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.