BMSW4001 Academic and Employability Skills

Introduction

Employability skills are some very important skills that are needed by any individual to thrive in any workplace (Ornellas, Falkner and Stalbrandt 2019). These skills are also known as “enterprise skills”, “workplace skills” or “communication skills” (Rodriguez de Cespedes 2017). The report will discuss about the employability skills and how they are important. The first section of discussion will discuss about the types of employability skills that are vital in today’s world. The second section describes the method through which the employability skills are developed recently. The third section discusses whether the employability skills have changed recently and the last section will discuss the probable reasons behind the change of the employability skills in the recent days. Employability skills are the vital skills and the traits that are required in almost every job (Lim et al. 2016). If these skills are present in an employee, then it can make him or her more desirable to a company. The hiring managers are almost searching for employees who have these skills. These skills include various soft skills that enables the employees to work well with other employees, apply their knowledge to solve various complicated problems and to adapt in any work environment. Employability skills also includes professional ability that allows an employee to be successful in the workplace (Rowe and Zegwaard 2017). These skills are also recognised as “transferrable skills” because these skills can be applied to a job in any sector.

Discussion

Employability Skills That Are Deemed Important Today

Employability skills are the soft skills that are vital for the success in the workplace. These are set of skills that are obligatory for every job in any sector (Nisha and Rajasekaran 2018). These are sometimes called by different names such as work-readiness skills, soft skills, job-readiness skills, foundation skills and others. Various employability skills that are deemed important today are resilience, time management, emotional intelligence, digital competency, problem solving, use of technology, leadership quality, collaboration, flexibility, skills of communication, use of information and others (Bringula, Balcoba and Basa 2016). Out of these skills, the most important employability skills required are discussed below:

• Resilience – Resilience means the ability to employees to overcome boundaries and become flexible to changes or problems in the job as they arise. Resilience is a vital skill that employers search in today’s job seeking youths. The need for resilience is becoming important due to the constant changes in the workplace. Resilient employees can achieve success easily and can ease the changes they have to face (Kuntz, Malinen and Naswall 2017). Resiliency is important because resilient employees remain very focused even if things become very complicated. They can easily identify trends and can turn them into opportunities. Resilient employees are curious and are always up for learning new things (Neenan 2017).
• Time management –If employees are inefficient to manage their time properly, they cannot deliver proper results. Bad management of time can result in work-life disparity and can ultimately change into professional and personal-life regarding issue (Al Hila 2017). Employers do not prefer this type of problems because it can lead to a bad name of their company. Hence, time management is one of the most important employability skills needed today. Time management is a part of a wider set of skill and is often referred to as resource management where resources refer to time, efforts and other resources. Employees must know how to plan the utilisation of the available resources, set up task or time frame of project and set the time schedules and breakthrough of events (Sainz, Ferrero and Ugidos 2019).
• Emotional Intelligence –Emotional Intelligence (EI) is another preferable employability skill required in a job of any sector. It describes the ability to identify, examine and manage one’s own and other’s emotion of the group. Emotional Intelligence helps to connect and communicate with other employees on a deeper level (Jameson 2016). Emotional Intelligence or EI allow us to create strong multicultural relationship and to embrace the differences by enabling valuing different point of value. An emotionally intelligent person is able to pick up the feelings or emotions behind the words (Goleman 2019). This allows building of strong professional relationships in the work area. The youth workers believe that young persons can be employed by developing particular knowledge and by some degree of Emotional Intelligence. There can be situations where employees will face stressful situation in their workplace (Sanusi et al. 2020). Having some degree of emotional intelligence will help them cope up with such complicated situation.
• Digital Competency –Another vital requirement of employability skill is digital competency. It becomes difficult for an employee who does not have any digital knowledge to sustain in a job that requires full digital knowledge (Gandini 2016). Lack of digital competence has some serious consequences on the individual’s employability perspective. Digital competency is very important in present jobs that requires cognitive abilities and customer service. Digital competency gives clear advantages over the software and machines (Nyikes 2018). Digital competency is an important skill that that is required for new requirements of job between 2030 (Bakshi et al. 2017). Digital skills can be developed over time. Some of the skills are developed through formal education. Other digital skills can be learnt through different informal and non-formal educational settings. The present global job market requires digital knowledge to allow an individual to be successful in finding and examining training and employment.

How Employability Skills Have Developed Recently?

Employers are searching for skills that are beyond the qualification and experiences of an employee. Education and experience can make someone eligible for jobs but the skills are needed to be successful in their ventures. Some employability skills are specific for some jobs but most of the skills are soft skills needed for working in any sector. In the recent years, modules for particular employability skill has been started for the honours students. These modules included programmes that supported various employability skills. This module was estimated to be highly utilising that resulted in increasing confidence among the students to go for various jobs (Benett, Richardson and MacKinnon 2016). In recent year, the employability skills has developed to support the young people to develop their job-readiness skills by introducing taster sessions, practical training and placements of work, introduction of business studies in the curriculum. The employability skills are enhanced in the heart of job-readiness measures. Some interventions to develop the employability skills are preparation of CV, searching for jobs, getting acquainted with the workplace, leadership skills, resolution of conflict, skills of problem solving and self-regulation, skills of communication and others. The employability skill has developed positive attitudes and behaviour among the employees towards the world of work. Employability skills has developed a sense of attachment to the organisation and helped them to grow employment relationship. These skills have also helped the individuals to make decision regarding their future career. In the recent years, employability skills has become vital for the graduates and the employers around the world. Many universities are acquainting the graduates with proper employable skills so that they can be ready for work. In short, in the recent years the employability skills are being developed from the educational life so that they can be job ready. Recently, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a need of investment in automation and the digital technologies in technology sector. Hence, employability skills have also developed by increasing the digital competency. Since, the system of work from home has started due to the social distancing due to covid-19, people are developing time management skills so that they can offer productive outcome even in their homes.

Have The Employability Skills Changed Recently?

Progress in technology has enabled firms to replaced labours with machines in the production process. Employability skills have become very important in the current era of disruption of technology and globalisation. In current scenario, besides the skills in technology, employers are also looking for skills in problem solving, communication, ability to think critically and collaboration. There has been a lot of broad changes that are brought in the world of business, education, society and transportation. To deal with the changes, it is important that the employability skills of the employees has also changed. In current scenario, digital competency has increased a lot. The employability skills gave changed with the current demand of labours with respect to the modern global job market. There is a need to have sales skills as one of the employability skills. This will help employees to build stronger relationships with the clients and influence other employees or individuals. Digital competency as a part of employability skill has improved due to the need for smart technology to carry out day to day job responsibilities specially during the situation of Covid 19 pandemic (Ivari, Sharma and Venta-Olkkonen 2020). Skills in Data Analytics have also been included in the present employability skills. This helps the employees to interpret complicated information and to make efficient decision. Learning ability is also one of the current desired employability skills that allows the employees to learn, relearn, unlearn and apply their learning in various field of their jobs. The current scenario of the job market requires the employees to be acquainted with new and skilled knowledge. Innovation as a part of employability skill is vital in the current scenario in the sense that it is required that the employees in various job roles well adapt to the current situation and the requirements of the job market. Knowing proper English is also considered being important in the current job market. For instance, government of Thailand and Vietnam have implemented many policies to make English learning as one of their skill besides improving other skills that are important in worldwide business.

Why Might The Employability Skills Have Changed?

Employers are often seen to complain about the lack of sufficient skill in their employees. It has been seen that on an average 75 million are unemployed in the developing countries and in other countries, the rates of youth unemployment is two to four times higher than the adults. The high rate of unemployment is often linked with the inefficiency of the education system to generate individuals with proper employability skills and high rivalry. The job market is constantly evolving. As we enter into the phase of fourth industrial revolution, automation, advancement in technology, globalisation are providing opportunities for the future employees to work in this atmosphere. This can also be a challenge for the worldwide employers. The employability skills are mainly changing due to the advancement in technology. The skills that are mainly demanded in the current job market can be classified into soft skill and hard skill (Calaca et al. 2019). Soft skills mainly arise from the personal traits that enables us to work in an efficient manner such as problem solving, leadership skills, teamplayer and others. However, hard skills are those related to technical knowledge such as presentation, data analytics, and project management. Another reason for very recent changes in employability skills is the situation of Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has imposed many restrictions that have resulted in a situation of employees working from home (Waizenegger et al. 2020). Hence, there is a need for more technical knowledge among the employees to work in the changing scenario. Since, the economic condition is also changing due to the pandemic situation, the employability skills have also changed to meet the present economic standard. The employability skills have also changed with respect to this changing economic scenario. In the present situation, the occupation specific skills are not sufficient to meet the current market of labour. Hence, it is required that the employees are acquainted with new skills.

Conclusion

The evidences from the report can conclude that employability skills are very important for an employee to search for job he or she wants. Employers can search for efficient employees based on these employability skills. The main employability skills that are mainly discussed in this report are Resilience, Time management, Emotional Intelligence and Digital Competency. Other important employability skills are also mentioned in the report. The report also describes the ways in which employability skills have changed in the present situation. In this respect some changes that are mentioned in employability skills are data analytics, sales skills, English language learning skill. The employability skills have changed mainly due to the present situation of the economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the global job markets are also evolving due to modernisation and industrialisation, the labour market will also need to upgrade itself. The world today needs some upgraded individuals to be in the job market, so that they can work efficiently with the required job role. The situation of Covid-19 pandemic has totally changed the social and economic scenario around the world. Hence, there is a need to upgrade the skills of employees so that they can adjust with the changing conditions.

Referencing

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