Even in your existing role, there are many business skills you didn’t realize you needed until you missed a work promotion or got stuck in your job for far too long. Those missing skills are known as a skills gap. Many employers and employees find it challenging to address the issue of skills gaps. So, what business skills do employers want employees to have, and how can you build those skills? Meet this challenge by evaluating your business skill gaps then addressing them with an efficient and effective business skill development plan.
Business Skills That Are Important to Employers
Companies like Econblox respond to this skills gap. These companies can help individuals rapidly acquire the business skills they need to get that next promotion and a pay rise. Business skills help individuals and enterprises thrive by helping them better understand what drives consumer, competitive and organizational behavior. Applying this knowledge naturally promotes their employer’s success.
Some examples of such business skills that companies want employees to have:
- Business economics
- Communication skills
- Computer and technical skills
- Digital literacy
- Emotional intelligence
- Leadership skills or management skills
- Soft skills and hard skills
- Teamwork skills
- Time management
Employers seek these essential business skills, regardless of the job. Organizations describe these skills as “must-have skills.”
Business Economics – An Important Business Skill Example
Business economics is one example of an important business skill set for many jobs. The fundamental principles of business economics are highly effective when applied in the real world of profit and non-profit organizations. These principles play an important role in decision making, in the establishment of relationships between various economic factors that determine a company's income, profits and losses, and in that company’s ability to win in a competitive market structure. When wisely applied, business economics gives employees and managers tools to make effective long-term decisions for the firm and increase an organization’s revenues and profits.
The Problem That Business Skills Building Courses Solve
Our higher education system graduates many arts students who have taken few or no business courses. Yet employers still need these graduates to perform well in a business setting. Of course, some students study the academic social sciences of microeconomics and macroeconomics. The major problem arising from these studies is that few of these courses focus on the practical application of economics principles to business and, in any case, most students just want a good grade. It did not help that many of us were fatigued, sometimes falling asleep in college classes while another instructor droned over yet another PowerPoint presentation. At the time, it was hard to understand how to put these academic theories into practice.
In contrast, an effective business skills building course is one that engages the student using short, impactful multimedia such as professionally-produced short videos and animations. Naturally, these types of multimedia can be efficiently delivered online. Effective business skills courses also include frequent and steady feedback accompanied by friendly reminders from the course instructor. You can see how such a course is structured at Econblox.com.
How Online Business Skills Training Helps Fill the Skills Gap
Online business skills training should also be helping profit and non-profit organizations fill the skills gap in their organization. Such organizations will necessarily be seeking to hire young people with those skills. After all, it is more efficient for employers to hire people that can demonstrate that they already have a practical business skills set.
In the case where employers need to effectively fill internal skill gaps, employers first need to identify which skill sets their employees are missing, then implement best practices for finding, keeping, and growing their employee talent. Addressing these employees' missing skills can be done very effectively through online business training. These missing employee skills can arise from technological advancements, lack of proper training or education, and lack of employee motivation. In the case of business economics, Econblox is typically addressing the lack of relevant training and education.
The Global Reskilling and Online Certifications Market
Training for the skills described above is part of the global reskilling and online certifications market. Econblox’ business economics courses compete in the same online course category as CFAs (Chartered Financial Analysts) and digital marketing-type courses. At the end of such an online business course, serious learners not only fill an important missing business skill gap but also receive an online business certificate to highlight in their resumes and hiring interviews.
Employers often have trouble or complain about finding workers with the right skills. This problem presents across the employment spectrum, from government jobs to for-profit and non-profit sector jobs. Employers play an important role in helping employees learn the missing skills, often reimbursing employees for course fees and providing time to employee-learners to progress through these online business courses. Ambitious careerists amongst these employee-learners may also choose to pursue online business certificates independently of their employers. In this way, learners can acquire the skills they need to find employment or seek a better job at another organization.
What business skills do companies want employees to have? More skills that employers seek include:
- Writing proficiency
- Communication
- Public speaking
- Data analysis
- Critical thinking and problem-solving.
Why A Master’s Degree Is Not Always the Answer
Newly-minted undergraduates often look to improve their employment prospects by continuing their formal education with a master’s degree. With, perhaps, the exception of a master’s in business administration, higher education schools are generally not a practical training ground for business. Young graduates from these universities and colleges quickly realize that they are missing key business skills while working in their first jobs. Eighty-seven percent of young graduates believe that a master’s degree will prepare them well for the workplace. Although young graduates are often intelligent, have the capability, and are technically savvy, they often have not yet developed practical business skills. Naturally, they are missing soft skills that that they need to develop while working in the workplace.
So, what can a motivated individual do to stand out as a qualified job candidate?
As an employee or a potential employee, you need to build basic skills to augment your academic qualifications. Enrolling in an online business course that will equip you with business skills and a business certificate at the end of the course is one obvious choice. Most online business certification courses offer considerable schedule flexibility. Such business certifications can substantially differentiate your skill set in a competitive job market. Positions at the best companies are very competitive, as are government jobs.
In summary, the organization that hires you is seeking an employee that can critically think and help that organization make meaningful progress towards its goals. Employers usually support employee training. However, managers and supervisors usually want to hire an individual that is job-ready.