Do You Help People Develop Their Presenting Skills?

In many jobs, people are required to give presentations. These might be to their peers, to clients or to prospective clients. But how well prepared are people for what are often important presentations?

FE News recently highlighted a survey carried out by Buffalo 7, which found that 77 per cent of employees are required to create and give presentations as part of their job. Of them, almost one-quarter revealed that they didn’t start working on a presentation until under a week before they had to deliver it.

There were even three per cent who said they’d leave it until the day of the presentation to start their preparations.

The research also found that 87 per cent of people had had a bad experience while delivering a presentation. These ranged from experiencing technical difficulties to getting nervous and struggling to make it through the presentation.

Despite presentations being such an important part of work for many people in the UK, the survey also found that only 23 per cent had received any training in how to create and deliver presentations.

Around one-quarter of those questioned said that their company had lost an existing client or failed to win a new client due to a poor quality presentation.

Richard Barnes, from Buffalo 7, told the news provider that these figures underline the importance of presenting skills. He said that people should be “receiving proper training in order to represent your employer’s - and your own abilities - in the best possible light”.

This might make you consider what business training in Brighton you’ll be running for your teams in the coming months.

An article in The Herald recently highlighted presentation skills among the list of ‘new basics’ that workers need to succeed in any workplace. Other skills to develop include critical thinking, financial literacy and problem-solving.