Useful Relational Skills for Motivated Employees

Chances are you want to become more and more successful at your current job or to be a formidable candidate in the selection process for a new one.

In an increasingly globalized world, people need an ever-widening range of skills to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing environment.

The European Lifelong Learning Program has been designed to offer learning opportunities to individuals at any stage in their life.

I invite you – therefore – to recall together the key competences set out by the European Union in its official documents, adopted and subsequently introduced into our national legislation.

The 8 key competences are the following:

1. Communicating in your mother tongue: ability to express and interpret concepts, thoughts, feelings, facts and opinions both orally and in writing.

2. Communicating in a foreign language: as mentioned above, but also including mediation skills (i.e. summarizing, paraphrasing, interpreting or translating) and intercultural understanding.

3. Mathematical, scientific and technological competences: sound mastery of numeracy, an understanding of the natural world and an ability to apply knowledge and technology to perceived human needs (such as medicine, transport or communication).

4. Digital knowledge: confident and critical usage of information and communications technology for work, leisure and communication.

5. Learning to learn: the ability to effectively manage one’s own learning, either individually or in groups.

6. Social and civic competences: the ability to participate effectively and constructively in one’s social and working life and engage in active and democratic participation, especially in increasingly diverse societies.

7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship: the ability to turn ideas into action throughout creativity, innovation and risk taking as well as the ability to plan and manage projects.

8. Cultural awareness and expression: the ability to appreciate the creative importance of ideas, experiences and emotions in a range of media such as music, literature and visual and performing arts.

Based on the key competencies specified in the European normative acts to which I referred above, the Romanian legislator introduced in Art. 17 (par. 3) of the Labour Code (Law no. 53/2003), some mandatory provisions for employers regarding the assessment of the employees’ professional skills (as mentioned in letters ”e” and ”f” of that paragraph):

e) the criteria for evaluating the professional activity of the employee applicable at the level of the employer;

f) job-specific risks.

In the informational context thus created, we can ask ourselves: what are the useful relational skills – especially now – for motivated employees?

Last year, LinkedIn conducted a complex study that identified the following skills that employers seek and stimulate in their employees:

What exactly are hard and soft skills?

Hard skills concern an employee’s ability to do a specific task, while soft skills are more about the way they do them — how they adapt, collaborate, solve problems, and make decisions.

• Hard skills include specialized knowledge and technical abilities, such as software development, tax accounting, or patent law expertise. They’re often easier to define and measure than soft skills.
• Soft skills are more about behavior and thinking, personal traits and cognitive skills. They’re typically more difficult to measure, but they can also help a person to thrive in a variety of roles and industries.

Furthermore, Danny Meyer, the creator and director of Union Square Hospitality Group, identified the following relational skills needed by any motivated employee:

• Gentleness and optimism, because you want in the team not only someone to look for solutions, but especially a person who can smile when he / she does it.
• Curiosity, translated into the desire to find out more about your surroundings and to ask applied questions.
• Empathy, meaning being able to look from the perspective of those around you.
• Work ethic, transposed into really caring about the way you fulfill your duties, in the sense that if you see something that can be improved, you should act accordingly.
• Integrity, meaning to do everything that is correct and honest even if it is not in your interest or there is no one to check you, or if the others in the team do not care.
• Be aware of your condition. You can think of this ability as at the “weather forecast” of your condition. The analogy with the weather is only a tool that you can use or not, but it is important to be aware of your condition and, as much as possible, to communicate it to your colleagues.

I invite you to find out more about Emotional Intelligence, the most important relational skill, in one of my future articles.

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Bibliography

• Labour Code (Law no. 53/2003)
• Legislative document prepared by the European Union
• Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training with a view to achieving and further developing the European area of ​​education (2021-2030)
• Summary of the National Operational Program for Education and Employment