Educators and employers frequently err when it comes to distinguishing between soft and hard skills. On one hand, soft skills are characteristics that fall in the interpersonal realm and play an important role in an individual’s self-management. They make up your personality and can prove you would be a perfect fit in any workplace.
Soft skills are generally considered abstract or behavioral because interpersonal qualities are nurtured over time, but not so much taught. You can be able to cultivate these skills with time through self-awareness, persistence, empathy, and humility. Soft skills consist of qualities that affect interpersonal outcomes, such as team-building, leadership development, listening, and communication among the rest.
On the other hand, hard skills are typically regarded as technical or job-specific abilities showing your suitability for a given job. Human beings are not born with these skills, and you can only acquire them in the classroom, through books and other materials, in an online course, or on the job. Examples of hard skills comprise computer programming language, mixing drinks, diagnosing an engine problem, budgeting, and so much more.
Reading between the lines, hard skills define themselves as teachable and measure abilities like reading, writing, or ability to use coding languages. By contrast, soft skills can be defined as traits that work in your favor as an employee. These include listening and communication, etiquette, as well as the ability to get along with other people. In this article today, we will be looking at the reasons why soft skills are the new hard skills inside the glass walls of the current organizations.
Soft skills are constantly evolving
Soft skills are constantly changing, unlike hard skills which mostly remain unchanged. They are site-specific and adaptive to corporate culture and expectations. Employers are always trying to examine soft skills when evaluating skill sets for new employees. However, it takes longer to master soft skills because they have variables and guidelines, which are in a sharp contrast to predetermined practices hard skills use.
Personality traits, personal attributes, practical communication skills, and being able to comprehend social cues are all traits that go beyond the resume. Most employers agree that it is harder to test for soft skills than hard skills in the applicant pool. Yet, it is almost impossible to pinpoint a job whose requirements do not include soft skills for success on the job.
Soft skills call for crucial decision-making
We like in a world where we have overwhelming choices to make. It’s no surprise that we are always under constant pressure to make the best possible decisions. However we assume that the best choices can only be determined by future results. This in turn causes us to procrastinate and postpone until we find more data to gauge the future. We mistakenly believe we are going to make wrong choices if we come up with a decision now; so we end up not making any decision at all.
In cultures that practice open leadership and excellent communication, how people operate is totally different. Their culture allows people to make faster decisions, whether they are good or bad. Any consequence is accepted and anticipated. And no one will lose their job for making a wrong decision.
Leaders who encourage faster and frequent decision making can build safety nets for the future. People become more stimulated toward better collaboration and overall communication. In return, employees get motivated to make goals and create a plan to change for better results.
Soft skills are difficult to measure
It is easy to teach a learner how to master a particular skill, such as how to use given software. Once they have mastered the technical know-how, you can ask them to perform the task. Chances are you’ll be delighted with the outcome. Often, quantitative measures come in handy when gauging these hard skills.
It is not easy to create assessments for soft skills considering the fact that they are more contextual and nuanced. To overcome the challenge of developing training for soft skills, you will want to pay attention to scenario-based knowledge checks. These include role-plays and other relevant context-based qualitative learning analysis.
Soft skills are human-centered
Much like communication skills, soft skills display roots in people’s personalities and influence their habits and experiences. Failure to understand yourself and how life experience impacts on your behavioral patterns could make you feel fake and inauthentic. Soft skills are all about yourself and not someone else.
Being a part of a team is one of the best ways to learn a soft skill. You have to work in conjunction with leaders and expert team player to model the skill and help you see how “good” appears in action. Working with experts will also offer you a chance to practice and receive feedback.
It is not appropriate to undertake force-feed training for soft skills. Instead, individuals should learn through experiences and observe, practice and reflect on their gradual development over a period of time. Leaders can improve their organization’s capacity to master soft skills by reinforcing their training over time and building new ways to measure success.
Soft skills demand a time investment
Organizations have mistakenly set expectations that require people to work the way computers do. As the work cycle spins with speed, some business leaders have forced people to work independently, quietly and plugged in on a 24/7 basis. Machines can meet those requirements, but they can be detrimental to humans.
According to the US National Safety Council, employers are recording between $126 and $190 billion a year in lost productivity due to fatigue and “always on” expectations. And working on vast chunks of tasks in a short span leaves humans beings with no room to exercise their humanity. This includes their natural abilities to build relationships, connect and show care to each other.
Doing too much work too fast is no longer the right pathway to success. The true route to success in this era involves investing adequate time to learn, listen, create and lead. Giving people time and space to apply their humanity is a great way to develop more soft skills in your organization.
The Bottom Line:
Soft skills are complicated, ambiguous and specific to each workplace. The process of nurturing them calls for introspection and determination of behaviors that inspire and intimidate others. They don’t all come at once; but with self-reflection and constant practice, you will eventually get there.
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