Fulfilling the Demand for Workplace Communication Skills in the Civil Engineering Industry

Abstract

Human resources today must be nurtured with the skills needed at the workplace in preparation for future challenges. Many engineering graduates nowadays are facing difficulties in adapting themselves to the workplace. They are highly dependent on academic qualifications and underestimate the need for skilled workers who are not only technically proficient but have high competencies of soft skills, especially communication skills. The ability of graduates to communicate effectively can have a significant impact on their career development. Therefore, technical graduates need to equip themselves with knowledge of their future workplace’s communication needs. The objective of this study is to qualitatively explore the elements of communication skills demanded at the civil engineering workplace. Five participants consisting of experts from academia and industries were involved in semi-structured interviews. Data were hand-transcribed and analysed. Four themes emerged from the data and identified as oral communication, written communication, interpersonal communication, and visual communication. Thirty-four sub-themes appeared from the analysis and have been discussed accordingly.

Assessing the impact of digital education and the role of the big data analytics course to enhance the skills and employability of engineering students

“…The findings confirm this view, and we find that both skill dimensions of engineering students educated on big data analytics courses have a positive impact on human capital in the employability dimension. This result is consistent with the research of scholars such as Mauro et al (2017), Masduki and Zakaria (2020), and Escolà-Gascón and Gallifa (2022), which indicates that among the three abilities of the hard skills dimension developed by the big data analytics course, the higher the knowledge level, technical skills and analysis skills, the higher the employability of engineering students (Mauro et al, 2017;Escolà-Gascón and Gallifa, 2022). Among the three soft skills cultivated in the course, the cultivation of decisionmaking ability and communication ability enhances students' inherent thinking mode and learning habits, improves their learning ability, and correspondingly enriches students' internship experience and ability to make systematic career planning (Masduki and Zakaria, 2020).…”

Professional communication competence in English for occupational purposes (EOP) courses: A systematic literature review and proposal of a framework

“…From the analysis conducted, the studies were done in various contexts, including maritime (Ahmmed et al, 2020;Alibakhshi & Labbafi, 2021), engineering (Adnan, 2019;Baklazhenko, 2018;Gözüyeşil, 2014;Masduki & Zakaria, 2020;Panyawong-Ngam et al, 2015;Spence & Liu, 2013), medicine (Arumugam & Kaur, 2011), mechatronics (Ranasuriya & Herath, 2020), pest control (Hee & Zainal, 2018), human resource (Moslehifar & Ibrahim, 2012), information technology (Fareen, 2018), military and/or aviation (Alshabeb et al, 2017;Sari & Sari, 2020), architecture (Palea et al, 2012) and a combination of multiple industries (Al-Buainain, 2011).…”

“…Panyawong-Ngam et al (2015), on the other hand, considered listening as the most important skill, followed by writing and reading. One study identified speaking, writing, interpersonal and visual communication as the most important skills for the workplace in the context of civil engineering (Masduki & Zakaria, 2020).…”

“…Writing emails (Adnan, 2019;Ahmmed et al, 2020;Chan, 2014;Fareen, 2018;Hee & Zainal, 2018;Masduki & Zakaria, 2020;Ranasuriya & Herath, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013;Thomas et al, 2016) Writing reports (Ahmmed et al, 2020;Alshabeb et al, 2017;Chan, 2014;Fareen, 2018;Masduki & Zakaria, 2020;Singh & Raja Harun, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013) Writing business letters (Fareen, 2018;Spence & Liu, 2013) Writing proposals (Spence & Liu, 2013;Thomas et al, 2016) Writing memos (Alshabeb et al, 2017;Ranasuriya & Herath, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013) Preparing presentation slides (Spence & Liu, 2013;Thomas et al, 2016) One study that examined the competence level required for writing tasks was conducted by Attan et al (2013), who provided written scripts to industry practitioners to obtain their feedback regarding the written quality of the scripts. Based on a scale rating of '1 = Extremely Limited Writer' to '6 = Effective Writer', the study found that the respondents believed a '3 = Functional Writer' could satisfactorily meet the workplace requirements if given extra assistance and time to learn in the workplace.…”

“…Giving oral presentations (Adnan, 2019;Belwal et al, 2017;Gözüyeşil, 2014;Hee & Zainal, 2018;Moslehifar & Ibrahim, 2012;Ranasuriya & Herath, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013) Attending meetings and seminars (Hee & Zainal, 2018;Singh & Raja Harun, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013) Communicating with customers or clients (Hee & Zainal, 2018;Moslehifar & Ibrahim, 2012;Spence & Liu, 2013;Thomas et al, 2016) Handling telephone calls (Moslehifar & Ibrahim, 2012;Singh & Raja Harun, 2020;Spence & Liu, 2013) Giving and receiving instructions (Masduki & Zakaria, 2020;Sari & Sari, 2020;Singh & Raja Harun, 2020) Participating in social conversations (Masduki & Zakaria, 2020;Moslehifar & Ibrahim, 2012;Sari & Sari, 2020;Singh et al, 2014;Spence & Liu, 2013;Yao & Du-Babcock, 2020) In terms of spoken competency, Fareen (2018) found that there is a need for prospective employees to develop competencies in discussing, persuading, convincing and negotiating in English. Rapport building was also highlighted as a valuable skill, as well as the ability to recognise when to be concise and when to be detailed when communicating.…”