How to identify your team’s communication training needs: a practical guide for HR managers
September 23, 2026
Training session, course, pathway or programme – which is right for your organisation?
September 23, 2026FURTHER EXPERTISE
What to include in a communication skills training programme for managers
Expert Opinion from Rich Watts published September 23, 2026
Once you have a clear picture of your team's communication training needs, the next question tends to arrive pretty quickly: so what does a good programme actually cover? And more specifically: what should ours cover?
It is a more complicated question than it first appears and the answer might appear quite so quickly!. Communication skills training can mean almost anything. A well-designed programme for a management team is a fundamentally different thing from a presentation skills workshop, a one-day assertiveness course or a generic leadership development programme with a communications module bolted on. Getting the solution right (the topics, the sequence, the balance between skill-building and practical application), is key to creating a successful solution.
This article sets out the content areas that matter most for management communication skills training, explains the structural decisions you will need to take to shape how effective a programme will be, and provides a way of thinking about what belongs in a programme for your team specifically.
The structural decisions that shape how effective a programme will be
Getting the content areas right is only part of the design challenge. The structural decisions such as how the programme is sequenced, how learning is reinforced, and what sits around the training itself are also key. They determine whether skills developed in a training room actually transfer into changed behaviour at work.
You should be considering all of the below as you plan your communication skills training programme.
- Sequence matters. A programme that builds from foundational communication skills upwards. Start with self-awareness and honest feedback before moving to the harder relational challenges of managing performance and leading through change. This more likely to produce durable results than one that starts with the complex and assumes the foundations are already in place.
- Spacing learning over time produces better results than cramming it in. A programme delivered as a series of half-day or full-day sessions spaced two to four weeks apart gives participants time to take what they have learned back into their day-to-day work, try it, notice what happens, and come back with real experience to build on.
- Practice and real scenarios are not optional extras. Communication skills are not absorbed by listening to a trainer explain them. They develop through practise, feedback and the experience of actually doing something differently. A good programme allocates a significant proportion of time to skills practice using scenarios drawn from the participants' real working lives.
- Coaching alongside training deepens the impact. One-to-one coaching or group action sets give each participant the space to work on the specific challenges, habits and development areas that a group training session cannot address individually. In Further's programmes, coaching sessions are often where the most significant individual development happens because the conversation can go where that person really needs it to go.
- Measurement from the start makes the business case for the next investment. A pre-programme survey that establishes a baseline, a post-programme survey that measures the same dimensions, and a follow-up review at three or six months all produce data that demonstrates the impact of the training in a form that is useful for the organisation. This measurement allows an HR manager to go back to the leadership team with evidence that the investment was worthwhile.
Discover more about our Communication Skills Programmes
The core content areas of a management communication skills programme
Not every management team needs training in all of these areas, and the right combination for your organisation will depend on what your needs analysis has surfaced. But these are the topics that come up most consistently in the organisations Further Communications works with. They are also the ones that, when developed well, tend to have the most direct impact on management performance.
- Having difficult conversations. This is the most commonly requested topic in management communication training, and for good reason. The ability to address poor performance, give honest feedback, challenge behaviour and navigate disagreement directly and constructively is one of the most important skills a manager can develop. Many managers avoid these conversations entirely, or handle them in ways that make the underlying issue worse. A good programme gives managers a framework for approaching these conversations with clarity and confidence, and enough practise with real scenarios to make the learning stick.
- Communicating through change. Whether an organisation is growing quickly, restructuring, or navigating a period of uncertainty, the quality of communication from managers during change determines whether people feel supported and informed or anxious and disengaged. A strong module on change communication covers how people actually respond to change, what different stages of the change journey need from their leaders, and the specific language and behaviours that build trust when things are uncertain. Models like the Kübler-Ross Change Curve and the Bridges Transition Model give managers a framework for understanding where their people are, rather than assuming everyone is in the same place at the same time.
- Leading effective meetings. Meetings are one of the most visible arenas in which management communication either works or does not. Training in this area goes beyond tips for keeping things on time. It covers how to design a meeting that actually needs to happen, how to create conditions for participation, how to handle conflict and dominant voices and how to ensure that decisions made in a room translate into action afterwards.
- Giving and receiving feedback. Feedback is one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can engage in, and one of the most underused. Many managers either avoid giving feedback altogether or give it in ways that are too vague to act on. A good communication skills programme addresses the skill of feedback directly including the underlying confidence and relationships that make honest feedback possible.
- Influencing and persuasion skills. Managers who can communicate their ideas clearly, make a compelling case for the things they believe in, and bring people with them through the quality of their thinking and their presentation of it are more effective at every level of the organisation. This content area is particularly relevant for managers who present to senior stakeholders, lead projects across teams, or need to build credibility and buy-in in complex environments.
- Written communication. In organisations where a significant proportion of communication happens by email, in reports or through internal messaging platforms, the ability to write clearly, concisely and with the right tone for the audience is a genuine skill gap in many management teams. A programme that includes written communication covers how to structure information so it is easy to act on, how to calibrate tone across different channels and audiences, and how to write with authority without being unnecessarily formal.
- Presentation skills. Not every manager needs to be an accomplished public speaker, but the ability to present ideas clearly and confidently, whether in a team meeting, a board presentation or a client setting, is a meaningful contributor to professional credibility. Presentation skills training within a management communication programme tends to focus on structure, delivery and managing nerves.
When Further Communications worked with the Medical Research Foundation to develop a communication skills training pathway for their teams, the process started not with a course catalogue but with a genuine research phase. That meant surveys, structured conversations across the organisation, and an honest mapping of where the real skill gaps sat across different roles and levels of seniority.
What emerged was a training programme designed around the specific challenges those people actually faced, in the order that made most sense for their development. That starting investment in getting the diagnosis right is what made the difference between a training event and a genuine, lasting shift in capability.
MAKING IT BETTER
How to decide what belongs in your programme
When Further designed a communication skills programme for the Soil Association, the starting point was not a content list but a research phase that included conversations with the teams involved, a pre-programme survey to establish where confidence and capability were lowest, and a clear picture of the specific communication challenges those managers faced day to day. The result was a programme that addressed the topics that would make the biggest difference for those people in that organisation, in a sequence and format that made sense for how they worked.
The design process is what distinguishes a tailored communication skills programme from a course with the organisation's name copied and pasted onto the slides.
If you have already carried out a training needs analysis and are ready to start thinking about programme design, our guide to how to set up a communication skills programme takes you through the practical steps from initial brief to first session.
FURTHER READING
Related reading from Further Communications
If you have not yet identified where your team's communication development needs sit, our guide to identifying communication training needs is a practical starting point for the research phase before programme design begins.
To understand the full scope of what a communication skills programme from Further looks like (including the absolutely excellent added-value elements that sit around the training itself!), visit our communication skills programme development page.
If you're looking to solve specific problems, like measuring the impact of your communication skills training, then you may also find our guide to measuring the impact of soft skills training really useful too.
FURTHER GUIDANCE
Designing a programme that is right for your team
Further Communications designs and delivers bespoke communication skills training programmes for management teams across the UK. Every programme we develop is built around the specific needs of the organisation. We focus on the topics that matter most, in the sequence and format that will produce the most impact, supported by coaching, measurement and post-programme follow-up.
If you have a sense of the direction you want to go in but are not yet sure what a programme for your team should include, the most useful step is a conversation with us. We can help you think through the content areas, the structure and the practical questions of format and delivery. We’ll also give you a very open and honest view of what is likely to make the biggest difference.
Please get in touch directly and we will get back to you within one working day.
HOW FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS CAN HELP
Getting expert help with your training needs analysis
Further Communications works with HR managers and L&D leads across the UK to design and deliver communication skills training programmes that are built around exactly what the organisation needs. Every programme we develop begins with a proper research and design phase so that what we deliver addresses the actual skill gaps rather than a generic approximation of them.
If you have a sense that communication skills development is needed but are not yet sure where to start or what shape the solution should take, the most useful first step is a conversation with us. We love to have honest and open discussions about what you are seeing and solutions that will help.
If you are ready to have that initial conversation, get in touch directly and we will get back to you within one working day.
