Employability refers to the ability of an asset to find and keep a job, whether the job retains its current form or evolves. A person is said to be employable if he or she can continue to make a place for himself or herself in the labor market.
Employability, What Is It For?
For Employees:
It is above all a way for them to anticipate possible changes by concretely developing their skills throughout their career.
This involves anticipating possible contractual breaks requiring a valuation of their individual skills. In this way, in times of transition or unemployment, the duration of unemployment is generally significantly reduced.
It is also a good way to develop their skills towards access to talent and full professional fulfillment.
For Companies:
Through the development of employability, it is a question of adapting the skills of employees to the evolution of the company's strategy.
It is also a way to significantly and sustainably increase the productivity of employees in the service of the overall performance of the company.
The increase in skills promoted by the employability approach is also powerful support for talent retention.
The levers of action of employability must finally be at the service of the involvement and motivation of employees insofar as they all involve a form of recognition.
Employability And Professional Development
This is the end of "lifetime careers" in one and the same company. Assets are increasingly mobile.
This is why employability must be one of the priorities of HR and employees. But what should we bet on to prepare for future changes in the world of work? There are two axes to develop:
Digital skills: understanding digital transformation and new challenges around data, AI, connected objects. It is necessary to develop a digital culture within its teams, but also to facilitate access to digital for people at the bottom of the ladder.
Bet on soft skills: enrich hard skills with behavioral skills and everything that machines can't do. These soft-being know-how will be increasingly valued as artificial intelligence is able to provide know-how.
Employability objectives
For employees: stay in employment and follow the evolution of the job market, be in line with the new skills in demand.
For companies: remain competitive, sustain their business and develop performance. It's also about having the right people, in the right place and at the right time.
What are the Employability skills?
Well, there will always be job-specific skills that an employer is looking for, most employers will also want you to have some general skills, these general job skills are called employability skills; having employability skills can help you get employment.
Generally speaking, there are eight skills that employers want you to have no matter what industry you're working in;
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Problem-solving
- Initiative and enterprise
- Planning and organizing
- Self-management
- Learning
- Technology