Communicating with Employees

5. Effective Presentations

Whether you are talking to one individual or a room full of people, presentation skills help you get your message across.

5.1 Involve your audience.

• Summarise what you are going say, say it, then summarise what you have said.
• Use prompts such as PowerPoint slides. Do not read your speech from a typed-out sheet. Your audience will stop listening.
• If part of your audience is hostile, try to focus on one friendly face.
• Take questions. If you cannot answer on the spot, say you will provide an answer as soon as you can. Make sure you do.

5.2 In a formal presentation, reinforce the spoken word.

• Speak a little louder and more slowly than you normally would.
• Use visual aids carefully, such as PowerPoint presentations, flip charts and whiteboards, when presenting or gathering ideas or trying to work out solutions to problems.