Do professionals realize the paradigm shift in skills as per today's corporate world?

In a world moving forward with vast improvement in modern technology, corporates find themselves uncomfortable to cope in such an environment.

Most company Chairmen, CEO's, Director's and rest of the board are still moving along in an era of strict company policies and directorial leadership. In today's context these policies have completely changed from the upcoming young generation of corporaes who are entering the business world with technology advancement.

A well-known corporate trainer Loretta Gunewardene who is also an expert in the fields of speech and drama, marketing, accountancy and banking, recently shared her experience of 'Essential Professional Skills' in an interview with the Business Times.Ms. Gunewardene's exposure to the corporate world is diverse. She is a globalised trainer/coach and mentor and have trained over 15000 professionals from CEO's, Managers to FrontLine executives from a variety of Conglomerates and Blue Chip Companies. She has trained more than 57 companies from banks, hotels, insurance, software companies, airlines in Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, New Zealand and Australia within her training career of more than 20 years. She has been appointed by Accenture/Maximum Performance UK, the world's no.1 management company in US to be their partner in the Asian region to train soft skills to their clients.

"My passion lies in the development of professionals who lack the skills that are needed in today's globalised world. I believe in change and development and keeping up to date with the changing skills set that is required in the world," she said.

The 21st century has brought diverse changes to the world economy due to the advancement in modern technology. The days have gone where soft skills training were done and today it is rephrased as 'Essential Professional Skills'. Some 45 per cent of corporates in the world, who think they are as professional as others do not get trained is this manner, noted Mrs. Gunewardene .

Some of the key elements of training she focuses when training corporates are on collaborative skills, decision making, critical thinking, effective communication, presentation skills, attitude handling skills and many more.

Her main task of training is to close the skills gap, she added.

During her training with the corporates she has gone through numerous challenges. Some of the corporates when they have had one-on-one interviews with Ms. Gunewardene didn't accept the fact that they were wrong in some instances and doesn't even want to change the policies of leadership in their company.

She said, "I am not an etiquette trainer. I train corporates to overcome the challenges they face in the companies and ways to handle any situation.

Universities teach the technical skills for the students but it's the company that teaches the essential skills for an individual corporate." She also noted that young upcoming CEO's are arrogant with the policies they follow.

Success of Ms. Gunewardene's training is to see her participants reach the pinnacle in their career. Her workshops are based on modern methods of training which are motivational and thought provoking. She has trained a diverse range of people from a multitude of companies and received many accolades to motivate her even more. She has the fortitude and the grit to move forward, change, develop and stimulate her workshop participants to raise the bar of their skills to success.