You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
We all work or will work in our jobs with many different kinds of people. In your opinion, what are some important characteristics of a co-worker (someone you work closely with)?
Use reasons and specific examples to explain why these characteristics are important.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1:
Having good co-workers makes our professional life meaningful while bad colleagues can make our life miserable. Since people spend a considerable amount of their time in their workplaces, characteristics of their co-workers greatly affect the level of job satisfaction. Friendly behaviour, team spirit, helpfulness and professionalism are some important qualities that make someone a great colleague.
To begin with, friendly behaviours of an employee would make things easier for other workers. When someone joins a company, the first thing he looks for among his colleagues is the friendly behaviours. Second, team spirit is another important aspect the make worker’s life easier in a company. Without it, some employees would suffer greatly to produce the expected output. This is why companies these days look for this trait among the employees. Third, helpfulness of an employee makes the life of other employees lot easier. A helpful colleague would share his knowledge, help finish a project and amiable to others. For instance, during my three years professional life, I have always liked the people who have raised their helping hands whenever needed. My experience taught me that those are good people to rely on.
Finally, the professionalism is a quality that drives people to work closely to attain a common goal. Thus those sorts of people would value others opinion, criticism and feedback. They would also advise junior employees and would guide them in difficult times. Alfred Stuart, a former colleague of mine, had a great professionalism and that is why he was reliable, a great team lead and a person to seek advice.
All things considered, good qualities like friendliness, helpful mentality, professional attitude and team spirit among co-workers make our working environment healthy and enhances our job satisfaction.
Model Answer 2:
A large number of people spend most of their time at work. Our life is divided into three equal parts: 8 hours – sleep, 8 hours – work, 8 hours – family time. So, in the most cases, one’s co-worker plays an important role in one’s life. From my opinion, the essential characteristics of a co-worker are the following.
First of all, a person who works closely with me must like his job. I think it is very important for a person to feel satisfaction with his job. My husband is a software developer. He is fond of his job and people enjoy working with him because they see how many energy he puts into his job. Secondly, my co-worker must be persistent and never give up. I like when people who came across a problem try to solve it, find a good decision instead of looking for another person to hand it over. Another important aspect of this is that a good worker should always ask himself “What can be improved?” and suggests new solutions.
In addition, he must be a good team player. In the modern world, good communication skills and the ability to work in a team are among the common position requirements. Personally, I think it is great to help each other, share new ideas, develop new solutions, etc. It helps to create a team spirit and improve labour productivity. Finally, my co-worker must be punctual. He or she should finish the job on time I think that It is unacceptable to make the rest of a team wait while a person finishes his or her job. Also, my “ideal co-worker” should always be ready to offer his or her help and be supportive.
To summarise, I think if a co-worker possesses all of these qualities mentioned above he can make work with him really enjoyable and productive.
(Approximately314words)
(This model answer has been prepared by the site developer. However, please note that this is just one example out of many possible answers.)