Soft skills development and the impact on the business bottom line.
Did you know that 75% of long-term job success comes down to soft skills mastery? Think about that for a moment, 75 %. Soft skills are the term used for those skills that are not technical or job-related. They include social skills, interpersonal skills, and a positive attitude. These are the skills that define your relationships with other people or how you approach life and work. ‘Hard skills,’ by contrast, is a phrase usually used to describe job-specific skills.
Examples of hard skills include professional skills like bricklaying or accountancy, medical expertise such as diagnosis and treatment, or other skills that can be taught and whose presence is testable through exams.
Think of soft skills in the light of competition principles.
Imagine you are a company producing something, like a new smartphone. You come up with revolutionary new technology. Your smartphones are suddenly much better than others, and your profits go up.
But, after a while, your competitors get hold of the technology: you license its use, perhaps, or they develop alternatives. Suddenly, smartphones are all the same again, and your profits are suffering. You still need the new technology, but you also need a new competitive edge: perhaps a reputation for customer service.
Hard skills are like your technology: anyone can acquire them, with training, and they are necessary. Without them, you will not be able to operate in the workplace. Soft skills are your unique selling point and give you a competitive edge in the workplace.
You should care about soft skills because they provide you with a confident, satisfied workforce that will sustain and grow your organization.
A detailed report is expected from Linkedin, in coming months.
Here is a copy of the list for 2020.
When your workforce is plentiful in technical skills, but lacking in soft skills, you may notice that some elements of your business face challenges.
For example, if your employees are well trained in retaining customers, but not so wonderful at customer growth, you have a soft skills gap. You can work to alleviate any soft skills gaps in your business through training.
Why Is Soft Skills Training Important?
Findings by the Stanford Research Institute International and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation found that 75% of long-term job success depends upon soft skills mastery and only 25% on technical skills. This is why you often hear the phrase hire for cultural fit and train for the skills that you require.
In addition to conducting extensive research on the changing face of workplace learning, LinkedIn has led the way in identifying the most in-demand soft skills for future employees (see the previous list).
Thankfully, soft skills are highly trainable. Unlike IQ, which is largely static our whole lives, our emotional intelligence – the ability to learn and apply empathy, organization, and leadership – is malleable.
Even when two employees’ IQs are different, soft skills can predict which one will learn more, even beyond the ability predicted by their IQ. While all employees will improve over time and with practice, those with more highly developed soft skills are more likely to exceed their colleagues without them.
The ROI Of Training For Soft Skills
The ROI of training for soft skills is both qualitative and quantitative. Employees with soft skills training are better-liked, happier in their jobs, and more likely to stick with their company.
But what about the bottom line?
Researchers at Harvard University, Boston University, and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business found that workers with soft skills training are 12% more productive than those without them.
Benefits of soft skills training courses
There are several options for soft skills training for your workforce. You can dedicate entire courses solely to soft skills as part of employee onboarding, or you could add a soft skills section to your existing course content. You will get the most bang for your buck – by linking targeted training to employee performance review development plans and organizational goals. In a perfect world, a training needs analysis would be conducted to determine which soft skills should be deployed as a priority.
Here’s how you can develop soft skills in the workplace effectively.
How To Implement Soft Skills Training for Employees
So, you’re ready to train your employees in soft skills, but where do you start? Just follow these four tips to improve your employees’ productivity and your business ROI through soft skill development.
- Align soft skills training with your business goals
Draw a straight line between improving soft skills and improving your ROI by aligning soft skills development to your business objectives. For example, you might need to increase sales by 15%. So design your sales staff training around improved client communication.
- Align soft skills training with your culture
Your culture will define so much of what you value in your employees’ soft skills. For example, if your culture is centred around learning and personal development, you’ll want to foster self-awareness in your employees.
Make sure that your organizational culture and values are encouraged through the soft skills you train. Every effort at soft skills training should reinforce your culture and values. This won’t only boost your productivity, but will also help to build the corporate culture you want.
- Use scenarios and role-play with multiple possible outcomes
When creating soft skills training materials, try to stay away from passive content. Rather, try to incorporate interactive activities. Scenarios where learners get to make difficult social or ethical decisions, like resolving conflict, allow learners to practice their skills in a safe environment.
- Avoid the use of generic eLearning content
Soft skills development lends its self to face to face or facilitated learning, where participants can share insights and aha moments.
For organizations that are resource or time poor, consider purchasing training materials that can be customized to your workplace. This will ensure speed to deployment and ensure that training workshops reflect your organization.
Don’t wait for soft skills development to occur on its own. Being proactive about this type of training can create unparalleled benefits for your employees and the company as a whole.
Want to know more about Hard and soft skills? Watch our latest video.
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About the author: Colleen Condon
Colleen likes to keep things creative in all that she does, often using marshmallows as a source of inspiration.
Everyone knows that ongoing learning is essential for both personal and professional success and yet, for many, this means hours of attending dead boring training or completing’ losing the will to live’ eLearning modules. Colleen’s mission is to end tedious professional development while ensuring targeted outcomes for learners and businesses.
Colleen has honed her skills over the last 20 years across multiple industries and locations. Her previous role saw her overseeing the training and development needs of over 60, 000 employees across 13 countries in the APAC region. This enabled honing skills that celebrated diversity and understanding human commonality through learning, and that in the absence of a common language, flip charts and coloured markers can overcome most challenging situations.
After taking a ‘go away package’, in 2019, Colleen founded her own business, Facilitated Training, harnessing her global learning experiences and sharing them through ready to use learning resources, specialising in leadership, mentoring, guest speaking, creative problem solving, filling the gap of high quality, customisable training resources and tools.