Important skills you need for the workplace

People dealing, typing, MS Excel

Last week I made a video regarding the softskills you need in 2022. The trigger for creating that video was when people commented on another video seeking clarification for art of saying NO at the workplace – with that in mind, I compiled a series of skills you need before you are empowered to say NO! [Link to all these videos are mentioned at the end of the write up]

I rate the following 3 skills amongst many others on top which will eventually help make you a brand yourself, namely:

Skill of dealing with people
Your typing speed
Your MS Excel!

Yes, amongst all the important sofskills you might need to navigate through the highly competitive world out there, these are the practical and actionable softskills which are important and are severely understated.

People’s skill

Lets discuss one by one. First and the foremost – you can coverup all your deficiencies if you know how to deal with people appropriately, this perhaps is the skill which most of our universities don’t teach enough. Corporate world these days spend a lot of money on training their resources, and one of the core area of focus is team building and personal development as it will directly impact the productivity of the company with happy employees contributing towards better environment.

People skill include traits like strong communication skills, patience and ability to understand others, know when & how to show empathy, active listening, negotiation skills in a way that other party don’t feel overwhelmed, sense of humor for better interaction with people, sticking to the commitments, good manners and personal hygiene – the list can go on.

However, improving people’s skill does not necessarily mean that you over burden yourself and I talked about the same in my video which is linked below. Important aspect of managing such an aura is also to maintain your dignity and composure in order to perform at your best at work – you don’t have to take everyone else’s responsibility on your shoulder in order to help them with their problems. So there is a thin line where you are considered as a helpful college vs someone who can take blame for someone else mess.

Typing skills

Second soft skill which is highly underrated and I have not seen people talking about it a lot in corporate world is your typing speed! Although this is not considered a highly technical skillset, but if you want to outgrow your peers and consider more growth opportunities outside your full time workplace, then this is a must learn skill.

This helps anyone to be creative in many ways, in fact, the use of computers in general should be done as quick as possible – after all a computer presents us with high processing power and we don’t want it to slow down because of our slow speed of typing or working :-).

For example, I always try to use the mouse as little as possible as this will enable me to learn the shortcuts keyboard has to offers and believe you me, I feel more empowered having to learn how to optimize my use of keyboard. Although I have never been a fan of using mouse, but since I have been following ALI ABDAAL – the famous productivity YouTuber, the idea has further strengthened my belief. Check your own typing speed @ http://typingtest.com and tell me what are your WPM 🙂

Proficiency in MS Excel

Last but not the least! Since I have started my practical life, I believe, there has not been a single day that I missed working on this wonderful app. Yes, that’s MS EXCEL! The sheer platform Microsoft has provided for us to work on is amazing. Working for so many years on this app, I still cannot say that I have mastered it – even there are many shortcuts that I might not know yet as I feel I am a dinosaur now 🙂

Whatever domain you are in – you should prioritize improving your excel skills, day in and day out. There are amazing charting skills that you can learn and implement to impress at the office and there is a high possibility if you practice more, you sharpen your skills more than the the peers you work with. In case you have a person with better excel skills in your office, then its even better as in that case you always have someone to look for as a benchmark to surpass. Mind you, this has to be a healthy competition and not to be taken seriously as I know such cases become toxic very quickly.

If you are serious in learning excel the fun way, then do follow the account: MISSEXCEL on TIKTOK – you will enjoy some important tips in a fun way!