SOFT SKILLS
Soft Skills are a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes and emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) among others that enable people to effectively navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.
The Collins English Dictionary defines the term "soft skills" as "desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude."
A Simple Way To Increase Your Organisation's Productivity
How many projects have you seen delayed due to miscommunications? And how many processes could be made easier if some of your colleagues would just get on better?
Although many businesses acknowledge the importance of soft skills, not many put their money where their mouth is. Soft skills training are often postponed because "we have to prioritise other training" or "we don't have any soft skills budget set aside".
What these business don't realise is that every day they postpone, they are losing out. They are missing out on opportunities to increase productivity and staff retention. What's more is that gaps in soft skills pose huge risks in the form of miscommunications, friction and other inefficiencies.
12% productivity increase - 10 % higher employee retention
The impact of soft skills training has been backed up by science in numerous studies. For example a recent study from Boston College, Harvard University and the University of Michigan found that soft skills training boosts productivity with 12 percent, staff retention during training programmers with 10% and delivers a 250% return on investment. The challenge is that different individuals have different needs when it comes to soft skills development. Traditional learning methods might not always be fit-for-purpose or scalable. Luckily, we now have the power of digital to complement existing programmes.
There is no time to wait, get your soft skills development going. Every day your employees soft skills are not being honed, you are not benefitting from the potential enhanced productivity and staff retention. The time to act is now.
