44% of employers believe that candidates lack the vital soft skills needed to be successful at their job. Businesses have started realising that soft skills are necessary for the success of a company, which is why employee training in this area has increased.
In this article we discuss the importance and benefits of soft skills training.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are personal attributes, typically linked to how you work and interact with others, which are necessary for success and your career development. Soft skills make it easier to form relationships with other people which makes you visible for the right reasons.
Regardless of where you work and what job you have, you will need some soft skills. For many people soft skills are the most difficult skill-set to develop.
In contrast, hard skills are teachable abilities or skills that are easy to quantify and measure. Typically, you’ll learn hard skills in online classes, in-person training, books, or on the job.
Examples of soft skills
There are lots of different types of soft skills, such as:
- Adaptability
- Communication
- Customer service
- Decision making and problem-solving
- Leadership
- Listening
- Negotiation
- Networking
- Organisational skills
- Public speaking
- Teamwork
- Time-management etc
See our article on a list of soft skills more information. You can also read our article on soft skills for the workplace.
Benefits of soft skills training
There are many benefits to employees developing their soft skills:
- Increased productivity
- Improved teamwork
- Improved retention rates and lower employee turnover
- Improved employee satisfaction and morale
- Improved leadership
- Increased workplace communication
- Reduces weaknesses and increases consistency
By providing soft skills training, you are showing your employees that you want them to remain relevant and that you essentially care about their future. Also, recruitment costs for the company decrease with increased staff retention due to increased job satisfaction. You’ll also prepare employees for leadership positions.
Read more about the Importance of Soft Skills
Soft skills training courses
Improving employee soft skills requires blended learning journeys that mix traditional learning, including in-person training and e-learning courses, with non-traditional methods, such as virtual reality and online practice exercise based training.
Furthermore, LinkedIn carried out a study in 2018 which showed a shortage of 1.4 million people with communication skills. Soft skills such as communication are essential to a successful organisation and information flow within it.
Online Sales Training Courses
List of the top online sales training courses to help you learn sales techniques, practice selling, close sales and generally improve your sales skills.See Online Sales Courses
Public Speaking Courses
Master the art of effective public speaking with these courses. Become a confident communicator, overcome the fear of public speaking, learn about body language, the art of persuasive speeches, public speaking tips, and how to tailor your speeches to specific audiences.See Public Speaking Courses
Communication Skills Courses
List of the top communication skills courses to improve your public speaking, selling techniques, networking, body language, ability to persuade, and more.See Communication Skills Courses
Online Leadership Courses
Reach the next level in your career with these leadership courses for both first-time and experienced leaders. Develop key insights, skills and leadership styles to influence and inspire others, and drive performance in your organisation.See Leadership Courses
Presentation Skills Training
The ability to present your ideas confidently and persuasively is the single greatest skill you can learn to succeed in a globally competitive world. Here are the best Presentation Skills Training courses to you to help you achieve this.See Presentation Skills Courses
Train the Trainer Courses
List of the best train the trainer courses to help you learn techniques for delivering high-quality training sessions.See Train the Trainer Courses
Professional Development Courses
Whether you’re starting out in your career or looking to get a promotion, these courses will help boost your skill set. They teach essential skills needed in your professional life and build upon those you already have.See Professional Development Courses
Given the need for soft skills now and in the future, training current employees is only part of the solution. You need to ensure that new employees joining your organisation are competent in essential soft skills to your organisation, such as leadership or negotiations.
Ask questions during the interviews to gauge the competency of the prospective employee in these.
Soft skills training can increase ROI by 256%
Research has supported the idea that soft skills training increases ROI for a business, for example, in a study conducted by Harvard University, Boston College and the University of Michigan, it was found that soft skills training:
- Increased productivity by 12%
- Increased employee retention
- Delivered a 256% Return on Investment (ROI)
Read more about the study in the research paper The Skills to Pay the Bills, written in June 2017.
Presentation on the ROI of learning from Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning)
Designing a soft skills training programme
To develop employees’ soft skills you must first design or choose the right training problem. Here are some steps that can help with this:
1. Decide what soft skills are necessary
Decide what soft skills are necessary for your employees to have – your aim is to align this training with your business goals, for example, you might want to increase sales so you may focus on improving the soft skills linked to this.
2. Evaluate your current training programmes
Evaluate your current training programmes and see if there are any gaps. Ask yourself:
- What training do we give new employees?
- What training is offered to all employees?
- How is this training carried out?
- What training resources are accessible to employees?
- What is the feedback on current training offered?
- What training is missing?
- What training will help achieve our company goals?
3. Decide the format of your training programme
Decide the format of your training programme, for example:
- Mentoring
- On-site classroom training – lots of companies start with this but it’s expensive and difficult to scale.
- On-the-job learning
- Online classes and courses
- Blended learning – this is becoming particularly popular as it consists of a combination of classroom learning and online learning. For example, regular online classes combined with virtual reality.
The format of the training your pick depends on the:
- Company’s size
- Location of the employees – are they all in one location, or spread over countries?
- Content of the training
It’s better to have a programme that incorporates practical elements so employees can practice their skills through, for example, role plays or VR.
4. Rolling out the training
- Identify the resources you need – this depends on the type of training you are providing.
- Tell your employees about the training program and share with them the benefits, such as, career development opportunities. Also, get management to support the training so that they can help motivate employees.
- Set goals so you can assess whether your training program has been valuable and has made a positive impact.
- Measure the effect of the training and get feedback from the participants.
Immersive soft skills training using the VirtualSpeech platform.
Training programme tips:
- Training and development opportunities must be easily accessible for everyone or employees will lack the motivation to attend.
- Reward staff for getting involved with these opportunities because this gives them a reason to complete the training.
- Lots of employees want to take control of their own development by choosing the content of their training and completing it when it suits them. If you give them this chance they are more likely to perceive you and the training more positively. Online training is very effective for achieving this but when judging whether a course meets the requirements ask yourself:
- Is the content beneficial for our employees’ needs?
- Does the content cover enough?
- Has the learning been created by experts?
- Are there modules that involve practice?
- Is it easy to access and navigate?
- Ensure that you accommodate different learning styles so the majority of employees want to get involved – some employees may learn better with visual materials, others with aural materials etc.
Read our article on Corporate Learning for the New Generation of Employees for more information.
In conclusion
Schools aren’t teaching the necessary soft skills needed to succeed in the workplace, so the responsibility falls to companies to provide this training. If you don’t invest in upskilling your employees, you may be limiting your business.
A strong soft skills programme will give you a competitive advantage over other companies and increase the probability of future success.