Job Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of the 21st Century | Basic Literacy, Effective Communication, Creativity and innovation & Information and Communication System knowledge, Skills and Abilities (ICT Skills) | Providing information about the information age of our society

Job satisfaction can be assured in the 21st Century global workplace with the right basic literacy knowledge, skills and ability acquisition and practice and effective communication skills in the areas of self-management, social responsibility, collaboration and teamwork in the workplace and effective interactive learning and communication skills. There should also be information system knowledge, skills and abilities as well as creativity and innovation skills.

Can you rate the level of your job satisfaction in your workplace in this information age of our society? Are you uncomfortable with yourself that you are not measuring up to your workplace demands? Does your boss feel your job knowledge, skills and abilities is insufficient in task delivery and usually prefers your colleague’s involvement in the task to you?

This is always a pain in the neck for you each time it happens and you wish to prove to him or any other around that you can do better. Do you ask yourself occasionally, ‘What do I do to impress him or improve on job satisfaction?

The answers to your questions are not far-fetched. The information age of our society demand a handful of skills and competencies.

In actual fact, if you acquire the following job knowledge, skills and abilities in this 21st Century, you will be a hot cake in the global workplace:

1.) Basic Literacy Skills

‘’Basic knowledge and skills acquisition is an ingredient to possession of content knowledge of the subjects in a career development’’

You need basic literacy skills. You must possess content knowledge of the subjects in the area of your specialty. If you are employed as a computer scientist but you can’t manage your company’s emails or word processing application effectively, you don’t have the requisite skills to remain there then. I would even ask how you got the job in the first place. Every school systems should produce skilled candidates who can assume international job roles

It may appear very childish as you read here that reading and writing ability is one of the basic literacy job knowledge, skills and abilities of the 21st Century because you may think that you already know how to read and write. But ask yourself if you can write reports, letters, proposals, essays, summaries, manage emails, etc of any kind without making references to a book.

Imagine your boss unexpectedly asks you to write a teams’ market report – an assignment not related to your job roles or to write an urgent business proposal that should have been done by the secretary who is unavoidably absent. Can you deliver? Such emergencies are inevitable in many corporate organizations.

Other basic literacy skills includes knowing your current leaders and cultural diversity of your society, understanding personal finance, role of citizens and government in the society, just to mention but a few. You should be able to interpret changes in your environment too.

2.) Effective Communication Skills

‘’People should understand your messages or actions and you should understand their responses or reactions too’’

Effective communication skills is the ability to send messages and information to a person and get a feedback in a clear and understandable manner. It doesn’t matter if the person is near or far. Effective communication hinges on some basic personal and social skills. Self-management skills, social responsibility, collaboration and teamwork in the workplace and effective interactive learning and communication skills are discussed under effective communications skills perspective.

Self-management skills

For you to have effective communication skills in your job, you should have good self-management skills. It appears to me like a mean to an end. Your emotions and motivations, attitude and behaviour will determine the nature and extent of your interaction with others.

Good self-management skills requires being happy with yourself all the time in your workplace to communicate well enough otherwise you send a wrong signal about yourself. Your level of personal and social responsibility determines the kind of friends and associates you keep.

From time to time, ask your colleagues to rate your personal relationship with them. It will help boost your work-oriented personality. Mind you, you are personally responsible for your actions.

 Social responsibility

Your public image outside your workplace matters too. 21st Century job knowledge, skills and abilities require one to show social responsibility to maximization of the workplace and societal values. If you have a skeleton in your cupboard in a particular matter, you may not be able to speak up boldly in that matter for yourself or employer if it turns out to be a subject of discussion.

Civic and social responsibility means you must be legally and publicly accountable. One court suit can mar your career or have damaging effect on your organization.

Collaboration and teamwork in the workplace

You can’t be an effective communicator operating as one-man’s squad neither can any of your colleagues. A tree doesn’t make a forest. You need collaboration and teamwork in the workplace for all members of the organization to achieve job targets and succeed at work.

Effective interactive learning and communication skills

Learn to focus on your recipient as you deliver your message with boldness and be attentive as your receive your feedback. Avoid too many distractions. Give information duly and respond to every message received.

Ensure you use complementary remarks always. Use gestures and demonstrations when necessary. Endeavour to speak well always. Take your time to learn to speak well if you have speech difficulty and prepare yourself for long conversations if you are not a good communicator.

Effective interactive learning and communication skills are almost indispensable job knowledge, skills and abilities of the 21st Century. Workers have to be able to negotiate and discuss key issues and present a clear and precise report without using too many words.

3.) Information system knowledge, skills and abilities (ICT Skills)

‘’ You must be able to use information and communication technologies skills (ICT job skills) to access, create and use information to solve problems ‘’

Consistent and effective use of information and communication technology system in this age of our digital society is a good step in the way to developing job knowledge, skills and abilities – ICT skills, you can practice effective communicate skills, effective enough to interact the intended audience satisfactorily and efficiently. Information and communication technology system knowledge, skills and abilities requires the use of wide range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to effectively communicate, collaborate, inform, reform and transform. Basically, one should be able to create images and videos using both conventional and digital media platforms; access and use information as well as verify the credibility of information.

4.) Creativity and innovation skills

‘’ If your products are not sellable or customers are not satisfied with them, you should reassess yourself if you have creativity and innovation skills’’

Creativity and innovation skills are organizational skills that can help an individual create authentic, quality and standard products for the customers, bearing in mind the competitiveness of products’ prices and functions.

A customer product or service worker must be able to manage his time and resources, troubleshoot and solve problems, lead people aright and accomplish tasks to deliver the required result. Globalization of financial market has made creativity and innovation more rewarding skills.

For a workplace to perform optimally and achieve its goals, its workforce should be able to understand and design functional work system based on the established fundamentals of the organization.

One of the basic 21st Century job skills is to be able to identify, organize, plan and allocate human, material and financial resources. It is important for managing your job roles and getting the desired job satisfaction.