Ensure You’re Training the Soft Skills Your Workers Need

What are Soft Skills?

When applying for a position, job seekers often look at the skills that are required for that particular role. Depending on the industry, those skills may vary from technical skills to trade skills. While these hard skills are critical to success, many employers often overlook the importance of soft skills.

Soft skills are a unique set of skills that are based on how a worker performs their job, rather than the set of hard skills required to complete the daily tasks. It is these soft skills that will allow an employee to continue to grow and develop both personally and professionally within an organization.

5 Soft Skills that are Necessary for Success

These are five of the most important soft skills for workers to acquire:

Leadership Skills

Whether an employee is in a managerial position or not, leadership skills are critical. It is important to empower workers and to help them develop their leadership skills, as this will allow them to collaborate better with the rest of the team and will help them grow within the company. Investing in the leadership skills of your team will allow you to foster a culture that encourages long-term commitment to the organization.

Communication Skills

Communication skills are absolutely critical, particularly in a 21st century world where more workers are working remotely than ever before. Your employees should recognize the importance of communication, and they should be trained to communicate effectively on a variety of platforms. When it comes to communication, your organization also needs to lead by example. Communication should be a high priority at your company, regardless of its size or industry.

Negotiation

Learning how to negotiate effectively takes time and expert training. Most workers do not come into a position with the savvy negotiation skills that they need, and it is an important soft skill to develop. Workers who can negotiate fairly and effectively are able to add a lot of value to your organization.

Sales Training

Workers who focus on sales and promotions should constantly have access to training opportunities that will allow them to develop new skills and techniques. Continual sales training will help your employees be more successful, which will in turn organically grow your organization and increase loyalty among your workers.

Conflict Resolution

Conflicts happen all the time in the work place, and rather than try to prevent them from happening, you should empower your employees with conflict resolution skills. Learning to accept conflict and work through it effectively will help your team feel more connected and more valued.

Why Do Soft Skills Matter?

Here are a few reasons why soft skills matter at any organization:

• Your organization will be able to offer better customer service when employees possess the right soft skills.
• Your company will enjoy higher sales and employee retention rates.
• Your team of workers will feel more connected, and employee morale will be boosted.
• Your company will enjoy improved communications both from executive leadership and the team as a whole.

Soft Skills Training and Why It's Important

Far too often, employers focus on hard skills training rather than soft skills training. While hard skills are critical to success in the work place, it is the soft skills that really allow workers to be successful within an organization.

A recent LinkedIn survey noted that 92 percent of employers felt that soft skills were important, yet, a vast majority of companies do not invest in soft skills training[1].

According to the American Management Association, 75 percent of long-term job success depends on the strength of a worker's soft skills[2], so it's clear that soft skills training should be implemented at organizations of all sizes.

Tips for Teaching Soft Skills to Your Employees

Leaders that want to implement soft skills training at their organizations will find these tips to be helpful. These are a few ways that you can start teaching soft skills to your employees:

• Reach out to your employees and ask them about their personal and professional goals. Encourage employees to identify several short-term goals that they want to reach, and assess which soft skills will be needed for them to accomplish those goals.
• Take a soft skills assessment of your employees. Ask them to identify which soft skills they currently possess as well as which ones they would like to further develop.
• Create individual projects that allow employees to hone their soft skills on a personal level before they apply them in a group setting. This can help employees focus on their own personal goals, which will in turn allow them to utilize their newfound soft skills in a team setting.
• Give employees opportunities to reflect on their soft skills development. During this reflection periods, workers should be encouraged to openly discuss their feelings about the training they have received and to take note of whether those training opportunities have been successful.
• Invest in your employees by partnering with a firm that will offer soft skills training to your workers. It is okay to not have all the answers when it comes to soft skills training and development. Rather than go it alone, work with a firm that can offer innovative and effective soft skills training to employees at all levels.

Final Thoughts

Soft skills training is more vital than ever. Fortunately, your organization can partner with Positive Results in order to implement soft skills training.

 

Positive Results™ Custom Business Solutions

440.499.4944

https://PositiveResults.com

 

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-2019-talent-trends-soft-skills-transparency-trust-bersin/

[2] https://www.amanet.org/articles/the-hard-truth-about-soft-skills/