What’s the Quality of Your Employability Skills?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

Following her excellent post on diversity, Susan Popoola returns to question what skills make you employable. (Ed Scrivener)

What’s the Quality of Your Employability Skills?

“Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” Rita Pierson

Can you still remember you’re first job?  How good were you? Technically probably quite capable if you had the natural aptitude and the right training and development. However, what about those employability skills that we continually talk about in relation to young people these days – how well would you fare if you were entering the work place today?

You’ve probably heard people talking about employability skills even if you don’t know what they are.  According to the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI) “ Businesses want graduates who not only add value but who have the skills to help to transform their organisation in the face of continuous and rapid economic and technological change. All graduates - whatever their degree discipline - need to be equipped with employability skills.”

The CBI goes on to explain, “Employability covers a broad range of non-academic or softer skills and abilities which are of value in the workplace. It includes the ability to work in a team; a willingness to demonstrate initiative and original thought; self-discipline in starting and completing tasks to deadline.

Specifically, according to the CBI this include

• Self-management
• Teamwork
• Business and customer awareness
• Problem solving
• Communication and literacy
• Application of numeracy
• Application of Information technology
• Entrepreneurship
• Underpinning all skills - a positive attitude.

As you will probably know, these requirements are not just for graduates. So may I ask once more – regardless of your qualifications, how good are your employability skills?

I started thinking about this a back in March when I was at a Business Reception with Chuka Umunna (Shadow Business Secretary) as Guest Speaker talking about Labour’s enterprise and business policy.  The event featured a questions and answers session, which Chuka very clearly tried to use to gain insights into the perspective sof local businesses.

There was some discussion over local versus international trade. With a few people talking about the fact that they just traded locally and preferred doing so.  There was then talk about bodies such as UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), which is aimed at helping and encourage international trade.  Someone spoke about the fact that he does a lot of business in the Middle East but has received next to no support from UKTI, as they don’t understand his business model.  He as others expressed the concern that UKTI have a key focus on big businesses and do not understand and support the vast and growing amount of business that is done between small and medium sized businesses.  Are they prepared for the 21st century business environment? – I begun to wonder.

Inevitably, there was mention of young people and their “short fallings”.  The interesting thing – as highlighted by a Ken Robinson, RSA Animate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U), the education system hasn’t really changed that much over the years. I know there have been some curriculum changes around the outskirts and the way in which exams are taken has evolved over time.  Fundamentally, however, the education  that young people receive today is not that different from the education that you and I received. 

Did the system somehow provide us with employability skills that young people today were not taught or ‘refused’ to learn.  Alternatively have we taken away the entry-level jobs that we had that allowed us to develop these skills on the job.  (A ladder that good apprenticeships may hopefully begin to provide.)   Whatever the case - what else can we do?  According to Rita Pierson (an American Educator)   “Every child deserves a champion — an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.” Or what do we do with our very own children? 

I’m not saying for one minute that there is no issue with young people and that they do not have to take some responsibility – I am however saying that we – especially in the people space should be more willing to give them a chance and use our skills to support and enable them.  Or are we like UKTI (has been described) unable to adapt to a 21st Century reality (whilst simultaneously doing whatever we can to change the education system to be more fit for purpose).

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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