Labor Relations Specialists

People in this career often have these skills:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
• Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
• Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.

People in this career often know a lot about:

• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.

People in this career often have talent in:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.

• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

People in this career often do these activities:

• Arrange collective bargaining agreements.
• Evaluate personnel practices to ensure adherence to regulations.
• Collect evidence for legal proceedings.
• Negotiate agreements to resolve disputes.
• Assess risks to business operations.

• Update knowledge of legal or regulatory environments.
• Measure effectiveness of business strategies or practices.
• Advise others on human resources topics.
• Organize special events.
• Train personnel on managerial topics.
• Testify at legal or legislative proceedings.
• Establish organizational guidelines or policies.
• Establish business management methods.
• Present business-related information to audiences.
• Prepare regulatory or compliance documentation.