Effective Communication in the Globalised Workplace

In "Engaging in Persuasive and Credible Communication", you will learn the key skill of persuasion, in the context of professional communication in a globalised world. Persuasive communication is essential to any professional workplace. From a simple email request for your colleague to help you, to developing a presentation for the board of directors, these are acts of communication that require a good degree of persuasion. Even the process of entering the workforce requires effective persuasive communication, for in the act of writing your resume, cover-letter, or in the interview process, you are essentially persuading the potential employer to hire you. By the end of this course, you will be able to structure and express your ideas in a convincing and persuasive manner in writing, apply basic principles of persuasive writing to convince different sets of audiences at the globalised workplace, and learn to engage in persuasive and credible communication across different cultures in a complex globalised environment.

In the course ‘Establishing a professional ‘self’ through effective intercultural communication’, you will learn how to communicate effectively to establish relationships with colleagues in a culturally and linguistically diverse community and workplace. As language reflects cultures, we begin the course by highlighting the need to take into considerations cultural values when we communicate in a multicultural community and workplace. We then move on to discuss some effective communication skills required to build relationships with colleagues in a globalised workplace. You will learn to adopt appropriate intrapersonal and interpersonal, verbal and nonverbal, communicative strategies to present information based on the 7 communication principles. Finally, you will learn to build your personal profile and appropriately align yourself in a globalised workplace.

The final course aims to build learners’ confidence and adaptability when communicating in cross-cultural environments as they assume leadership responsibility to communicate influence in persuasive workplace contexts. The course focuses on enhancing learners’ professional persona for skilful engagement and intercultural communication with stakeholders within and beyond the organization, including cross-departmental work teams, clients and external partners. Learners will also discover and apply good practices in organising information, using visual aids and body language for presentations while demonstrating a heightened sense of cultural sensitivity in a given context. In all, learners will acquire skills to demonstrate persuasive verbal and intercultural communication in workplace contexts which may include dialogues and presentations to critical stakeholders and effective task delegation to team members. At the end of this course, learners will be able to: - Analyse factors of motivation among workplace counterparts. - Recognise the impact of culture on factors of motivation. - Critique and craft persuasive verbal communication products (i.e. script of dialogue) for exchanges with work teams and critical stakeholders. - Apply principles of effective PowerPoint slide design with consideration for cultural sensitivity. - Identify and adopt strategies on the use of voice and body language for engaging presentations.

The Capstone Project for this Specialisation requires you to demonstrate your understanding of the courses and integrate the knowledge and skills learned in real workplace scenarios. In particular, you will be given a choice of a few projects based on scenarios and case studies drawn from different workplaces. The project outcome is a handbook or a practical guide, which could be a blend of text and multi-media. In completing the project, you will be required to use and/or collect relevant primary data from people in the workplace through emails, face-to-face chats, Skype discussions and incorporate the data into the handbook/guide as support. In addition, there will be a component on critical reflection on your learning journey. The Capstone Project is to be completed within six weeks. Evaluation will be done via a combination of peer and tutor assessment.