1st May is an important day in the world of work. May Day or International Workers’ Day is a celebration of work, skills, jobs and the economic value we create through out deliverables. We should be aware that there is a huge unorganized workforce that depends on micro and small enterprises for their work. Their issues needs to be address to bring them up in society through minimum wages, social security and other support system. Coming to a related theme of skills, I would like to dedicate my writing to the value of skills, how they get us dignity and connect with our socioeconomic systems. I start my blog today with this post and hope to continue with many more topics and issues.

Skill is a question of what we know, what we do and how well we do it! Skill development and performance are closely connected No matter what job we do, whatever be the nature of work – manual, automated or highly intellectual, being skillful is the secret of success. Skills, when complemented with right knowledge can increase productivity and enhance performance. This makes the connection between May Day / Labour Day and Skill Development obvious. So, let’s reconnect our work with skills and ask:
What new skill are you learning today?

Holding an occupation, being a professional, being a worker, belonging to organized or unorganized sectors – it’s equally important to balance the “know -what” with the “know -how”.

Today, there is enough push from the government and other quarters to make India a skilled nation. The efforts are mostly directed at skilling the voluminous workforce, and scale up and speed up to meet the growing demand for skilled workers.

No matter how highly qualified we are, being highly skilled becomes indispensable for:
Manual and technical workers like plumbers, masons, mechanics, carpenters and so on belonging to different industry verticals (from unorganized and informal sector)
Non-manual and intellectual workers like teachers, managers, doctors, sales persons, engineers, scientists, surgeons and so on from different professions and industries.

How about observing May Day as Skill Development for Performance Improvement Day to reinforce the link between what we know, what we do and how well we do it!

Here are two related write-ups:

Do skills get outdated?

How do you ensure that you have the right skills for right job?