LC580 - Nursing: Reflective Commentary on Employability Skills

This reflective commentary discusses the development of employability skills within a nursing training and development program, utilizing the Bucks Graduate Attributes as a framework. The author reflects on their experiences in work-related contexts, including employment in a care home, volunteering, and university settings, critically analyzing the relationship between theory and practice. Key transferable skills such as communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and IT skills are assessed, with a focus on areas for improvement and future career growth. The commentary also explores the author's progression through different learning phases, from novice to advanced beginner, and the impact of continuous learning and self-reflection on personal and professional development. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning and the development of transferable skills for career advancement in the nursing field, highlighting the goal of improving patient care and bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Reflective
Commentary

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX: CV..............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Employability skills refer to those skills and knowledge that are required by an individual
for being a better employee and practicing their career effectively and efficiently. Employability
skills are needed by every individual to enhance the performance and career growth opportunities
in their respective field. The report is a reflective account that will demonstrate my progression
on the training and development programme of nursing that I had enrolled in. It will also include
the assessment of my ongoing processes and skills in the work and how it can be improved. I will
be utilising the feedback for understanding the areas for improvement in by learning and growth
of the career and developing key transferable skills for enhancing my future growth
opportunities. It will also provide the overview of the understanding about my personal
development issues and discover the methods for improving my career growth opportunities.
Finally, I will be discussing the various learning from the work related experience that could help
to improve my personal and indeed career growth opportunities in future.
MAIN BODY
Employability skills are needed by every individual to enhance the performance and career
growth opportunities in their respective field (Vogler and et. al., 2018). Due to the high level of
maturity which I had gained from the experience of the practice of self-care, I developed self-
discipline that could enhance the learning process for better employability skills. I think it is
important to develop effective learning, strength and confidence in all transferable skills like use
of information technology, communication, teamwork, continuous learning and problem solving.
These skills have been developed throughout my course work as well as my practicing in the
care house for many years. I have very good communication skills but I lack adequate learning
skills because of my dyslexic behaviour. In such cases my learning has become inappropriate and
I faced problems with organising the work effectively and efficiently.
The course work and my experience have helped me to develop better aspects of
communication, that may be worker or nonverbal in conduct such as body language, eye contact,
expressions, touch etc. During my practice at the care house I put into practice various
communication skills in order to understand people from various backgrounds and cultures
effectively and efficiently. For instance, once I was working in the care house with a staff
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member and I observed that a patient was going through stress by understanding his body
language. I reached the person and asked his problem and he conveyed that he was in deep stress
due to the ongoing conflicts within his life. After this, I made him comfortable and
communicated with him to listen to his problems and it was very important that the patient
throws everything out of his brain to overcome his stress. I provided therapeutic assistance to the
patient so that he can get relief from his stress and anxiety by creating a friendly environment for
communication and with the help of open mildness I accepted all his problems and advised
solutions for improving them.
I think that the best way of learning is to become an autonomous learner because it
requires good communication skills and adequate discipline; during this course I developed my
time-management abilities for meeting the work on time and having enough time for relaxation
and recreation work. I access the internet and utilize the online technology for searching and
developing clear insights about my work, so that I can complete my work effectively and
efficiently. The presentations were another effective way for improving the learning process
because it provides the opportunity to research and teach others with the help of presenting
others. I prepared the research presentation and initially I was unaware of the components that
could help to create a successful presentation (Dreaver, and et. al., 2020). I experienced some
nervousness initially when facing the audience and delivering the presentation but I did it
effectively by developing confidence and group communication skills to overcome my fear of
presenting in front of the audience.
My information technology and communication or ITC skills have also enhanced during
the course because I understood to utilize online methods for searching useful data for
completing my work. Moreover, I was able to research new things with the help of information
technology and get the ideas about using different methodologies to keep upgrading work the
trends in the changing world. Carrying out literature research during the care assignment by
utilising information technology was the first step towards improving the IT skills (Gekara and
Snell, 2018). Now I have understood about the concept of information technology and various
advantages for enhancing the transferable and employability skills.
Buck career and employability offers The Buck Graduate that is helpful for career
developers and career changes to encourage their professional skills and abilities with the help of
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their work experience and improve them for further growth. The Buck Graduate Attributes are
defined as a framework for improving the progress of an individual towards career enhancement
and improving their skills and abilities (Griffiths and et. al., 2018). It is helpful in improving the
leadership and team management abilities for improving my career and its future growth. I also
understand that there are various skills and knowledge that can be helpful in improving the career
that can be applied to my career growth. Some of these skills and abilities are discussed by me in
the above parts and more of them will be discussed (Alshare and Sewailem, 2018). It also helps
me to develop creativity and critical thinking that could be helpful to create better opportunities
for my career growth. I also learnt that there are various social, ethical and cultural norms, values
and responsibilities that are helpful for developing better career growth opportunities.
With the help of Buck career and employability offers I had gained opportunities for
improving my career growth opportunities effectively and efficiently.
My initial phase of learning was novice level, which is explained as a term for beginners without
experience or skills to practice in a given situation in which they are needed to perform. At this
preliminary phase of learning people have very little knowledge about the care work and
environment for caring for the patients (Hill and et. al., 2019). During the initial phase I was
unable to understand the patients and their problems due to the inability and lack of experience in
this work. I was unaware of the patient admission and pain assessment that could be helpful to
identify the factors to help them by providing effective care. I relied on the guidance provided by
the mentor to improve my performance. During the placement I carried out pain assessment,
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monitoring and patient admission so that their problems can be identified. I started to improve
communication skills in my daily practice to enhance the experience of the patients and provide
best care to them.
The advanced beginner level was the second phase of my learning and development that
was focused toward enhancing my knowledge on continuous places (Corsi, Pagani and
Kovaleski, 2020). I learnt about many things like medication practices, providing injections,
patient administration, measuring the vitals etc. I learnt the importance of being friendly and
calm with the patients so that best care can be provided to them and it helped in developing the
best practices of patient care. With the help of my personal development tutor (PDP) I was really
able to improve the open discussions among the staff to enhance the learning and teaching
process by creating support for learning and development at the workplace. I also developed my
problem solving abilities and knowledge enhancement through continuous learning by
expressing the problems with others and discussing the issues with my practices.
With the help of this reflection I was able to find that I have to develop and achieve the
success above the care of the patients with the help of my 6 year experience and knowledge. I
understand that there is a lot of progression in my abilities with the help of skill acquisition and
development of new ideas, thoughts, understanding and other abilities that could be helpful in
improving my clinical practice and enhancing my career growth. I think that these abilities are
very helpful for personal and professional development of my career. Moreover, I developed
reflective and transferable skills such as self-awareness, communication, team working, problem
solving, time management, presentation, ceremony analysing skills, information technology, etc.
that can be helpful to progress my career in nursing and care.
'Self-improvement grows on awareness' and 'learning is a lifelong process' that is helpful for
developing the future career and creating better growth opportunities (Dochy and Segers, 2018).
I think that with the help of developing the skills and best practices I will be able to generate
better effective career growth as a caregiver and improve the welfare of all the people. I will
continue to build my nursing competency and care practices to increase my knowledge and skills
for achieving self-direction learning and supervision for my career growth in this field. This
would be helpful in developing my future knowledge and skills to enable and enhance my
understanding and growth in the nursing and care giving field.
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that learning and development have evolved in
all the fields and people need to develop better transferable and employability skills for
enhancing their career growth and development in the upcoming future. Moreover, it has been
describing the various continuous learning activities, skill development, like communication,
problem solving and critical thinking, team management that can be helpful in improving career
growth and provide best opportunities for learning and professional development within a career.
Further, it has explained that understanding and confidence within a chosen profession can help
to develop better skills and abilities by continuous learning processes and life long experience is
for career growth. Finally, it has been obtained from the above report that various personal and
professional developments can be achieved for improving the quality of care and reducing the
gap between the actual theory and practice of nursing and care giving for enhancing the career
growth of an individual.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alshare, K. and Sewailem, M. F., 2018. A GAP ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS
STUDENTS'SKILLS IN THE 21st CENTURY: A CASE STUDY OF
QATAR. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 22(1). pp.1-22.
Corsi, A., Pagani, R. N. and Kovaleski, J. L., 2020. Technology transfer for sustainable
development: Social impacts depicted and some other answers to a few questions. Journal
of Cleaner Production, 245. p.118522.
Dochy, F. and Segers, M., 2018. Creating impact through future learning: The high impact
learning that lasts (HILL) model. Routledge.
Dreaver, J., and et. al., 2020. Success factors enabling employment for adults on the autism
spectrum from employers’ perspective. Journal of autism and developmental
disorders, 50(5). pp.1657-1667.
Gekara, V. and Snell, D., 2018. Designing and delivering skills transferability and employment
mobility: the challenges of a market-driven vocational education and training
system. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 70(1). pp.107-129.
Griffiths, D. A. and et. al., 2018. Transitioning student identity and sense of place: future
possibilities for assessment and development of student employability skills. Studies in
Higher Education, 43(5). pp.891-913.
Hill, M.A., and et. al., 2019. Undergraduate recognition of curriculum-related skill development
and the skills employers are seeking. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 20(1).
pp.68-84.
Vogler, J. S., and et. al., 2018. The hard work of soft skills: augmenting the project-based
learning experience with interdisciplinary teamwork. Instructional Science, 46(3).
pp.457-488.
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APPENDIX: CV
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PROFILE
Second year Health and Social Science student at BSC, born and raised in Romania with
excellent personal care and attention to details, skills gained by working for almost 6 years
now in a Care Home as a Senior Carer but what keeps me running is an uncontrollable drive
to help everyone around me.
EDUCATION & QUALIFICATIONS
BSC, LSST London School of Science & Technology (LSST Birmingham Aston Campus)
Crystal Court, Aston Cross, Business Village, Nechells, Birmingham
B6 5RQ
Studied: (2019- Current)
Technical College “Anghel Saligny” - A Level BBB
English Grades: (B2)
Mathematics: A 2011
WORK EXPERIENCE
Home Trainer | Avery Care Home, Birmingham Jan 2020 to Feb 2022
As a home Trainer I had to train new employees with their work in home carering, and I was
delivering basic training to the new employees
My duties and Responsibilities
 Deliver training sessions to employees and maintasining its efectiveness
 Using different computer systems and soft-wares such as Zoom, Microsoft teams, to
set up different training sessions
 Planning and practising different procedures within the home to new starters and also
providing ongoing training for Staff members.
 Maintaining the records of training the employees
 Evaluating the performance of the employees after their training is completed
 Assessment of skills and knowledge of the staff members
Senior Carer | Avery Care Home, Birmingham May 2015 to Feb 2022
As a senior carer I have to work as a coordinator for a care team to ensure effectiveness in
their working.
My duties and responsibilities include:
Provide person centred care and personal care to residents in all aspects of their daily living.
 Prescribing personalised care, monitoring and medication to the people
 Contribute fully to team working

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 Providing better knowledge and skills to the people through proper coaching, training,
mentoring and leadership.
 Assessing the personal care performance and viability for enhancing, implementing
and develioping the personal care practices.
 Communicating effectively to the broder network of teams, including the multi-
disciplinary teams, team meetings and handovers to ensure better care to the people.
 Using the equipments and handeling them carefully so that casualities can be avoided
and faults and the needs for mainainance can be discovered.
 Improving the better systems of care and improving the initaiality of the work and
behaviour of care staff with the people with any form of sickness.
 Creating awareness about the personal care and health laws that must be followed
effectively and efficiently.
 Taking part in the seklf development through participating in the supervison,
appraisals and team training sessions.
 Involve in the development activities of the colleagues and staff members by
contributing to the appraisals, team meetings and training/development activities.
 Complying with all the laws, regulations, rules,policies and procedures to maintain
good care work and healthy relation with the people.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Training – Pressure ulcer prevention [2021], Infection Control [2021], Moving and Assisting
people [2021], Medication Administering [2021], International Trainer [2021], Emergency
first aid at work [2020], End of life [2020], Allergen Awareness [2020], Dementia Awareness
[2020], Emergency care response (ECAR) [2020]
Languages – Fluent English Speaker; Native Romanian Speaker
Technical skills
 Microsoft Office
INTERESTS
Working for so much time as a senior carer I developed a really good attention to details this
helped me over the years to realise someone´s health problems and take action in time, also
being a senior carer made me a good leader being in charge of a team of workers made me
good at managing people because everyone is good at something else and as time passes i
tried to put everyone the spotlight that they deserved based on their skills
REFERENCES
Albion Court | Avery Health Care