipulating the viewer, instead of just a carefully edited and a formulated snapshot of your Instagram feed.
Creating Social Media Stars:
It’s definitely nice to blog from Instagram. There is no need to think about website maintenance or the development of more than 1.000 words! Also, it is simple these days to take good images of yourself and yourself, so you can ride without the need: a photographer
Short videos changing how creators use their platform
With the debut of YouTube, video became a popular choice of content. The video-sharing site has allowed the user to experiment with content created by themselves, resulting in a new age. YouTube reveals that only about anyone or something can be ‘viral’ on the site, from beauty tutorials to viral dance crazes. The channel currently has over a billion views per day and more than one billion users all over the world.
Bloggers have established themselves through these platforms. Where they can put out their content for their fanbase. These platforms help the users to create something out of themselves and to put out content every day.
Content that Vanishes:
The first to launch picture and video material disappears was Snapchat in 2011. While the app initially had a scandalous stigma, it soon became the favoured communication tool among millennials. This addictive method for sharing content gained popularity, with companies realizing the opportunity to reach their younger target audiences and starting ads on the app.
Though Snapchat has 158 million active users per day, Facebook dominates the social media industry with 1,23 billion active users per day. Instagram has 400 million active users daily, with 150 million using Posts. As Snapchat slowly started to incorporate advertisements and paid content, Instagram monetized the history feature easily and sold ads at a cost per 1,000 impressions. The inspection button on their profiles also allowed advertisers to track the review of their stories.
Conclusion
You have to take chances to succeed in social media. Most importantly, the audiences must generate useful material. Content development itself is not the problem—it creates content that is really connected to markets that are of greatest importance in building commitment. If you are making a video on Snapchat or Facebook Live, if you cannot respond, then it probably doesn’t make you and your audience any difference. People don’t just look at videos any more–they connect. The video is the last storyteller if the camera is like a keyboard and the image is worth a thousand words.
A Consultant is an expert in a particular field whose job is to give professional advice to his client. If you are or plan to become a Consultant, this is a must-read post for you. Consulting Business is a challenging yet interesting field. It comprises problem solvers who are here to take up issues head-on. Consultants also evaluate the existing state of one’s business when needed.
Currently, there are over 10,000 Consultancy Firms in India. Among which, 6,000 firms are located in the 4 main metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Consulting is not an evergreen relationship with the client but a short-term project meant to achieve specific results. An example would be a business entity approaching a financial consultant for tax planning. This is known as a Consulting Engagement.
While consulting comes in various forms and flavours, a successful consultant generally excels in certain aspects and qualities, irrespective of his or her area of work. This post discusses 10 qualities a consultant, whether experienced or just starting out, needs to work on to have a successful career trajectory moving upwards.
Time management is essential in the Consulting Business. One can think of it in two different ways: short-term and long-term. Short-term time management involves daily and weekly tasks and action items. Consultants may work on several projects at a time; they need to pay appropriate attention to all of them.
Mastering time management will save you from the pitfalls of unexpected and unprecedented occurrences. Get your planner ready as time stops for none!
Flexibility With Work
Being flexible is another ingredient towards becoming a better Consultant. Client Expectations and Requirements can change anytime, and unexpected issues may come up in the project. As a consultant, you need to be flexible and be always ready for any situation. With the kind of travel involved in the consulting business, don’t fret if you have to catch a flight all of a sudden.
Communication Skills
Communication Skillsform a person’s first impression. Whether that’s written or verbal. Email writing, presentation skills, documentation abilities, and even talking on the phone are directly dependent on one’s communication skills. Communication skills will decide how well you fit into the team. As a Consultant, the better you communicate with your client, the easier the task becomes.
Commercial Awareness
You need to have a basic understanding of how businesses work because certain points and frameworks apply to all companies regardless of the industry. Your Commercial Awareness will continue to deepen with time. Some points to work on are basic finance, economics, and management topics.
Good Analytical skills give you an edge over others in the consulting business. Analytical capabilities include both qualitative and quantitative aspects. You will be looking at data, whether it’s general trends of the client’s industry or actual specific requirements. Quick calculations, pattern identification, logical deductions, etc. are some of the topics that rely on analytical skills. On the qualitative side, you will look at interview responses, customer surveys, and employee responses.
Whether you are looking at numbers or words, you need to be able to interpret the data. Hence, build up your cognitive skills to take analytics and logical reasoning by their horns.
Organising
A good consultant is consistent in terms of efficiency and planning. And these come under organising one’s place and work-related items. To find a way which works for you when it comes to organising your emails, documents, calendar, and having everything in place.
Team Player
To be a consultant, you need to be a team player. Consulting business is not an individual’s game; working as a team is prioritized and stressed upon. It’s important to make sure that the client’s needs are met and looked after. And this has to be done while being mindful of your team’s needs. Keep your team members in mind, work in sync, and don’t aim for individual glory.
Social Skills
The consulting business is a client-facing job. And building relationships with your clients decide overall success as a consultant. While intelligence, analytical skills, and logical skills are highly valued, the Emotional Quotient (EQ) is equally important. The ability to empathize with others and build an intimate connection with clients will fast-track your journey to becoming a good consultant.
Creative Thinking
When you are doing the same job or activity repeatedly for an extended period, it becomes easy to stop thinking outside the box. If you want to provide value to your clients, you need to be creative and come up with innovative solutions. Ask yourself, “How can I do this better, or how can I make this better?” Creative thinking will definitely get you noticed!
Self-Care
In any business, some days can be harder. People don’t think of self-care as a skill, but it is one. You can work efficiently only if your health levels don’t drain. Self-care might look different for different people but at the core, it’s all the same. Take necessary breaks, give it a rest when your productivity is down, and don’t take it hard on yourself.
For some, it means going on vacation to unplug completely and ensuring they communicate and set certain boundaries with their team during the break. Identify what fits in your self-care routine.
Consulting is an interesting yet challenging role. As a consultant, you have to keep an eye on various problems and their solutions. Good control over skills like Time Management, Flexibility, Communication skills, Commercial Awareness, Analytical skills, Organising, Teamwork, Social Skills, Creative thinking and Self-care comes very handy in this job.
FAQs
Who is a Consultant?
A Consultant is an expert in a particular field whose job is to give professional advice to his client.
How many Consultancy firms are there in India?
Currently, there are over 10,000 Consultancy Firms in India. Among which, 6,000 firms are located in the 4 main metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
Why should a pay focus on Time Management as a Consultant?
Consultants may work on several projects at a time; they need to pay appropriate attention to all of them. Mastering time management will save you from the pitfalls of unexpected and unprecedented occurrences.
Why should you be Flexible as a Consultant?
Client Expectations and Requirements can change anytime, and unexpected issues may come up in the project. As a consultant, you need to be flexible and be always ready for any situation.
