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To prepare North Carolina’s emerging workforce, NC Department of Public Instruction has developed a list of Essential Employability Skills. Students who develop these skills and can effectively communicate about them will have an advantage when they join the workforce.
Communication Skills
Communication in the workplace should be done with clarity and purpose to effectively share opinions, ideas, and action plans through written, verbal, and/or visual methods. Effective communicators are skilled at interacting and networking with others and are clear speaking active listeners.
Ethics
Actions should be done in a manner consistent with personal and community-held ideals and principles. They should positively influence communities and impact business on the world around them. Ethical individuals demonstrate a clear understanding of integrity, work ethic, and show their understanding in decision making. They positively impact the direction and actions of a team or organization displaying behaviors such as honesty, fairness, respect, and leadership.
Problem Solving Skills
A problem solver recognizes challenges, understands the nature of challenges, and develops an effective plan to solve challenges. They then investigate the root cause of a challenge and considers multiple useful and productive options to address the challenge which will improve the organization prior to introducing solutions.
Professionalism
A professional takes personal ownership of educational and career goals, responsibility for behavior and works effectively and productively with others. By demonstrating maintaining a positive attitude in the workplace they self-advocate and show high-quality work standards and motivate others in the workplace. Professional workplace behaviors include: the ability to work independently, consistent reliability, a desire for new responsibilities, self-discipline, flexibility the ability to complete tasks, the ability to follow directions and follow rules.
Resource Management
Managing resources such as time, money, information, and others efficiently and effectively is valuable. Skilled resource managers understand how to accept and use new information while managing time and other resources through a reliable research process. They use an informed process to test new ideas, information, and practices in the workplace situation. The workplace behaviors displayed by skilled resource managers include learning and applying new knowledge and skills and adapting, often embracing, change.
Teamwork
Working well and effectively with others is one of the most valuable skills in today’s job market. Good team members contribute their ideas to group decision-making and being respectful of differing opinions, customs, and individual preferences to develop projects, plans, and solutions.