Employability Skills Lesson

What is a job skill

Job-specific skills are those abilities that allow a candidate for
employment to excel in a particular job. ... The skills that are
needed for a specific job are also known as a skill set. When

hiring, employers will usually include the skill set required to be

able to perform the job in the job posting

Soft Skills Versus Hard Skills

Soft Skills

●Skills that let you interact well
with someone as part of a job.

Hard Skills

●Skills that can be observed,
defined, and measured; skills
that let you do a job

Soft Skills Versus Hard Skills

Soft Skills

●Communication-Talking

●Work under pressure-doing
work when you have a lot to
do

●Decision-making: making the
right choice

●Time management: using
time correctly. Keeping hours

●Self-motivation: pump
yourself up, feel good about
yourself

Hard Skills

●Typing-writing on a laptop or
typewriter

●Writing-words down on
paper/electronic so they can
be seen by others

●Counting money-when you’re
buying something

●Taking a phone
call-emergency, orders

Soft Skills

Conflict Resolution: Talk it out

Leadership: Taking charge, being
a good model, setting goals, being
truthful

Problem-solving: figure it out,
either with others or by yourself

Teamwork: ability to work
together with other people

Creativity: thinking differently,
outside the box

Hard Skills
Cleaning: office, hospital, stadium; making
sure that it is safe and clean
Math: cashier, counting money, products
Operating equipment: hospital, machines,
machines for making food/other things like
tools (like paint or paintbrushes)
Planning/event planning: brainstorming,
scheduling (plan more rather than less)
Marketing: Advertising, making a flier,
getting people’s attention for a product
Bookkeeping: keeping a record of people or
things (also money)

Pick one in each group you think is important

Communication
Ability to work under pressure
Decision making
Time management
Self-motivation
Conflict resolution
Leadership
Problem-solving
Teamwork
Creativity

Typing
Writing
Counting money/change
Taking phone calls
Cleaning
Math
Operating equipment
planning/event planning
Marketing
bookkeeping

Pace and Rate

What does working at the industry standard pace and rate mean?

It means that you are able to do the job at a speed that is said to be the average
speed for a job.

How to figure out what industry standard is

To figure out what is considered the industry standard, a employee of the job will
complete a job 3 times. Each time they complete the task, it will be timed. After the
employee has finished the job three times. You take the average of the three
times.

To figure out the average, you add all the times up and then divide it by the
number of times you did the job.

Example- 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 60 seconds

(40+50+60)/3= 50 seconds

Let’s figure out the industry standard

The job Mr. Gift is trying to figure out the industry standard for is wiping tables. The
tables that Mr. Gift is cleaning are the ones in the coffee shop.

Mr Gift gets his bucket and rag ready to clean the table. He has his times
recorded. When the stopwatch starts, Mr. Gift dips his rag into his bucket of
cleaner. He wipes the entire table top. He also cleans the edges of the tables.

His times are 13.5 seconds, 13 seconds and 12.5 seconds.

The industry standard for wiping the table in the coffee shop is

(13.5+13+12.5)/3= 13 seconds

Now what

Now that Mr. Gift has set the industry standard for pace in the coffee shop. When
ever Mr. Gift asks you to clean the table and you see him recording the time, he
will be seeing if you are able to finish wiping one table in 13 seconds.

It is ok if you can not. The goal here isn’t to be the fastest, because when you try
to do something fast you are more likely to mess up or make a mistake. With the
tables it is more important to clean the table because there might be food or drink
on it.

What Else

If you time is slower than what we figured out to be the industry standard, then
your goal by the end of the year is to increase the speed in which you work so that
you are as close as possible to the industry standard.

Physical demands

What are physical demands?

Physical demands refers to the level and/or duration of physical exertion generally
required to perform occupational tasks: sitting, standing, walking, lifting(trash
bags, bottles/cans/cups), carrying (boxes), reaching, pushing (trash bins/ tables/)
and pulling, wiping (squeezing, wringing)

On-Site Jobs physical demands

●Sitting

●Standing

●Lifting (water/propel/gatorade/kickstart/, cups, carafes, urns, boxes of
supplies)

●Walking around the coffee shop/school, cafeteria, Meramec (kitchen,
cafeteria, outside)

●Carrying drinks/boxes

●Pushing (cart)

●Sweeping/Mopping

Stamina

What is stamina?

Stamina is the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

Each person has a different level of stamina.

How to increase your work stamina?

Just like with everything, practice is going to help you become stronger and help
you increase your stamina. The first day you work a job, is probably going to be
really tiring. But then as you keep working, your stamina levels will increase.

Breaks

For most jobs that are 8 hour shifts you only get so many “guaranteed” breaks. If
you work an 8 hour shift, you are supposed to get two 15 minute breaks and one
30 min lunch. Those are your “official” breaks. There may be times when you have
completed your work and your boss says you can take a short break until i need
you again.

For the most part when you tell your boss that you are finished with a job they will
give you another job to work on.

What does consistently mean?

Consistently means doing something the same way over and over again.

Performing a task consistently means?

When performing a task consistently, it means that you are doing a job or task the
same way each and every time in an order.

Wiping Tables.

If we look at our task analysis for wiping tables we see that in order to be
consistent, we need to follow 12 steps in order to do the job. When you are able to
do each step independently and in an order, that means you are doing a task
consistently.

Can you do a task out of order and be consistent?

If you were doing laundry and did not follow the correct order for doing laundry,
would the laundry end up being clean?

Example: If I put the clothes in the washer. Then I started the machine and after it
was done washing. Are the clothes going to be clean? Or will I have to wash them
again?

Certain jobs require that you do each step in a certain order to finish the job
correctly.

Some Tasks

Sometimes, you will be able to still do a job correctly even if the order is a little
differently.

Like with Spongebob, a hamburger doesn’t need to be put in a certain order all the
time. It depends on what the person wants/ likes. Doing the dishes has a little bit
of “freedom” when doing them. You may load your dishwasher, differently than I
do. You may hand wash items and put them away instead of loading them into the
dishwasher.

But some jobs need to be done in a certain order in order to be done correctly; like
wiping a table, brewing coffee, using a cash register

Think about it

Is there a job at home, that you do consistently? Can you start the job without
being told to? Can you do every step of the job by yourself?

Work Sites

Each work site is set up differently

The coffee shop is set up so that customers have their orders taken by the front
door while there is class space located near the backdoor. The supplies for the
coffee shop are in the middle.

Work Sites

Chartwell’s kitchen is set up so that students get their food and drinks in front. In
the middle of the kitchen is where the food is prepared and the dish washing
station is located.

The back of the kitchen is the stock room. First there is the space for all of the
beverages. In the back of the stockroom is where all of the dry goods/foods are
located. Outside of the stockroom is the deep freeze where they keep all of the
food that is going to be cooked for the next day/week

What does it mean to navigate the work site?

Like everything, when you start a new job or something new, it will take time to
learn it. When you start a new job, you will first have to learn where everything is.

It is not going to be expect of you to know where everything things is on the first
day or first couple of days.

Independence

To be able to be say that you can navigate the work site independently, you would
have to be able to say and know where everything is and goes.

For the coffee shop, you would need to know where we keep the cups, lids, coffee
grounds, syrups, creamers, hot chocolate and other things we sell go. You would
also need to know where we keep our cleaning supplies and where everything
else’s place is.