Teamwork Skills for Students

Team Work is an important skill that companies look for when hiring people. Some interviews are designed to assess team working skills; they have activities involving team work so they can study and analyse your team working skills. This could cost you a job if you have poor team working skills. Most employers look for the following skills when recruiting staff:

• Ability to work in a team
• Ability to communicate
• Self skills e.g. Able to communicate confidently

An effective team is one in which:

• There is participation and collaboration
• Clearly defined roles and leadership
• Adherence to task/maintenance (people) functions
• There is Decision-making process
• There is Problem-solving process, including dealing with dysfunction

Leadership in is about:

• Establishing direction
• Helping the group to progress
• Establishing procedure
• Raising questions
• Focusing/synthesizing answers
• Encouraging social interaction
• Neutrality and objectivity

Reflection of a Student

I first started taking part in team work in school when we had to take part in group tasks helping us to revise for our GCSE’S English exam. There was a large group of students that were quite immature for their age which made me prefer to stay quiet within a team due to the immature behaviour and loud individuals of our group. It was almost impossible to get your opinion across due to the louder and bossier individuals. From that moment I became aware that I needed to contribute more within a group particularly the group activities that involved us getting graded later on in the year. However, I felt that Once I got into the comfortable position of not contributing that it was becoming a habit.

When I moved onto college with more mature students I felt it was a good time to put into practise better quality of team working skills. I participated in terms of contributions more and saw myself improve with the new ideas I was putting forward. However, I still felt I needed to improve my team working skills and have a more professional approach as I still remained quite distant from the group.

Later on that year we had a group work assessment where we were graded on our levels of contribution to the team. I got feedback from the teacher suggesting that I looked at developing my team work stills. She stated that even though I had came along way from the beginning of the year I still needed to largely improve my confidence with bringing new ideas forward. Taking onboard the feedback I knew that my team work weakness needed to be improved for the future to become appear more employable to employers.

Reflecting on the real issue of my team working weaknesses I took part in relevant audit materials to get a better understanding of myself and the skill needed. I carried out a self audit material called working in teams and through studying this I came to realise that I am not confident within the areas regarding;

• Offering information or opinions
• Suggesting directions the group can take
• Talking
• Helps to relieve tension.

Smart Targets to Improve Teamwork skills

• I am going to answer at least 4 questions every week in one of my group discussions in a lecture.
• I am going to carry out more team work activities such as presentations within my class. I am then going to self-evaluate how I have contributed.
• I am going to read “Building a High Performance Team: Proven techniques for effective team working” book by Cook, Sarah to enable me to develop my team working skills. I am going to read for one hour on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
• I am going to watch Team work YouTube videos such as; Skills for Work: Team-working Skills and Leadership – Engage your Team – Create a Culture of Engagement.
• I am going to ask my Manager and colleagues at work and also lectures and classmates at University for advice on how they think I could improve the most in team work.

I will review my progress monthly and my overall concluding review will take place on (mention date).

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