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Appendix D Employability Skills
APPENDIX D EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
In developing the skill specialisation criteria for the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO), employability skills were considered as a possible additional dimension. Employers are increasingly using employability skills in conjunction with technical or job-specific skills when assessing the suitability of an individual for a particular occupation.
The employability skills considered for ANZSCO were those published by the (then) Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training in March 2002 in the report Employability Skills for the Future.This report discusses the employability skill needs of industry in Australia. It is based on research undertaken with industry.
The report identified two facets to employability skills: 'personal attributes' and 'generic skills'.
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
The 'personal attributes' component of employability skills includes the following qualities: loyalty, commitment, honesty and integrity, enthusiasm, reliability, personal presentation, commonsense, positive self-esteem, sense of humour, balanced attitude to work and home life, ability to deal with pressure, motivation and adaptability. As they relate to the individual rather than the occupation, they are not appropriate as classification criteria.
GENERIC SKILLS
There were eight 'generic skills' identified:
- communication skills that contribute to productive and harmonious relations between employees and customers
- team work skills that contribute to productive working relationships and outcomes
- problem-solving skills that contribute to productive (enterprise) outcomes
- initiative and enterprise skills that contribute to innovative outcomes
- planning and organisation skills that contribute to long-term and short-term strategic planning
- self-management skills that contribute to employee satisfaction and growth
- learning skills that contribute to ongoing improvement and expansion in employee and company operations and outcomes
- technology skills that contribute to the effective execution of tasks.
The generic skills have not been incorporated into ANZSCO because they are applicable to most occupations and therefore have limited value as classification criteria.
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