INTRODUCTION
In this assignment I am a volunteer for a small charity called Rainbow Light. This charity supports clients who are visually impaired and need help in using ICT. The company employs 5 full time staff but fully relies on volunteers to carry out a lot of work with the clients. My role in the company is to work alongside the Manager of Rainbow Light whose role involves:
- managing and recruiting a team of volunteers
- keeping staff up to date with IT
- ensure that the staff are able to communicate with clients using IT
Task 1)
For this task I am asked to create a blog called “Communication and Employability for IT” which will be used as a means of keeping everyone in the charity informed of important areas in Communication and Employability in the area of IT.
This particular page on my blog will consist information on two employee attributes that may be required from the Rainbow full time staff.
What is an attribute?
An attribute is a quality or a feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something. Below is a list of attributes that a person can have:
- Accepts responsibility
- Openness
- Positive attitude
- Integrity
- Commitment
- Toughness
- Judgment
- Dependable
- Organized
- Technical knowledge
- Leadership and team work
What is an attribute?
An attribute is a quality or a feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something. Below is a list of attributes that a person can have:
- Accepts responsibility
- Openness
- Positive attitude
- Integrity
- Commitment
- Toughness
- Judgment
- Dependable
- Organized
- Technical knowledge
- Leadership and team work
Being part of the Rainbow Light charity is not an easy task to accomplish. Employees need to have certain skills in order to be successful in the Rainbow Light.
Attributes
Attributes
Technical Knowledge
The first skill that the employees need to have which is specific to the job is Technical Knowledge. Considering the fact that Rainbow Light supports clients with sight problems in using IT, they are required to have basic ICT knowledge if they want to help the clients.
The first skill that the employees need to have which is specific to the job is Technical Knowledge. Considering the fact that Rainbow Light supports clients with sight problems in using IT, they are required to have basic ICT knowledge if they want to help the clients.
Technical Knowledge is a very useful skill to have and is obtained by continues practice and work experience. Although technical knowledge is obtained by work experience, Rainbow Light requires their employees to already have some sort of technical knowledge in the ICT field.
There are a lot of tasks that a full time Rainbow Light employee must undertake which will require the use of ICT skills and therefore wide technical knowledge is required. Full time staff will need to have technical knowledge about the creation of talking books that will aid their clients. How to burn CD's is also important to know because this is one of the main tasks that will be undertaken. Along with burning CD’s it is important to have certain knowledge in programs such as “Nero” that help you to burn and make labels for the disks. In order for the clients to be able to listen to the CD’s knowledge on how to use Windows Media Player is also very advantageous. However, in order to listen to the CD’s the staff also needs to show clients how use hardware such as earphones which allow you to hear any sound coming out of the disk.
The staff also needs to know how to use Microsoft Office software that includes Word, Excel, Access & PowerPoint. This knowledge is important because PowerPoint, Excel & Word are the most common programs that are being used and the clients need to be aware of how to either make a simple Word document, PowerPoint presentation and how to save and print.
It is also important for the staff members to know how to use their e-mail accounts in order to communicate with other members and clients of Rainbow Light.
Rainbow staff also needs to know how to use the internal database system that assists them in searching their client’s details and/or updating information such as contact details.
The volunteers are also working alongside the manager. They assist the manager in replying to e-mails from clients and updating the Communication and Employability for IT blog on a regular basis.
Summarizing, if not for the technical knowledge that every staff needs to have it wouldn't be possible for them in assisting their clients in the ICT field.
Organisational skills
It is important for Rainbow Light employees to be well organized and stay on top of the work given to them. In order for the person to be successful in what they do, which in this case is Rainbow Light employees they need to take under account that prioritizing task managing and constantly keeping track of their work is mandatory for success. When it comes to the term to prioritize this means that the Rainbow employee must determine which tasks are the most important and to be handled in first place. It is also important to know how much time they need to spent on each task.
Time management is also really important in organisation because you can easily spend more time on some task or exercise and have no time for the other because you simply misjudged time. Time management will help the employee to stay on schedule with their work and prevent them from having to rush through their work at the last minute which in fact could lead to them making mistakes which definitely aren't welcome in business as they may have a negative impact.
When an Rainbow Light employee receives a project which has multiple individual tasks, it is in best interest of the employee set time for each task accordingly to the level of importance and engagement that it will require from the employee. In order for the employee to make sure that he will meet the deadlines for his tasks and overall project, it would be a good idea for the employee to keep a diary where he will note everything down.
Organisational skills
It is important for Rainbow Light employees to be well organized and stay on top of the work given to them. In order for the person to be successful in what they do, which in this case is Rainbow Light employees they need to take under account that prioritizing task managing and constantly keeping track of their work is mandatory for success. When it comes to the term to prioritize this means that the Rainbow employee must determine which tasks are the most important and to be handled in first place. It is also important to know how much time they need to spent on each task.
Time management is also really important in organisation because you can easily spend more time on some task or exercise and have no time for the other because you simply misjudged time. Time management will help the employee to stay on schedule with their work and prevent them from having to rush through their work at the last minute which in fact could lead to them making mistakes which definitely aren't welcome in business as they may have a negative impact.
When an Rainbow Light employee receives a project which has multiple individual tasks, it is in best interest of the employee set time for each task accordingly to the level of importance and engagement that it will require from the employee. In order for the employee to make sure that he will meet the deadlines for his tasks and overall project, it would be a good idea for the employee to keep a diary where he will note everything down.
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Two examples of personal attitudes that might be expected of a Rainbow Volunteer are:
- Problem Solving
- Hard Working
Similarly, the volunteers need to have certain personal attitudes in order to be successful in the Rainbow Light.
Problem Solving
Skill such as problem solving is important in environment such as Rainbow Light because the volunteer will not be guided at all times. The volunteer needs to act on his own and solve any problems that he/she may encounter while helping the clients or working at office. When the volunteer is out to help a client he/she may often meet certain problems along the way in which his problem solving skills need to emerge. When the volunteer is helping the client in e.g. trying to play the CD and/or burn a CD, it may be a case where the volunteer meets some technical difficulties that will try and prevent him from accomplishing his task e.g. the computer won't start or there is no software that can burn or play the CD's etc. or when one of the clients that the volunteer is visiting has a sight problem then the volunteer has to think of a way to present the partially sighted person the solution to his problem in a manner that the client will understand. If the client happens to have vision problems then it is up to the volunteer to show the client how to properly play the CD in a way that that client will both understand and remember. In both cases the volunteer needs to switch independent thinking and have a positive attitude. Without the positive attitude and unwillingness to help it would be impossible for the volunteer to help the client with his issue and therefore would result in a bad impression for the Rainbow Light charity. Although most of the work the volunteers do is outside by helping the clients, problem solving skills will also be very advantageous in office. For example when the volunteer is given a task and there is no one in the office to assist him, in these kinds of situations the volunteer needs to consider how to solve any encountered problems on his own. These problems may involve technical difficulties and/or tasks that are given to him. This is the stage where independent thinking is introduced in order to solve any problems.
Hard Working
When the volunteers of Rainbow Light are working to the best of their ability, it works to the advantage of the charity as most of the work that the volunteers are doing is vital for the overall success of the charity. Rainbow also rewards their volunteers on bases of their hard work to motivate them by giving out cash rewards to show their appreciation. Examples of actions that the volunteers are being rewarded for are:
- Being punctual
- Finish each task on time and to the best standard
- Working late hours
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