Finding a job in the modern world is hard enough for most people. Often ignored is that it takes much more than academic qualifications to stay in a job.
Why do some employees change jobs frequently, while others stick with the same employer for more than 20 years? In every organisation, there will be people thriving as others struggle to fit in.
Of course, factors such as workload, work environment, remuneration and the relationship between management and the rest of the employees all play a huge role in influencing how long employees remain with an employer.
It is now emerging that there is more to keeping a job than having the academic qualifications for the job. Academic certificates get you through the door. A doctor obviously must provide proof of training. An accountant must have qualified in his or her specialisation. A lawyer must have gone through law school, graduated and licensed accordingly.
EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
To thrive in employment, one needs employability skills. These are the "soft" skills not learned in a classroom but gained through interaction and practice. A 2020 article published in the Journal of Open Engineering describes employability skills as the knowledge workers need to improve their ability to get and keep a job, progress at work, face change or get other jobs.
“The lack of employability skills may cause unemployment and hinder people's career development," wrote the authors Nuryake Fajaryati and Muhammad Akhyar. They list employability skills as technical skills, higher-order thinking skills, personal skills and people or social skills.
It's generally agreed that employability skills include the ability to communicate clearly with fellow employees and bosses, the ability to work in teams conducively and the ability to provide solutions to emerging problems.
Employers like people who work with minimal supervision (self-management). People who take initiative and those who can help with planning. In the modern workplace, an employee who does not know how to use information communication technologies (ICT) cannot thrive. For example, video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, have become very popular for meetings, but each employee has to take initiative to learn how such platforms work.
Individuals who lack employability skills get frustrated at their lack of progress at the workplace despite possessing academic and technical competence. Lack of people skills results in conflict with co-workers, which hinders the individual's work-related goals. Frustrated employees may then leave the employer or get sacked for non-performance. They go to a new employer thinking the outcome will be different only to run into the same problems. They once again quit or get fired, and the cycle keeps repeating itself throughout their careers.
The results of a World Bank survey done in Kenya in 2018 proves that soft skills are very important in the workplace. More than 60 per cent of employers reported that reading and interacting with co-workers are skills used in high intensity for both white-collar and blue-collar jobs.
When asked to rank what skills they desire in their staff, employers said that numeracy for white-collar workers and interpersonal skills for blue-collar workers were the most important when deciding to retain recruits. Numeracy is the ability to understand and work with numbers, a skill very critical in budgeting, monitoring expenses, analysing production data and interpreting the meaning of market surveys.
Meanwhile, two experts on youth unemployment in Kenya say that employers prefer persons who are consistent, reliable, have good communication and presentation skills as well as realistic career expectations.
“While several students seem keen on obtaining soft skills, some are unable to capitalise on the acquisition of such skills to enhance their employment prospects,” wrote Joseph Kweku and Violet Nalutaaya in their report published in 2018. They recommended that Kenya's education system start including soft skills training from the early stages of the school curriculum.
It all starts with the simple things: Show up on time, dress appropriately, follow the rules, ask questions and get along with your boss
THRIVING IN EMPLOYMENT
It all starts with the simple things: Show up on time, dress appropriately, follow the rules, ask questions and get along with your boss. Understand your employer's values and norms. It is your responsibility to adapt to your employer's environment, not the other way round.
Performance evaluation is usually an agonising experience for most employees. These are the moments when an employee must show he or she has achieved results during the period under review. Depending on the employer's procedures, performance evaluation could happen weekly, monthly, half-yearly or annually. During performance evaluation, the supervisor evaluates whether the employee met targets then recommends improvements. In worst-case scenarios, the supervisor may recommend dismissal of the employee.
Human resource experts suggest that both employees and their bosses agree on job performance expectations in advance. For sales staff, the assessment is usually based on sales targets. For a factory employee, the assessment might measure the quantity and quality of items produced. A teacher may be evaluated on how many students achieved minimum scores at the end of the school term. Employees can avoid misunderstandings with their bosses by ensuring they know what targets will form the basis of performance evaluation.
Employees should provide value to the employer by acquiring the latest knowledge in their fields. One way of doing this is by pursuing further studies. This is why master's and PhD programmes have grown very popular in Kenya. Apart from going for university degrees, workers should attend short courses, workshops and seminars.
