HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE RECEPTIONIST?
Importance of Training
v Training is an important aspect for improvements in a particular area.
v Training supports us in sharpening our skills.
v Training gives us strength to fight with obstacles coming on our way to success.
v Training improves our self-analysis potential.
v Training improves our thinking and supports in preparations well in advance.
Required behavior
v Be Cordial and humble.
v Have patience.
v Be honest.
v Be cooperative.
v Be soft spoken.
v Should have attitude of gratitude.
When you become angry 63 muscles act, while when you smile only 9 muscles act. Therefore keep smiling all the time.
To make your profession as an effective Receptionist, you need to focus on three important soft skills in your life style.
These three skills are indeed three pillars to have your over all personality and forth pillar is your self confidence.
1- Positive attitude
2- Communication skills
3- Time Management
(1)-Positive Attitude
“WITH POSITIVE ATTITUDE, YOU BECOME A PERSON THAT BRIGHTENS THE ROOM SIMPLY BY ENTERING IN TO IT”
An attitude is defined as-
“The way a person feels, thinks and behaves, towards a particular issue.”
Attitude helps in particular situations within the frame of mind. For example — a glass half filled with water may be explained as “A glass is half filled” or “A glass is half empty”.
With this simple example we can understand that a person having positive attitude will always point out as “A glass is half filled”.
Positive attitude, self belief and the determination are key factors for success.
POSITIVE ATTITUDE —gives—> POSITIVE THINKING —gives—> POSITIVE ACTION / REACTION / EFFORTS —gives—> POSSITIVE RESULT.
With the positive attitude a person can get following advantages—
1. With the +ve attitude you become humble/polite, caring & confident.
2. You develop patience & high expectation.
3. Positive attitude enhances Productivity & Team work.
4. It reduces undue stress.
5. It develops trust among team members.
6. It develops good character, integrity and values.
7. A person with positive attitude doesn’t see setbacks as stumbling blocks, rather sees setbacks as stepping stones.
Disadvantages of behaving with negative attitude are—
1. It increases animosity.
2. It develops sickness (Ill health)
3. It increases bitterness in relationship & resentment.
4. Negative person not only spoils himself but the entire environment.
5. Negative thinkers are basically fault finders. They always see negative side of the story.
POSITIVE THINKERS ARE WINNERS WHILE NEGATIVE THINKERS ARE LOOSERS.
Even if you are not doing anything, you are communicating.
Derived from the Latin ‘communis’ which means ‘common’ i.e. sharing of ideas. It is a process of conveying messages from one person to another in order to make them understand.
Established fact: that the main foundation for any system is communication and the success on any system depends on coordination between the people involved. Cordial coordination with correct & clear communication makes system perfect.
Failures: Frequently attributed to the fact that instructions orders of information did not reach some one in the chain. Someone failed to get the word or misinterpreted it Communication Gap.
Communication: is a two way process formulation of ideas, delivery, reception, registered in brain and response. No communication is complete when it is not two way communications.
One way communication is not complete communication e.g. listing to Radio, Reading News Papers, and Watching T.V. etc. One way communication gets converted in to two way communications by providing feedback.
Example: Mother is a great communicator and Child is also a good communicator.
WHY COMMUNICATION?
1. We communicate because we cannot live a normal life without communicating with some people. It is a physical and social need.
2. We communicate because we want people to put into action through information, orders, counseling guidance, appeal etc.
3. Communication helps in preparing people for change and proper understanding.
4. It is essential to discourage misinformation, wrong information, rumors, suspicion etc.
5.It helps in developing democratic atmosphere.
6. Communication ensures exchange and pooling of ideas.
7. Communication is essential to get feed back about the reaction or feeling of people.
8. It ensures coordination, cooperation and satisfaction.
9. Some times we have to communicate certain other thing to hide what we really don’t want to communicate.
Types of Communication:
1. Written Communication
2. Verbal Communication
3. Non-Verbal Communication
1. Written Communication: Written communication is required when the massage is to be sent to the large number of people at a time. e.g. writing Memos, Circulars, Letters, News Papers etc. Today e-mail communication is widely used and accepted worldwide.
2. Verbal Communication: Verbal Communication is an art of two way communication. It is indeed a combination of talking, chatting and listening. E.g. a shopkeeper of a particular area is a good example of a verbal communication, who smiles, behaves properly, knows you well and provides good quality of material and service. While you may not be knowing much about the shopkeeper.
3. Non-Verbal Communication: Nonverbal communication is the transmission of messages through means other than words. (Body language)
Listening and Observation: Listening is the process of using the eyes, the ears and brain to screen out meaning and feelings behind what the person is saying. Listening carefully helps you to understand the other person. A good listener is a better manager and makes better decisions based upon information, opinions and experiences of his subordinates and superiors.
Down ward communication channel: Orders, instructions, informing, memos etc.
Upward communication channels: Reporting, informing, requesting, suggesting, complaining etc.
Horizontal communication channels: Informing, coordinating, helping.
All business communication whether written, verbal or symbolic if well organized, can give best effect of effective communication. Unless upward communication is encouraged downward communication is futile. Organized upward communication gives an opportunity to employees to inform management about their feelings, to suggest improvements, and also enable management to locate problematic areas in their downward communications.
Barriers to effective communication: In effective organizational communication there are various factors which always breakdown the flow of effective communication, few are:
i) Manager, supervisors and workers are not always convinced that a good communication is means to better cooperation.
ii) No enough attention is paid to the attitude and problems of employees.
iii) Words do not always convey the intended meaning to the receptor.
iv) The organizational structure does not always provided for channel for effective communication.
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION:
What is meant by effective communication?
“To convey meaning accurately from one person to another person.”
Factor affecting “communication process”
a] Misunderstanding
b] Non cooperation
c] Mutual interest for developing skills of each other and / or of your subordinates.
d] Language to be used.
e] Medium of communication
f] Wrong thinking
g] Poor knowledge power
h] Poor power of expressions.
All communication is designed to produce a response but sometimes the response is not as per our expectation. We ask a question and get the answer not related to the question. The message can be distorted if-
(a) Unclear in speakers mind.
(b) Stated unclear
(c) Words may be misunderstood.
(d) Message unclear in listeners mind.
(e) Long time lapse-so message remembered incorrectly.
(a) Each person communicates according to his ability to understand.
(b) Depends on that one understands when he/she hears.
(c) Communication is built upon relationship and this is established as soon as we have each others attention and an understanding is developed - this must be maintained throughout.
Develop the skills: In our jobs it is necessary that we become better communicator - Smile, and Begin on a +ve note, ask questions when you need answers. Know what you want to say, speaking terms they understand, Be Human sincere, Aware - Be Genuine and other give a +ve response. (Do not try all these at a time - Develop one by one)
“AWARE”
A- Assemble your message.
W- Watch your Listeners. (Whether attentive or not)
A-Adept (Your delivery to the situation).
R- Relate (Your message in the way you assemble it)
E- Evaluate (by asking question & observing actions).
While Speaking or presenting:
(a) State subject clearly. (b) Divide into important parts.
(c) Summarize 2-3 times. (d) Conclude in an interesting Manner.
(e) Maintain Eye-contact through out your presentation.
“TIME IS THE SCARCEST RESOURCE AND UNLESS IT IS MANAGED, NOTHING ELSE CAN BE MANAGED” – (By Peter Ducker)
v Of all the resources available, time is the least understood and the most mismanaged. Time management is a functional art, and crux of the time management is managing one self.
The basic payoffs of time management are –
v A closer scrutiny into this aspect can probably lead to lot of dividends not directly, but indirectly leading to– Saving in man hours v Saving in wages v Increase in output and cutting down nonproductive procedures. v More time available to develop yourself. v More energy. v An ability to get more done. v More respect for other’s time.
v You keep moving with less pendancy of jobs. v Feel fresh energetic & with enthusiasm in turn helps to achieve your target. v Develops over all personality. v Improves your performance. v Supports in achieving your goals faster. v Removes hesitancy. v Boots your confidence. v Prevents sudden rushing.
“IF YOU ARE A REGULAR ‘READER’, YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO BURN MIDNIGHT OIL.”
v Time management is purely based on the prefect planning with priorities of jobs to be attended. “How to manage time” may be an art but can be done successfully with determination and will power. It is rightly said that “God gives 24 hours in a day to every one. Achievers use these hours as maximum as possible while failures waste the same by ignoring the best possible utilization of time.”
v Time is the most important resource among men, materials & machines. Time goes unnoticed and so remains unmanaged.
v Each one of us has exactly the same amount of time and hence problem is not with time but how well we use it.
v Time is a unique resource, it’s fixed at 60 minutes, 24 hours & it can’t be stored and has to be spent. We do not manage time because we cannot manage the clock.
“WHERE THERE IS A HILL TO CLIMB DON’T THINK THAT WAITING WILL MAKE IT SMALLER.”
Time Wasters
While we understand how to manage time with respect to the clock we must no about time wasters.
Internal External
1. Lack of self Discipline 1. Telephone
2. Indecision 2. Visitors
3. Insecurity 3. Meetings
4. Habits 4. Paperwork
5. Excuses 5. Poor Information
6. Perfectionist 6. Poor Communication
7. Attempting too much 7. Unexpected Crisis
8. Procrastination
9. Gossiping
10. Inability to priorities
11. Lack of desire to organize
Some suggestions to manage your time
v Always have a positive attitude. v Get up early and go to bed early. Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man happy, wealthy & wise. v Keep your watch 3 to 5 minutes faster. v Plan and set priorities every morning. v Avoid using crowded roads. v Concentrate on one thing at a time. v Work smarter rather than harder. v Delegate as and when required. v Relax and do nothing frequently. Keep cool mind as far as possible. v Avoid too much conversation at work. v Have a light lunch and so as to avoid laziness at work. v Learn and improve by experiencing failure instead of keep releasing the same. v Avoid watching TV at night. v Try to stay close to office to save time and money. v Work with joy and happiness to do things faster and accurate. v Enjoy week ends regularly and avoid bringing office matters at home. v Maintain your office timings. v while at work, plan your working with priorities and implement accordingly. v Have a list of pending jobs and keep updating the same. v Allocate the time for each job v Estimate daily effectiveness based on jobs. v Don’t procrastinate because procrastination becomes a habit and people get into the tendency of justifying it.
Procrastination means:
(1) We avoid the work we don’t want to do.
(2) We avoid to clear and / or file papers, resulting in ability to locate important paper when required.
(3) Poor decision making.
v Set dead lines for yourself. v Don’t be over perfectionist.
v Use visible reminders by updating list of pending jobs. v Keep remembering things like “TIME IS MONEY, USE IT”, “PROCRATINATION PREVENTS SUCCESS”, “USE THE DAY BY SQUEEZING TIME” etc. v Develop a habit of putting “FIRST THINGS FIRST”.
For making your training more effective,you need regular reading and mirror practice. Happy training and best of luck- Ashutosh.
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