Attributes valuable to employers
By Jack McGarrity
Personal attributes
Are valued by employers because this often means that employees with these skills will be more competent in their position or more productive than someone without these skills.Some examples of these are technical knowledge as because it means that they will be more competent and more qualified than someone without as much technical knowledge.Health and safety skills are also valued by employers as it gives them assurance that employees will be doing everything they can to maintain a safe working environment.Working attitudes are extremely important when it comes to employability as motivation and initiative as someone with a generally good attitude is likely to be more productive.
General attributes-
Such as planning skills, organisation skills, time management, teamworking, verbal skills, written communication skills, numeracy and creativity are all valued by employers greatly as they show that employees are motivated and have a good attitude towards work, being able to work well with others can save companies time and money, and written communication skills mean that employees can express themselves clearly through their writing.
Attitudes-
An employees attitude towards work is very important as it will impact who they work with and all work they are involved in.Attitudes such as being determined, integrity, dependability, problem solving, leadership and responsibility are all positive attitudes and will impact the company through increased efficiency and organisation.
Principles of effective communication
Such as cultural differences, adapting your voice and terminology, using technology to engage an audience and question and answering are valuable to employers because this means that in a sales environment having good communication with a customer can make the difference between getting a sale and not getting a sale.Clear communication also reduces the number of mistakes that are made within a company by reducing the amount of mis-communication.
Interpersonal skills-
Such as verbal exchanges, signing, lip reading, body language, use of intonation, positive and negative language and active engagement are valuable as people with good interpersonal skills will communicate more effectively and positively impact a company through increased productivity and better teamwork.
Communicating in writing-
Such as use of emoticons, letters, fax, emails, spelling and grammar, relevance, proofreading and note taking, these skills are looked for by employers as they allow employees to communicate more effectively and also to a larger audience than speaking in person.This can be shown through well written reports or even a well written CV when applying for a job.
Barriers to effective communication
Barriers to effective communication are basically things that make information harder to understand.These barriers can cause a message to be distorted or mis-understood, and this can cost a company money and risks wasting peoples time by causing confusion.There are different types of barriers to effective communication including language barriers, psychological barriers, background noise, distractions, physical barriers, location and lack of concentration.