There are so many skills that you need to make sure your employees possess in order for everyone to work to the best of their abilities. You probably have a long list of skills that you want to see in every one of your employees. These probably include things like excellent analytical skills, good communication, and a firm grounding in the knowledge required of their particular position within the company.
Of course, it’s not just these professional-focused skills that you need to have in your company’s office. It will also pay off to find workers who have a good range of practical and useful life skills and experience. It’s important that the people who you bring onto your team have such a wide range of skills, even if they aren’t directly related to their job or your company, as you never quite know when you might need to use them.
So, what kind of extra skills should you look for in your employees? Here are some great life skills that will be very useful and could help you overcome some common problems in the office.
First-Aid Skills
Accidents can happen in offices, even though they may seem like very safe spaces. After all, everyone is simply working away at their computer rather than using any dangerous heavy machinery. But there is still the possibility of accidents from happening and, of course, people might fall ill. So, it’s worth hiring someone who knows their way around a first-aid kit and can administer basic treatments to any minor injuries and ailments. If you don’t already have someone in your company who possesses these kinds of skills, you could always send someone away to do a first-aid course. Make sure that they do a course that will gain them CPR certification as that will come in very useful if anyone were to collapse or have a heart attack in the office. Once you do have someone in your office who is first-aid trained and can deal with a whole range of health situations and emergencies, you can have some peace of mind knowing that your office is a safer space for your staff!
Basic Tech Skills
These days, most offices are full of computers and various other devices that employees need to work on on a daily basis. I’m sure that you will also have a hard working tech team who will be able to support your other employees when they run into any issues with their computers. However, your tech team will have their own to-do lists and will have to fit fixes and repairs around that. It’s a good idea to hire employees who have a good grip of basic tech and who should be able to solve some of the easiest tech issues themselves. It’s worth knowing too that most issues and errors with tech come about because of user incompetence. So, if you do hire people who do have a good basic understanding of computers then you should find that there are fewer reason to need any IT support throughout your whole company.
Writing Skills
I’m sure that your content marketing team will have exceptionally good writing skills. After all, they will be busy spending their days writing brilliant blog posts and website copy for your site. But these shouldn’t be the only workers in your company who have solid writing skills. In fact, everyone who you hire needs to have some good skills and know-how when it comes to writing. After all, I’m sure that everyone on your team has a work email account and most of the communication will be done through emails. If these are littered with any spelling or grammatical errors then it could really slow down passing on messages between coworkers or the message could end up very confused. It’s also essential that there are no errors in any writing that is sent out to clients as this could reflect very badly on your company’s work as a whole. So, even though your whole team doesn’t need to be well-versed on writing killer copy that can persuade the public to buy your products, they do need to know how to write well in good English.
Emotional Intelligence
It is also a really good idea to hire a few people who have some good emotional intelligence as this will mean that they are also likely to have high levels of empathy. In fact, it’s worth making sure that all of your employees have plenty of empathy. This is the skill of being able to relate to those around us. If you can empathise with someone then you will be able to see where they are coming from in almost any situation. You will find that if a lot of your employees have this ability then there will be a lot fewer arguments and disagreements in the office.
Self-Awareness
Another great life skill that will be a huge advantage to your workers in your office is self-awareness. For a productive work life, we always need to be aware of our colleagues around us and how we can work with them in a more efficient manner and to improve our team working abilities. This will bring some really positive and successful results. As well as being self aware in this way, it also pays off to be aware of our own flaws and limitations. Being self aware in this sense will make it easier for your employees to reach out to others whenever they need help and support to do a better job.
Positivity
Positivity will get your team through even the most toughest of times in the office! When there are a lot of tight deadlines causing everyone a lot of stress, that one ray of positivity shining through your office will certainly help everyone’s mood improve and help them get through. Thankfully, positivity is something that you can actually teach, so you might want to hold a through training sessions in which you try to bring out everyone’s positive side. Of course, some people are more naturally positive than others, so it’s always worth bringing on a couple of these individuals to join your team.
Basic Handy And Practical Skills
Even though you might not realize it, but it can be very advantageous to have a few handy people in the office as well. For instance, people who are good at working with their hands and will be able to tinker with things when they break to see if they can fix them. If the coffee machine ever packs in, you handy employees could see if their tinkering can help bring it back to life before you call out a serviceman. These kinds of people will also be able to help with various practical jobs around the office, such as putting up new pieces of furniture and small DIY projects.
Good Listening Skills
Listening skills are super important in all walks of life, but they are especially necessary in a working environment. If your employees all know how to listen well to one another then there is no risk of messages getting confused or people arguing with one another. Good listening is another skill that can be taught as well, so you should try to motivate your workers to work on and improve this useful skill.
As you can see, there are so many great life skills that you need in your office. Thankfully, it won’t be that hard for you to find employees that have them.
