Essential Workplace Skills Essay -- Job Work Employee Career

Workplace Essential Skills While working or while looking for work there are certain skills sets that are universally important. No matter what job or career path you have chosen these skills make it easier to obtain your goals, whatever they may be. Workplace essential skills enable people at work to do the tasks required by their occupation, give them the basics to learn all other skills (job and life) and assist them to manage and adapt to the changing workplace environment. They are not the technical skills required by an occupation but are the enabling skills that are necessary in most occupations and that allow people to do their jobs successfully. (Molson) The skills that I am referring to are Oral and Written Communication, Interpersonal, and Teamwork skill. These sets of skills have been identified US dept of Labor and other universities and learning Centers as the essential skills every person needs. Oral and Written Communication skills are two of the most important skills a person could have in the workplace. Without the ability to effectively communicate or understand communication in written or auditory form taking and giving direction would be extremely difficult. Oral communication is simply the act of talking and listening. If a person can effectively convey his thoughts in spoken word and interpret others spoken words into their intended thought then they can effectively communicate orally. The same concept can be applied to the written word. The U.S. Deptartment of Labor breaks oral communication into two areas: Listening: Receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to verbal messages and other cues such as body language in ways that are appropriate to the purpose (e.g., comprehe... .../fulltext/00-wes.pdf, United States Dept. of Labor, "Foundation Skills: Basic Skills", 10 June 2005 http://www.careers.unsw.edu.au/careerEd/planning/knowYourself/employability.aspx, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, "Employability Skills", 10 June 2005 http://www.nald.ca/molson/skills.html, The Molson Edmonton Learning Centre, "Workplace Essential Skills", 10, June 2005 "Essential skills for the workplace", Beth Blanchard-Smith, Contemporary Books, Chicago, Ill.1993 "Workplace basics : the essential skills employers want", Anthony Patrick Carnevale, Leila J Gainer, Ann S Meltzer; Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA 1990.