Tweet all you like – but don’t forget how to talk

A survey which examined the attitudes of 315 owners of small and medium-sized businesses across Australia by SmartCompany with Roy Morgan Research and Dun & Bradstreet, revealed that 48 per cent of employers were disappointed by the communication skills of their generation Y employees.

In light of this and the increasingly competitive job market, it has never been more crucial for young people to learn how to confidently sell and communicate their ideas in a face-to-face environment, especially to potential employers. 

Kids that come from disadvantaged communities often don’t get the same opportunities as their more advantaged peers, yet when they enter the working world they are expected to compete on an equal footing.

To help young people develop vital communication skills, we recently got together with the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) to deliver free communication and presentation workshops to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The workshop attendees were drawn from our recently launched Learning for Life Alumni. Our Alumni is unique, in that it is not affiliated with any one university, but brings together students from many different tertiary institutions, all of whom share a background of support through The Smith Family’s tertiary scholarship and mentoring scheme.

About 16 students attended the first two half-day workshops at NIDA in Sydney. The workshops are designed to be fun, as well as practical, teaching students to maximise their natural ability to communicate genuinely, authoritatively and persuasively. Exercises helped them increase their body awareness, relax and control their breathing. 

Head of Corporate Performance at NIDA, Barbara Warren, said when students first walked through the NIDA doors they felt a little daunted by the incredibly overwhelming space of the facility and the famous faces that have graced its stages, however within an hour they were positively shining with their own personal brand of starlight having embraced the techniques.
Indeed as one student wrote to us afterwards:

May I just say, thank you, thank you thank you for thinking of me and letting me into the NIDA workshop. I had an absolute ball!! It has been almost a lifelong dream for me to go to NIDA and I was so excited. I have just decided that as soon as I finish uni and get a job, I will be doing an acting and presenting course which will run every Saturday for a year. My eyes just lit up when I walked in, I have been receiving NIDA pamphlets every semester since year 7 in high school!!! But I never got to sign up for anything because I just can’t afford it. It’s where I’m meant to be and I know it! But my parents and you guys ensured I get a ‘proper’ education at uni first. And you were right, I absolutely love what I do and if anything, uni has opened my eyes to the media world and I think NIDA will polish my skills even more and teach me so much more. I haven’t stopped smiling since I stepped [through] those doors! So thank you!!

It’s great to hear that programs like these are making a difference in the lives of these young people - and in doing so, helping reaffirm the value of face-to-face communication.