Challenges Faced By Graduate Employees: Skills And Attitude Development Essay.

This assignment requires you to conduct in-depth research by visiting the university Digital Library to obtain relevant information from journals, The Economist and broadsheet newspapers to address two of the questions below.

Question 1: Explain two challenges facing graduate employability prospects in meeting the needs and expectations of employers. What are personal attributes, skills, and knowledge most needed by graduate students to perform well in their professional career prospects? Justify why these skills are valuable in the workplace.

Question 2: Describe two challenges currently facing UK SMEs in going global and suggest possible solutions to overcome these challenges.

Question 3: Explain two key reasons why the gender pay gap might exist in the labour markets. How does it affect UK businesses and the economy?

Question 4: Explain how technological innovation has made business more productive and competitive in the global marketplace. Using a real businessas an example, explain potential benefits to the business.

Impact of Higher Education and Labor Market Structures

The challenges faced by graduate employees in meeting the needs and expectations of employers include reshaping of higher education and the labour market in the United States. It also includes key structural changes in the higher education institutions and the economy which in turn has increased the expectation of skilled labour workforce. The flexibility in the labour market of United Kingdom necessitates the learning of a new form of work-related skills.  The introduction of Brexit has created various restrictions on the higher education of the migrants and has forced the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (Collet, Hine, and Du Plessis, 2015).

The structural changes in higher education institutions and the flexibility in labour market create more challenging jobs. This in turn develops the need to learn new skills because the employer graduates face the issue of lack of required skills to perform complex job roles and face the issue of time management. Difficulty in management of time creates frustration among the graduates and in turn leads to difficulty in adjusting with the companies. The increasing fees structures in higher education creates pressure for graduates in undertaking new courses which in turn creates the challenge in meeting the expectations of the employers. The lack of experience and need for learning advanced skills creates a problem in performing job roles (Branine and Avramenko, 2015).

The critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills are important for graduate employees because the higher education institutions have focused on reshaping its curriculum to provide business-ready graduates. It develops the ability to make sound decisions and solves the problems in the business. The employees must possess the skills to manage the time and ethically contributes towards the organization. The graduate employees are expected to possess the communication skills and the ability to build collaborative relationships with colleagues and customers of diverse cultures. The employers expect that the graduate employees will have the professionalism and will use the interpersonal skills to provide coaching and developing others. It becomes necessary that the employee possess soft skills and has the ability to manage conflicts in the workplace (Bunney, Sharplin and Howitt, 2015).

The newer skills are important for modern business. It allows in managing complex business situations and sustaining of competitive advantage.  Such abilities and skills are essentially needed for the successful operation of the business. The employees must have the working knowledge of the actuarial industry to manage the complexity faced by the organization and must have the perseverance to handle the fluctuations in business. The employees must have knowledge of literacy and numeracy to perform the activities. They must have the ability to collect and synthesize the information that is essential for the business. The employers expect that the graduate employees have the emotional intelligence to understand the emotions and the expectations of the colleagues and higher authorities and are able to behave accordingly (McMurray et al, 2016).

New Skills for Modern Business

The development of critical thinking, problem solving skills and emotional intelligence are imperative for achieve professional career aspects because it will allow the employees to develop a good attitude and have a positive outlook towards the business. It allows the employee to be enthusiastic and flexible in adapting changes in organisation and perform complex job roles. It is analyzed that adequate soft skills help the employees in effectively communicating with the colleagues and the customers and managing the interpersonal relations in the organization. The commercial awareness helps the employees in analysing the actuarial working world and aids in taking the informed business decisions that will enable the growth of the company. It has helped the organization in encouraging a positive working environment by developing coordination in actions integrating the efforts of the employee’s towards the achievement of the common goals (Chiu et al, 2016).

The development of such skills encourages the employees to take the initiative and plays the responsibility in a constructive manner that in turn promotes the growth of the organization. These skills are necessary among the employees because the changing fluctuations in the labour market have created complexity in the business functioning and have increased the need for developing competent job-related skills (Malik and Venkatraman, 2017).

In order to develop the required skills and attitude, higher education institutions have focused on curriculum advancement through work-integrated learning. This strategy is considered imperative for promoting graduate employability. It focuses on providing authentic and experiential learning and making the employees business ready. The above-mentioned skills can be learned through field-work, internship, and experience-based learning. The graduates are able to get the insight into the real business world and aid the graduates in developing the capacity of managing time and handling the work pressures. The adoption of work-integrated learning provides the understanding of the working culture and helps the graduates in developing the soft skills required in the business (Clarke, 2018).

The word technological innovation is a part of the total innovation discipline. It is a process to innovate the technical aspect of a product or service. Technology advancements are considered as competitive weapons that allow differing from other competitive brands.  It provides ease to the company through automation of the functions and increase the speed and efficiency of the company (Kogan et al, 2017).

The technological innovations have allowed the employer to keep the updation of the employees and has allowed Deloitte to effectively communicate through cloud networking.  It has allowed the companies to gather the precise audience data and develop an accurate marketing strategy to gather the interest of the customers. It helps the business in tracking the changing trends and actively responding to the changing demands of customers. Deloitte uses the social bot to market their products and influence the buying behaviour of the consumers. It is analyzed that the company uses social media platforms for increasing the brand presence and directly influences the sales of the company (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). 

Importance of Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Emotional Intelligence

Using social media platforms allows the Deloitte to generate more customers by interacting with them and delivering maximum satisfaction.  It promotes the product on the online platforms and aids the business in increasing its brand recognition.  Deloitte also introduces robotics to ensure the growth of the organization through automation of the business functions. It provides ease and is more reliable than involving human resource in the business. It allows the company to reduce the human error and increase the productivity of the company by adopting flexibility in the business operations and focus on the activities that aid in the growth of the company. It allows the business to use technological innovation and achieve the growth goals of the company. It helps the companies in sustaining the competitive advantage and advances the growth and the profitability of the business (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). 

The robotic automation at Deloitte allows the business to gain operational efficiency and reduce the productivity gap. It uses robotic process automation under which it automates high volume repetitive tasks and improves the operational efficiency by using the software and lowering the costs of other automation approaches. It allows the business to collect and analyse information and communicating with the people for better connectivity with the customers. Adoption of the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) process allows the company to reduce the cost and refocuses on the highly skilled people who in turn improve the productivity and the operational speed of the company.  It allows the company to internally control its operations and deliver faster and efficient service to the business. The company is able to analyse the current trends and deliver improved services to the customers. It allows the company to put increased focus on the activities that aid in maximising the profits of the company (Deloitte, 2019).

Deloitte also uses social media to revolutionize human resource (HR) service delivery. It enables the managers to review the profiles of the employees and also aids in attracting and retaining the talented employees in the company. The company also uses social media for interacting with the customers and enhancing the sales of the company by attracting prospective customers through posting effective marketing campaigns on social media platforms. This, however, states that updation of the continuous technological innovations has helped the company to sustain its edge over its competitors and actively respond to the changing trends by collecting and analysing the data through of the use of robotic process automation software (Deloitte, 2019). 

 The use of social media and robotics helps Deloitte in enhancing the productivity of the company and reduction in the error caused due to the use of the human resources. The company is able to attract more customers towards its brand and aids in developing strong brand recognition. It allows the company to focus more on the core activities that enhance productivity and reduces the wastage of company. It enables the company to improve its operational efficiency and reduce the cost through the automation of business functions (Deloitte, 2019).

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is crucial to note that the structural changes in the higher education system and flexibility in labour market develops the need for learning new skills to manage the modern business. The problem-solving, communication skills and emotional intelligence is important for accepting changes in organization and creating positive working environment.

The above industry example reflects that technological innovations help the company in differentiating it from others. It is reflected that Deloitte uses social media to increase brand awareness and actively engages the customers. The company also uses robotics to maximise its returns by reducing errors and also increases efficiency of business.

References

Branine, M. and Avramenko, A.  (2015) A comparative analysis of graduate Employment prospects in European labour markets: A study of graduate recruitment in four countries. Higher Education Quarterly, 69(4), pp.342-365.

Bunney, D., Sharplin, E. and Howitt, C. (2015) Generic skills for graduate accountants: the bigger picture, a social and economic imperative in the new knowledge economy. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(2), pp.256-269.

Chiu, L.K., Mahat, N.I., Rashid, B., Razak, N.A. and Omar, H., 2016. Assessing students’ knowledge and soft skills competency in the industrial training programme: The employers’ perspective. Review of European studies, 8(1), pp.123-133.

Clarke, M., (2018) Rethinking graduate employability: The role of capital, individual attributes and context. Studies in Higher Education, 43(11), pp.1923-1937.

Collet, C., Hine, D. and Du Plessis, K., (2015) Employability skills: perspectives from a knowledge-intensive industry. Education+ Training, 57(5), pp.532-559.

Deloitte. (2019) Robotic Process Automation HR: Are bots the new super power for the workforce [Online]. Available from: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/consulting/articles/robotic-process-automation-hr-future-workforce.html [Accessed 23/10/19].

Deloitte. (2019) Social Media enabling HR Service Delivery [Online]. Available from: https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/human-capital/articles/social-media.html [Accessed 23/10/19].

Kogan, L., Papanikolaou, D., Seru, A. and Stoffman, N., (2017) Technological innovation, resource allocation, and growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(2), pp.665-712.

Malik, G. and Venkatraman, A. (2017) “The great divide”: skill gap between the employer’s expectations and skills possessed by employees. Industrial and Commercial Training, 49(4), pp.175-182.

McMurray, S., Dutton, M., McQuaid, R. and Richard, A. (2016) Employer demands from business graduates. Education+ Training, 58(1), pp.112-132.

Tidd, J. and Bessant, J.R. (2018) Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.