The attributes valued by employers
General attributes
An employee that is organised and that can handle themselves is very important to an employer, someone that can handle their own work independently and can plan their time as to not overlap meetings or miss deadlines, this way the employer doesn’t feel like they are having to babysit their workers. Team working is almost vital in all working areas, being able to ask and answer questions and communicate efficiently with all their colleagues, things such as strong accents or language barriers can make teamwork difficult. As well as verbal communication the employee should be able to communicating using reports and presentations, sharing information between their peers that is clear and easy to use. Being able to work with numbers is a vital life skill and will be necessary in the workplace, depending on the job the employer may need someone with extensive mathematical skills. All workplaces need some sort of creativity and level of intuition, this is how businesses grow and develops.
Technical Knowledge
To even fit the job it is you’re trying to get you must have the technical knowledge and skills to fit the job, without this the employer will not be interested at all.
Health and Safety
Knowing how to work safely in your working environment is very important, the employer doesn’t want people working for them if they are going to be a risk to themselves and the people around them, knowing how to work safely in also shows that you would make for a responsible employee this adds to your working attitude.
Working Attitude
An employer will look for people with good working attitudes, someone that is self motivated and doesn't see their job as a burden but as a gift. Furthermore being a generally friendly person that can work as a team and get along with all kinds of people will not only impress your employer but also your co-workers.
Attitudes in the workplace
Your attitude towards working is very important when trying to impress your employer and your peers, no one likes a pessimist or someone who is miserable, it is best to try and stay happy and bright in the workplace. It is also important to stay motivated, always show determination for your work, you should be able to lead a group of people when working, and at the same time follow rules. Being tolerant and patient in the workplace is important, obviously not everyone around you is going to have the same worldview as you, so its best to keep an open mind and try to avoid pushing your beliefs onto others.
General communication skills
When in the workplace you can expect to see many different cultures and ethnicities, you should not be biased towards any of these people because of their cultural differences. Everyone has a different accent, including yourself, and some accents can be hard to understand, when in the workplace try and communicate with your peers in a clear way and do your best to adapt to their needs. The use of technology when communicating with other people can benefit you greatly; instant messaging, emailing, presentations, all of these can help you communicate in the workplace.
Interpersonal skills
There are many things that can make communication in the workplace a challenge, for example those with hearing impairments or visual impairments, to compensate for these there should be someone in the workplace to sign for these people and all the presentations you make should come with a braille alternative. Your body language can play a huge part in what you are saying, it can be the difference in your audience taking you seriously or not, if you are presenting something to a large audience or someone like your boss you should refrain from having a sloppy body language, make sure your posture is correct and you talk using full words refraining from the use of slang.
Communication with writing
When communication with your colleagues or highers in the workplace via emails or presentations it's important to make sure you are grammatically correct, this shows that you have your basic knowledge of English language and that you can be professional when communicating with your co-workers. The use of slang or emoticons when emailing should be avoided at all costs, it is unprofessional and can be considered childish and relaxed, if you want to be taken seriously you have to show it through good grammar. Use different services depending on what needs to be done e.g. sending a letter is more personal and can be considered more serious than sending an email, make sure the method of communication you choose is relevant to the subject. Proofreading your emails and letters or getting someone else to do it for you is a good way of getting rid of any grammatical mistakes or flaws, this should be done whenever you’re emailing someone of a higher position than yourself. Make sure if someone is giving you a presentation that you take notes, this kind of information could be used later on and taking notes shows that you’re listening to what the person is saying and you value the information they are sharing.
Barriers of communication
When communication with your co-workers there can be many barriers that cause this simple task to become very difficult. Some of these can be simply solved through body language and hand gestures when speaking. Depending on where you work there may be a large amount of background noise, such as a busy city or road works, although you can't stop this noise you can work around it by choosing an appropriate place to hold your meetings and presentations, find a room in the building that is least affected by this noise.When giving a presentation to a large audience it can be hard to include them all personally with questions, thus they can easily lose interest and become distracted, if the room you are in has computers you can ask for the people to turn off their monitors or if there is a large window it could be beneficial to use a blind, another way to approach this is instead of asking a single person a question include the whole room by voting as a whole group. Try to avoid large online conferences because this can lead to lack of attention due to things like social media being in the same place as the conference. When talking directly to someone having physical barriers in the way such as a lamp or a fan can make communication a difficult task, these are easily overcome, by simply making sure there is nothing in between you and the person you are talking to. Making sure the person you are talking to is listening and concentrating on what you are saying is vital, if they’re not listening then there's no point in you talking, to overcome this you can politely ask them for a moment to talk to them with their full attention. Overcoming barriers that are culture or language related can be difficult but is vital for communication, if you are going to be communicating with a multicultural audience then there may be various language barriers and accent barriers, these can be overcome with the way you use your tone of voice or body language, hand gestures may be used but you must take into account that certain cultures may take offense to certain gestures that we use in everyday life, so its best to rely on your general body language.