INNOVATIVE LEARNER

Years ago, The Conference Board of Canada, an independent, not-for-profit applied research organization, developed the Employability Skills 2000+, which lists the critical skills that employees need to succeed in the workplace. Communication skills, tops the list of fundamental skills needed to succeed in the workplace. A decade-and-a-half later, with the rise of social media networking and texting, communication is becoming more casual, even in situations where more formal ways of communicating are required. What this means is that people from the younger generation, may not know or even understand the importance of effective communication skills in the workplace. When you take a look at the greatest leaders, one of the traits they possess, is the ability to communicate effectively, which underscores the importance of communication skills. There are specific things to do that can improve your communication skills: 1. Listen, listen, and listen.  People want to know ...

According to a report by World Economic Forum (WEF), 800 million jobs will be impacted by 2030. It also suggests that bots will take over these jobs across 800 occupations. What happens if the report comes true? How can we prepare for and secure our future? While automation will bring in the much-needed agility of operations, it is important to weigh in our blind romance with technology. With process outcomes we may compromise as we get bedazzled with what technology can deliver. The good part is people who get displaced from these back end, repetitive jobs will move to do other interesting jobs. But it’s important to consider what we seem to be headed for as a society. As part of ongoing evolution, millions will now have the opportunity to upgrade to more interesting, engaging and intellectually stimulating jobs (albeit with some investment in upskilling), which is the shining rainbow in the grey skies of job losses! While the job landscape is predicted to undergo ra...

Read up. Dress well and mind your body language. So you are soon going to be armed with your graduation degree and will be ready to take on the world with your creativity, passion, and originality. But wait a minute! One of the steepest hurdles for you to first clear will be your interview with your employer. So how do you convince others to hire you as an employee? Here are 10 tips to help you. Read, read, read   Read up on three things -- 1. the company you are planning to apply to 2. your course of studies and how it links to the domain of work and 3. global trends in society, economics and politics. Introspect Ask yourself, what are your unique traits? What makes you employable? Why should a company hire you? What value can you bring to them? Thinking about these questions and penning the answers will help you craft convincing replies at the interview. Common questions Prepare a list of commonly asked questions and write out the answers. ...

You’d think business writing is always carefully crafted, but the truth is that it’s often error-ridden with misspellings, misused words and grammatical inaccuracies. The good news is that you can easily improve your business writing in a few easy steps. First, Know Your Audience: Often our writing suffers because it’s inappropriate. We write convoluted emails, we format reports poorly, and overall we don’t try to make our content reader friendly. Knowing the purpose a piece of writing serves gives you a sense of direction. Writing a business report should follow a specific format; for example, an in-office email could be short and informal, but a customer email or a PowerPoint presentation should follow guidelines of courtesy, clarity and conciseness. Your audience should be your compass; keeping in mind what the recipient seeks to learn narrows down the possible directions your writing should take. Style, tone, and vocabulary use should be in line with your audience a...

Have you ever wondered how it is that some people seem to have enough time to do everything that they want to, whereas others are always rushing from task to task, and never seem to finish anything? Is it just that the former have less to do? No, it’s much more likely that they are using their time more effectively and practicing good time management skills. Time management is not very difficult as a concept, but it’s surprisingly hard to do in practice. It requires the investment of a little time upfront to prioritize and organize you. But once done, you will find that with minor tweaks, your day, and indeed your week and month, fall into place in an orderly fashion, with time for everything you need to do. The Key to Good Time Management is to understand the difference between Urgent and Important ‘Urgent’ tasks demand your immediate attention, but whether you actually give them that attention may or may not matter. 'Important' tasks matter and not doing them ma...

How often have you said to yourself ‘I really need to get organized?’ and then failed to do so? It’s a common problem. Poor organization usually means less productivity and missed opportunities and can lead to increased procrastination and stress. Fortunately, there are a few simple things that you can do that will help you to ensure that you get organized, and stay that way. And what’s even better is that these skills can be used at home or at work, and are equally useful in both. Organizing skills are really a combination of Time Management and Self-Motivation. But if that sounds a bit daunting, it’s probably best to consider organization in terms of a series of steps that you can take. 1. Be clear about what you need to do. If you’re one of those people, like most of us, who struggles to remember just what you’ve agreed to do or what you wanted to do if you had enough time, then keep a list. If one list is not enough, then keep several. Some people find t...

Being in groups is part of everyday life and many of us will belong to a wide range of groups, for example: family groups, social groups, sports groups, committees, etc. This article concentrates on groups that have been specially formed to fulfill some purpose, or groups that are a drawing together of people with shared experience. This type of group is often also referred to as a team. It defines groups and explains some of the issues and challenges of working in a group. It explains the Group Life-Cycle, and how groups can change over time. This article builds on those, and sets out some of the specific skills that you may need when working in a group or a team. Key Team Roles: Shaper – drives work forward and gets things done, has a clear idea of the desired direction of travel; Implementer – also gets things done, looking for ways to turn talk into action and generate practical activity; Completer-Finisher – focuses on completing tasks, and tidying up all t...