A Graduation Certificate Can Get You in the Door :: Work Skills Competency Essays

Good Work Ensures Employment Success With increased attention to skill standards and worker certification, people tend to consider their qualifications solely in relationship to the occupational skills they have acquired. This publication addresses the myth that skill competencies alone ensure employment and discusses the value of continuous learning, emotional intelligence, networking, flexibility, and commitment to business objectives as other keys to workplace success. A Graduation Certificate Can Get You in the Door Although it is true that academic degrees, skill certifications, and other documentation of accomplishments provide access to employment, they are significant only at the time of the job offer and its acceptance. Skills that a person has today may be obsolete tomorrow; knowledge that has current significance to society may be insignificant in the future. Technology is the most obvious example. Routine functions such as inventory control, customer profiling, machine calibration, and document publishing are now assumed by technology. Workers who previously performed these functions have had to learn new skills such as how to operate the machines that have taken over these tasks and how to use technology to streamline their work efforts. Continuous learning is the key to the transition role that ensures a worker of ongoing employment. Workers must be continually striving to keep their skills up to date, technologically current, and relevant to their employing organizations. As more of the routine tasks of the job are performed by machines, as cyclical patterns influence the numbers of workers that employers need in a given month, and as global competition drives companies to be more cost effective, workers must develop skills that will enable them to work across departments of their companies. They must be continually assessing ways in which they can prepare for work their employers and society will need them to perform in the future. Participation in cross-training programs is another strategy for enhancing job security and success. Worker cross-training is becoming a common practice in business and industry, adopted as a means of coping with reduced staffing and increased worker mobility. In the recreational vehicle industry where it is difficult to recruit people who have relevant skills, for example, the cross-training of dealers makes it easier for owners to appoint these employees to management positions when resignations occur (Packard 1999). Cross-trained workers can reap significant benefits from such company-provided training programs as well as from involvement in community-based service organizations. "Sometimes outside activities and volunteer work can help you become more 'layoff-proof' by providing opportunities to develop expertise that you can bring back to the company" (Lieber 1996, p.