Thursday, 22 December 2011

Introduction on Attributes

In this Blog I will be talking about how employers value skills and attribute that people. Everyone has different skills and attributes but some employers value different ones because it is more important for other employers to get skills and attributes that are relevant to what the actual company is doing.


There are 3 different types of attributes which I will be talking about in the blog e.g. Specific, General and Attitudes.

Specific attributes these are the skills relevant to the job and the most important ones that the employer is looking for. Some examples of these specific skills are Qualifications, Work Experience, and General IT Skills.
General attributes these are skills an employer will like a person to have and skills that are useful within that job. Some examples of these general skills are Good Presentation, People Skills, Communication Skills, Organized, Planning, Prioritize Tasks, and Numeracy.

Attitudes this is valued by an employer because with good a good attitude it will be easier to co-operate with this specific person because if they had a bad attitude they would be more aggressive and not easy to approach unlike if they like the job they would be easy to approach. Some examples of attitudes are Deal with Pressure, Polite, Attendance/Dependable, Functionally, Confidence, Creativity, Independent, Mature, and Willingness to learn new skills.



Skills
Working Procedures
Flexible Work Time means that the person is capable of changing their work time to a different time or different date day just as long as they meet the required hours in their contract.
Over Time this means that the person has to work longer than excepted on that day even though they were expected to finish. In the IT industry companies treat over time differently for example the employee could get paid extra or get time off another time when it’s not so busy.
Breaks are the time off the employer has to give and expected to provide staff with adequate breaks and breaks are especially important in the IT industry because of health and safety reasons. This is used any where within any IT jobs.

General IT Skills

Technical knowledge isn’t just used for one job it is used across every job even if it is not within the IT industry.
Need to know how to use at least 3 of these to be a good website developer because if you can’t use any of these you won’t be able to do anything cause you need at least 1 to actually create a website HTML, CSS, Photoshop, SQL, ASP/PHP, Macromedia Development Packages. Having past work experience helps because this helps you learn more about how business works and qualifications is more technical knowledge because this helps more with what you are doing. With previous work experience you pick up other qualities. General IT skills are more used in  computer hardware technician because they need to know different parts around the computer.

Communication Skills
Every person needs communication skills no matter where you work you will always be talking to people and the better you are at communication skills the better you will do with your interview. You need this skill to make deals with other companies because if you need to communicat to others. With this means that you may be very good working with others. Being friendly with potential clients that you are working along side may make them lean towards accepting the offer and contracting you for the project. e.g. This is used for a IT manager because they need to talk to others outside and inside the company.


Planning Skills
If your planning something ahead of time you should also think out possible problems and solutions because anything could go wrong with the plan, nothing goes perfect every time. Making the business successful isn't just about what you do in a company it is what you plan to do with the company and how you will move forwards and grow. Having good planning skills in the IT industry because many projects need to be planned around a budget and time scale. This is used to plan work schedules on the computer.

Attitudes
Creativity
Creativity is good when you are working with design work to make new efficient products. Creativity is valued by an employer if they have no one who can think outside the box if they have someone who thinks outside the box they will be able to think of new and efficient ideas.

Independent
Being independent is a single person working on their own and how they don’t need help this is valued by the employer because it means that person doesn’t have to be watched over constantly because the employer will know how that person can work on their own. This will be good because if someone wants to work at home the employer knows they can trust them because how well that person works on their own already.

Leadership
When working in IT having leadership skills helps with team working because if you are set as a leader of that group you will need to be able to motivate the group put people into tasks that suit their strengths and weaknesses as well as ensure the whole team is working towards a common goal.

Confidence
Being confident helps with other skills e.g. Team working and leadership because this will help you talk in front of groups and put your ideas across to others in a confident manner so they will listen. Confidence is very important in the IT industry because if you are try to convince a client to hire you for the project you must come across that you are confident and know what you are doing.

Determination
Determination is good when working in IT because if you are working on something and you get stuck you just won’t give up, the more determined you are the more persistent you will be when working on something and most likely if you have the skill to persevere you will get over the difficulties you come across.

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

Principles of Effective Communication

Everyday employers are always looking for people with effective communication skills


Communication is the process of sharing information, thoughts and feelings between people through speaking, writing or body language. Verbal Communication stands for 40% of the message your trying to tell someone, Body Language is 50% of the message, and the words you actually speak are 10% of the message. Depending on the audience there are better ways to communicate to different types of groups. With a large group of people you would need a presentation setup because this would make it easier for everyone sees what is happening and what the chat is about.


If you were doing a 1 to 1 conversation someone you wouldn’t need a presentation all you would need is some notes and show them the information also if you were having a 1 to 1 conversation would be better with eye contact. There are many communication barriers to stop it from being effective e.g. Language, Noise, Distractions, Distance, Time, Other people, too many questions, Discomfort with the topic, Lack of interest, Disability, Put-downs.

Barriers of Effective Communication

Barriers of effective communication

There are many communication barriers to stop it from being effective e.g. Language, Noise, Distractions, Distance, Time, Other people, too many questions, Discomfort with the topic, Lack of interest, Disability, Put-downs.


One of the main barriers to effective communication is Distraction because when ever you are trying to talk to someone who is distracted you will never get your point across and they will not know what you are talking about it is key in a conversation that both people are paying attention so that both people are listening to each other and understand what the other person is talking about.

Another barrier is disabilities because if someone can’t hear properly they won’t fully understand the conversation and they could talk about stuff that is irrelevant and this would mean the person without the hearing problem couldn’t get their point across due to the fact that the other person could suddenly change topic because they couldn’t understand what you were talking about. There are also different disabilities that can reduce effective communication e.g. a person with a mental disability so that the person may not be able to understand your point properly and also someone who might have a physical disability the person that is trying to talk to them might not take them as serious as someone else.

Another barrier would be the noise like loud noises when you are trying to have a conversation would stop the other person from hearing what you are saying which would nearly stop the conversation completely because the noise would drown out the conversation which would stop both people from talking to each other effectively.

Sunday, 18 December 2011

Solutions to Barriers of Effective Communication

Distractions
There are a few ways of over coming the barriers of effective communication for distractions one of the methods of over coming this would be leaving the room with all the distractions and find an area that has little to no distractions with no distractions people could fully communicate. Another way of stopping distractions would be remove anything within touching range.


Disabilities
When communicating with someone who has disability it may be more of a barrier than most other barriers due to the fact that they might not be able to hear what you are saying or if they were blind, or disabilities that stop communication, with  a deaf person you could only communicate to them via text that would be one solution and when communicating with someone who is blind you wouldn’t be able to communicate to them through text but they would be able to hear you but wouldn’t be able to see body language which is most of the conversations, so with someone who has both of these disabilities it would be quite difficult to communicate with that person because you wouldn’t understand brail the way you could overcome this would be finding someone who understands it and then communicate through them.


Noise
With noise this is a problem when talking to others because you may not be able to hear what the other person is talking about. You could solve this by going somewhere that has less noise an example of this would be road works on the street then you could go somewhere inside or away from the noise, and then you wouldn’t have the noise being louder than the person this would stop you from hearing this person. If you are in the work place with all the noise and trying to talk to one person you cannot really just walk out and go to a different area but the way you could try and solve this would be they could write down what they are trying to say.

Friday, 16 December 2011

Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary 



Term
Definition
Attitudes
Position or posture of the body appropriate to or expressive of an action, emotion, etc: a threatening attitude; a relaxed attitude.
Barrier of communication – distractions
This is something or someone that stops you from talking to another person effectively. Distraction is something that occurs that takes your mind off what you are doing at that time.
Communication Skills
Communication skills are how someone understands expressions, body language and how they listen.
Effective Communication
This is how someone communicates through verbally, body language and the words that they speak.
General Attributes
These are skills an employer will like a person to have and skills that are useful within that job e.g. good presentation, people skills and planning skills.
Hard Skills
Hard Skills are teachable abilities that may be needed for jobs examples of these are typing, operating machinery or numeracy.
Interpersonal Skills
The skills used to communicate with others properly or effectively.
Perception
This is how we immediately look at something and we take it in and instantly think it is what it looks like to the person or what it sounds like.
Specific Attributes
These are skills an employer will like a person to have and skills that are useful within that job e.g. work experience, qualifications.
Soft Skills
These are skills that someone wants or acquires like flexible attitude or common sense.
Slang/Jargon
This is normally language created by people to use in their daily life to shorten down words or change words with their own ascent.
Working Procedures
These are working things like flexible work time, over time and when employees are allowed breaks.






Frequently Asked Questions

1.    What are attributes?
Ans: Attributes are things that people either pick up naturally or either learns them. This is split up into two different categories Specific and, General.

2.    What is independence?
Ans: Independence is when someone is able to work on their own without guidance or help from any peer or anyone else.

3.    What is a barrier of effective communication?
Ans: A barrier of effective communication is what stops people from talking to others and getting their full attention.

4.    What is a solution to a barrier of effective communication?
Ans: A solution to a barrier of effective communication is when you try something to stop the barrier to try and get someone’s full attention so you can get your point across.

5.    How can I learn Hard/Soft Skills?
Ans: You can learn hard skills easier than learning soft skills because hard skills are something you can learn from courses/school but soft skills are more that naturally learn from others while you were either young or just by looking at what others do.

6.    What are the main skills and qualities employers look for?
Ans:  The main skills an employer looks for are specific ones that ones that are relevant for the job like an web development job they would want to know that you can work with web coding, and they would look for in qualities would be good team working and people skills.