Skills To Develop At Work To Become More Productive
Business practices change every day so you must keep up to date on your skill sets. Here are the main skills to develop at work to ensure you are productive.
Hi Trish Davies here and today I want to focus on essential skills to develop at work. It doesn’t matter if you are a 9-5 worker or a business owner you must be able to perform. You must be able to carry out the tasks that your role demands.
When you are good at your job then the satisfaction and reward you get from it is limitless. However, it takes time to become the finished article. Whatever you do for a living it will involve processes and systems. There must be some structure in place so that you and everybody who may be around you knows exactly what to do.
These will vary from business to business and industry to industry. However, with every line of business it is the people who makes everything tick along. The objective is that everything runs smoothly and effortlessly. However, in reality, that seldom happens all of the time.
So, this is what I want to cover today? I will break things down into certain elements of which each will have many different factors to bring everything all together.
Skills To Develop At Work – Social Skills
I think the best place to start is with developing social skills. I will look at it from the point of you either being an employee or an employer. Whichever camp you fall into everything hinges on communication. For every business to progress then communication must be clear and concise so let’s start with the role of an employee.
When you are an employee of a business you are instantly a team member. Now that could be a team of 5 people or 100+. Your role is part of the process that the business works to, a cog in the engine in other words.
So, you need to develop the skills of working with other people and not seeing yourself as an individual. You need the social skills to interact with your fellow colleagues. Some of them you will like and maybe form friendships with. However, some of them you won’t but you still have to get on with them in a work-related capacity.
I think the greatest trait is to be honest. There is a saying that honesty is the best policy, and I think that is spot on. If you are honest then you will never trip yourself up and nothing will come back to haunt you.
With that said the world is not a perfect place. You will encounter people who are not authentic and only look after themselves, so you will have to deal with that. The good thing is that one day they will be found out and must face the consequences.
Develop A Learning Mindset
You must also be willing to learn from people. That may be from people who are either on the same level from you or have a higher position. At the same time, you need to be confident to put your ideas and opinions across which could help other people. Obviously you must always put in 100% and not be seen as work shy which is an instant turn off.
Your working life will spread into many decades. Therefore, it helps if you can develop a passion for what you are doing because your job won’t seem a chore. Try and wake up with a positive outlook and look forward to the day.
What you do has value and a purpose so adopt the mindset of serving people. What you do does make a difference in their lives. This will lead to greater work satisfaction and give you more motivation within the tasks you undertake within the role that you hold.
Employer Social Skills To Develop At Work
Regarding being an employer. One of the biggest skills to develop at work is leadership. You are at the helm of the ship, and everybody is counting on you for direction. They are relying on you for their day to day survival, so you have huge responsibilities.
This is where great man management skills are needed to get the best out of the people who work for you. You should always make yourself available for people who have concerns, worries or maybe have great ideas. In other words, always keep your door open to them so they can come to you at any time.
You should have knowledge and be competent so that you can demonstrate how you want things done. Be prepared to do what you are asking other people to do as this will instantly make people respect you. Treat your employees as people and not just a number on the payroll. You don’t have to be their friend but be friendly to them yet still have the authoritative presence, just so they know who you are.
Also being an employer involves interaction with customers and third-party service providers of which you are the customer. As for your customers you must know how to develop a relationship with them. In general people buy from people who they know, like and trust.
The Customer Is Always Right?
The statement of “the customer is always right” is debatable, sometimes they are and other times no. Therefore, you must develop the skills to determine which is which and then know how to deal with the situation.
A great skill to develop is solving people’s problems. That is why people become customers because they are trying to find a solution. It is your task to provide it so get into their minds and understand what they need. When you do this then you will have customers for life, no question!
When dealing with third party service providers you are the one with the problem. Therefore, you need to be able to tell them what it is. There is suddenly a power switch where you are the one trying to get the best deal for the best price. Therefore, you will talk to them as your customers do to you, the boot is firmly on the other foot.
Developing Skills At Work – Digital Skills
We now move onto more practical skills that affect everybody. The world is becoming more digital every day that goes by. Technology is taking over how we run our lives and how we do business. The simple fact is that you will have to develop your digital skills to compete. There is no point in burying your head in the sand and hoping that it will go away and return to the old days. That’s simply not going to happen!
Computers run the world and that doesn’t just mean what device you are reading this post on. In business ever aspect is becoming digitised. The majority of manufacturing machines are run by computer software and programs. Therefore, you need to develop the skills so that you can operate them.
Most businesses now have websites. Therefore, you need to know how to either use them as a consumer or how to create and manage them. So whatever industry you are in then you will need to learn about Google along with the other search engines. I say this because your role may be to get as much traffic as you can to your product offers.
Businesses rely on social media to grow. Therefore, you will need to know how each platform works so that you can provide value to attract new customers. You will also need to learn how to build that relationship and then continue to serve them.
You Must Now How To Do Your Market Research
Market research is one of the most important elements to master. Therefore, you will need to develop skills to analyse if there is demand for the products and services that you offer.
You will need to know who your competitors are and what are they offering? Can you at least match them or preferably beat them with the service that you can provide?
Content creation is very important because that is how many consumers make their purchasing decision. You will need to learn copywriting skills so that you can craft the right message for your audience. That message depends on your objective which could be lead generation or getting a sale.
Blogging is a great way to build relationships with potential customers. Therefore, knowing how to set up a blog and add content is a must. You must also learn about email marketing so that you can regularly communicate with your data base of customers and leads.
Everything that I have shared with you is just a 30,000 feet aerial look and overview of some of the skills to develop at work. Your job or your business is something that you should take very seriously and always do to the best of your ability.
Your ability stems from the acceptance to learn new skill sets and then implement them. Regular practice then leads you to mastering them. If you have any opinions of what I have shared, then feel free to leave your comments below.
Also, I have created a whole section of self-development and mindset videos over on my YouTube channel. I thank you for your time and wish you every possible success.
A life of freedom and choice
Trish Davies
Trish Davies International
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