FAQs
Top 6 questions about the Academy
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.
My instructors and I have been practicing communications for over 20+ years and have worked across a wide spectrum of industries and companies, from finance to healthcare to technology.
We use a credit-based system to provide choice 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 more talent, and to have a clear understanding of their investment in training.
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.
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.
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.
The environment continues to shift, with the 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.
About the Strategic Communications Academy
The Strategic Communications Academy is an organisation that coaches and trains strategic communications practitioners on core, foundation and advanced skill sets and capabilities including soft skills to help them succeed in their organisations and craft.
We are here to solve the common but difficult to execute challenge of providing structured and consistent coaching and training to strategic communications talent – with between 1 – 10 years of experience – in an organisation.
We will set the standards for baseline, foundation and advanced levels of communications skill sets and complementary soft skills for strategic communications practitioners and provide them with coaching and training opportunities to achieve these levels.
If you are an organisation/function leader, lead a team or are responsible for P&L in an agency/consultancy, working with us is a win for you because:
- We help you focus on other priorities by freeing you your time and capacity that would have been spent on coaching, training, preparing materials, and assessing your talent.
- We create value for your organisation and importantly, a win-win situation where you (and other senior colleagues) can focus on sales, strategy and client management while your team is coached to improve their efficacy and efficiency across the strategic communications skills and competencies.
- More effective and efficient talent means better client management and relationships as well as better outcomes for programmes and campaigns.
- Importantly, investing in coaching and training your talent sends a positive message to team members that the organisation is engaged in proactively growing their career through the building and honing of skill sets and competencies.
If you are a strategic communications talent, operate as part of a wider function or project team or are responsible for client management and client outcomes, training with us is a win for you because:- We can help you explore more about the strategic communications field, learn core and foundation skill sets to improve your craft and benefit from the structure and consistency in being coached and trained
- Our function training will help you become better and faster at your jobs, and associated output.
- Our soft skills training will help you in areas such as interpersonal relationships and productivity leading to stronger client and stakeholder relationships, and contributions to your team, project and organisation
- Importantly, investing time in training and practice will result in you becoming more efficient and effective, leading to more opportunities to grow and control your career in the strategic communications field.
Strategic Communications Academy Approach
All practitioners that join our programme will have access to a Learning Management System (LMS) and a digital support desk (DD).
The LMS includes articles, webinars, how-to guides, case studies and templates covering areas such as trends, tools and common topics such as writing, media relations, project management, building plans, and others. Talents have access to a calendar of workshops and scenario training sessions to select from as well as a stream of regular content including newsletters, webinars, downloads and more.
The DD is powered by a direct message app, and can be used by practitioners to send questions to our panel of trainers. We will help provide insights and share learnings on topics that might help with the questions; without going beyond our role as a trainer and making decisions on behalf of our practitioners. At the start, we will group participants from the same organisation or team in a DD group.
Our future roadmap includes:
- Customising programmes for customers based on their organisation’s specific approach or methodology
- Aligning assessment and measurements input for performance reviews if/when specifically requested for
- Upgrading the LMS to be more mobile-friendly
We recommend our coaching and training programme for specialists and individual contributors working in an organisation, or those supporting a non-communications project team as well as those working in a communications function, or in an agency.
Curriculum
Our Training Lead is Aaron. He brings 20 years of business and communications experience to the table. Aaron has worked at and with agencies, founded and exited his own independent mid-sized regional agency, been a team lead in corporates and a business consultant. Through these experiences, he has honed his skill sets across a diverse set of brands, ranging from start-ups to MNCs, both locally and across the APAC region.
Across the years, he has put together a playbook on the knowledge, skill sets and soft skills required for talent to hone their craft in communications. This is the playbook and knowledge he wished he had when he was starting out in his career.
The playbook forms the foundation for the Strategic Communications Academy coaching and training curriculum and modules.
The curriculum has been improved upon by our Board of Curriculum Advisors, including [AAA from 111], [BBB from 222] and [CCC from 333].
Coaches for soft skills such as time management, people and stakeholder management, productivity are all certified by the international [accreditation organisation].
The curriculum is split across 7 master topics, 10 skills and 7 applications. All coaching and training modules are spread across the matrix of topic – skill – application, and segmented by programme level.
Some of the topics include: Strategic communications, Project management, Negotiation and influence, Positioning and messaging as well as Branding and narrative.
Some skills covered include: General communications, media relations, integrated marketing, crisis communications, client/stakeholder management and channel communications.
Some application areas covered include: Research, writing, context and framing, as well as coordination and execution.
The programmes currently include:
Basics of strategic communications (Level 1)
Basics of strategic communications (Level 2)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 1)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 2)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 3)
These are recommended for talent that have between 1 – 5 years of experience.
For talent will between 5 – 10 years of experience, we have the following programmes:
Practising strategic communications (Level 1)
Practising strategic communications (Level 2)
Effective strategic communications (Level 1)
For example, our Basics of strategic communications (Level 1) includes modules on writing and taking a brief.
Our Foundation of strategic communications (Level 2) includes a module on “Creating the right content for the right channel.”
Most of the workshop and scenario training session information will be included in our LMS.
For customers that are keen to find out more, please connect with us directly email at academy@strtgcommsgrp.com to schedule a discussion. We will use the discussion to understand the outcomes you and/or team are looking for, and provide a training outline as well.
Curriculum
Our Training Lead is Aaron. He brings 20 years of business and communications experience to the table. Aaron has worked at and with agencies, founded and exited his own independent mid-sized regional agency, been a team lead in corporates and a business consultant. Through these experiences, he has honed his skill sets across a diverse set of brands, ranging from start-ups to MNCs, both locally and across the APAC region.
Across the years, he has put together a playbook on the knowledge, skill sets and soft skills required for talent to hone their craft in communications. This is the playbook and knowledge he wished he had when he was starting out in his career.
The playbook forms the foundation for the Strategic Communications Academy coaching and training curriculum and modules.
The curriculum is split across 7 master topics, 10 skills and 7 applications. All coaching and training modules are spread across the matrix of topic – skill – application, and segmented by programme level.
Some of the topics include: Strategic communications, Project management, Negotiation and influence, Positioning and messaging as well as Branding and narrative.
Some skills covered include: General communications, media relations, integrated marketing, crisis communications, client/stakeholder management and channel communications.
Some application areas covered include: Research, writing, context and framing, as well as coordination and execution.
The programmes currently include:
Basics of strategic communications (Level 1)
Basics of strategic communications (Level 2)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 1)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 2)
Foundation of strategic communications (Level 3)
These are recommended for talent that have between 1 – 5 years of experience.
For talent will between 5 – 10 years of experience, we have the following programmes:
Practising strategic communications (Level 1)
Practising strategic communications (Level 2)
Effective strategic communications (Level 1)
For example, our Basics of strategic communications (Level 1) includes modules on writing and taking a brief.
Our Foundation of strategic communications (Level 2) includes a module on “Creating the right content for the right channel.”
Most of the workshop and scenario training session information will be included in our LMS.
For customers that are keen to find out more, please connect with us directly email at academy@strtgcommsgrp.com to schedule a discussion. We will use the discussion to understand the outcomes you and/or team are looking for, and provide a training outline as well.
Credit-based system
The Strategic Communications Academy works on a credit model. Individuals, agencies and organisations (“customers”) can purchase credits and assign them to specific talent or share them within a team.Access to the Learning Management System (LMS) and Digital Support Desk (DD) is set at a standard 1 credit per user per month.
Webinars, workshops, scenario training, soft skills coaching, and some other formats will cost a range of credits, per user and per time.
The Academy secretariat will inform the customer when their credit balance falls below the 20% level and arrange for a credit top-up with an invoice through bank transfer or credit card payment options.
We recommend all customers to start with a minimum of 50 credits. This is also the system’s minimum top-up rate for both individuals and teams.
Based on estimates, 50 credits will provide 12 months of access to the LMS and DD and access to between 4 – 6 workshops and scenario training sessions.
If practitioners prefer a more intensive programme, they can increase the frequency of workshops, or adjust focus to include more soft skills training as well.
Credits can be shared within a team. We recommend agencies to share it within a team of up to 5 talents, and for organisations to share within a team of up to 3 talents.
More talents (beyond the 3 and 5 recommendations) sharing the same pool of credits may dilute individual talent’s coaching or training experience.
Payment
We accept payment by bank transfer, PayPal and credit card.
For individuals and teams being sponsored by your organisation, we can arrange for invoices to be sent to you or a designated organisation representative (for example finance or HR).
For individuals that pay directly to the Strategic Communications Academy, we can provide a receipt for your records.
Bespoke and customised training packages and other miscellaneous questions
We support coaching and training for talents working remote, or in other geographies. We recommend talents to have a computer, a stable internet connection, and headphones (for comfort). Our LMS is browser-based, and the DD works on both iOS and Android systems.
We provide training by package, that is set at a fixed number of credits per user over a fixed duration of time. These variables are discussed together with you (if you are purchasing credits as an individual) or with your organisation if they are sponsoring you for the training and coaching. The packages currently offer pathways on the following areas: Please
- Becoming an efficient account executive
- Becoming an effective account manager
- Mastering stakeholder relationships
- People management and managing a team
- Project management and negotiation
Please connect with us directly through email at academy@strtgcommsgrp.com to schedule a discussion about you or your team’s requirements.
We can work with you and/or your organisation to create bespoke training packages that also incorporate your organisation’s approach and/or methodology.
Please connect with us directly through email at academy@strtgcommsgrp.com to schedule a discussion about you or your team’s requirements.