After speaking with many agencies and inhouse teams, we have gathered the 8 more-common questions about the Strategic Communications Academy.
These represent perhaps 60 percent of the questions asked at focus groups, introduction sessions and sales calls.
We hope that these will help you as you navigate through our website, or our introduction. Additionally, more FAQs can be here.
About the platform, and whether there is sufficient understanding of the training gap and challenge
Question: You don’t understand my problem.
Short answer: Yes, we do.
Longer answer: There is a priority gap where leaders and management want their teams to be skilled and competent BUT lack the time to create the circumstances and environment for talent training to take place.
Practitioners have a stated goal of wanting to level up and improve their capabilities BUT often lack the time, space and guidance on where and how to do so.
Question: You don’t have the expertise.
Short answer: Not really a question as much as a challenge. Yes, we do.
Longer answer: My instructors and I have been practicing communications for over 20+ years (individually, not altogether) and have worked across the spectrum of industries and companies.
Question: Does anyone else like this product?
Answer: Based on our focus groups and beta testers, the Academy is one of the platforms and tools that can help them level up.
Question: Will I need to bother my training lead/HR manager/direct manager all the time to use your platform?
Short answer: Only on topics specific or sensitive to your organisation.
Longer answer: Once you are onboarded, the Strategic Communications Academy platform and dashboard is simple and intuitive to navigate. There is also direct support available through the Digital Desk where either a trainer or a team member can help you out.
So chances are, you will not need to bother your manager or colleague, unless there are topics specific to clients or announcements or events that are sensitive for external sharing. These topics should definitely be discussed internally and not with the Academy team.
The Strategic Communications Group (SCG) seeks to enable and empower strategic communications organisations, teams and practitioners to become better at their craft, improve industry and provide people with value through the support of platforms and tools.
Through the Strategic Communications Academy, we provide a training platform and service focused on skill sets and competencies for communications and Public Relations teams and practitioners.
Learning pathways and topics include building basic and foundational capabilities on writing, media relations, the use of content and the application of communications through to developing good project management skills and client/stakeholder relationships for practitioners.
SCG also provides consultancy services to organisations looking for support on branding and narrative, issues management and crisis communications. Our Academy trainers are also available to coach and train executives and teams.
Send an email to academy@strtgcommsgrp.com and we will connect with you shortly.
We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel, and technology spaces.
Pricing, effectiveness and reasons to adopt training
Question: Why is it priced this way?
Answer: We use a credit-based system to provide choice and flexibility of pathway, topic and pace for our learners.
A credit-based system also provides employers and organisations with the flexibility to share training opportunities with/across more talent, and to have a clear understanding of their investment in training.
Question: How fast will it work?
Specific learning pathway: Learners that go through a specific topic pathway – for example on writing, or media relations, or project management – will notice a quick improvement as they start to put into practice the knowledge they have learnt.
General topical learning pathway: Learners that select courses generally will improve over time and have a broader perspective about their communications craft and see many areas of their career they can apply their learning toward.
Question: Why should I change/participate in training?
Answer: It is not sufficient or satisfying for both the organisation and the learner to just coast as they seek to grow their company, function or career.
By investing in training skill sets and capabilities and seeking to understand the first principles of our craft, both the organisation and the learner can go further faster in a win-win environment, and achieve great things.
Question: Why now?
Answer: The environment continues to shift, with this shift being accelerated by the exit from the pandemic.
Communications practitioners are called on to support their organisations at the leadership and management levels; as well as with reputation and narrative more frequently and with far more involvement.
We have a duty to our practitioners to equip them with the right skills and capabilities to grow their career by doing their jobs right.
Our practitioners have the opportunity in their careers to ensure that the organisations they belong to are able to recover, grow and thrive with the support of strong reputation building programmes and well-executed campaigns.
This can be achieved through many ways. One way is through investing in training them in both hard and soft skill sets and capabilities with the Strategic Communications Academy.
The Strategic Communications Academy can be a partner and ally supporting talent with career success, and contributing to the growth and expansion of teams and organisations.
The academy provides talent with a structured training programme and curriculum covering hard and soft skills and capabilities related to the practice of strategic communications and public relations.
Connect with us through email at academy@strtgcommsgrp.com to set up a meeting, or to request for more information, or to recommend your HR/training colleague to us for a chat.