Looking for Soft Skills

There are many who are unemployed, countless others are trying to get ahead in their organizations, but employers are still finding it very difficult to fill vacancies and employees are failing to make that positive impact in their official assignments.

In addition to technical qualifications, businesses need their staff to display certain qualities that show people skills. Lack of these qualities have sometimes resulted in poor collaboration between departments, poor execution of plans, and loss of customers.

Very few organizations are growing at a fast rate, even in cases where candidates with the best technical expertise and knowledge were hired.  Businesses suffer from lack of productivity and continue to experience unprofessional behavior from staff every day.

Soft skills are attributes and qualities that improve relationships with other people. Every business organization looks for staff with soft skills at one time or the other but unemployment continues to be a major cause for concern.  Is it because something is missing?  In recent surveys, employers and business leaders have identified soft skills as crucial factors in successful and outstanding workers. Employees with soft skills attract and retain more customers in any organization.

In my experience as a training consultant for various organizations, employers often have the same complaint and observation about nonperforming staff. These complaints include, lack of communication skills, deficient interpersonal skills, no display of critical and creative thinking, poor business writing, and conflict with customers or among workers.

When employers realize the place of soft skills in their organization’s success, and begin to do something about it, then we will see positive changes in organizations, changes such as better customer service, presentation skills, problem solving, etc. Embarking on soft skills training courses are a step in the right direction, these change-maker skills are needed for a market-relevant workforce. These skills attract value to businesses and make work experiences more interesting.