‘Soft skills’ as the foundation of the future of work – what you need to know

For companies, a focus on soft skills not only affects the bottom line, but contributes to improved talent attraction and, ultimately, better talent retention, says Juliane Sterzl

The world of work has completely transformed over the last two years, and people have had to change the way they interact with each other in the workplace. A huge part of this is that the ‘workplace’ no longer exists as it once did. It can still sometimes mean the shiny glass office of the past.  But it can also be a home office desk, a dining room table, or even a spot on the sofa. Today’s workplace is no longer confined by location, and people are communicating with their co-workers from everywhere and anywhere.

Of course, as work has increasingly entered the home, employees have had to adapt to brand new forms of communication and collaboration. In August last year, Gartner found there had been a 44% increase in workers’ use of collaboration tools since 2019. However, providing collaborative tools for employees is not enough on its own. Hybrid working presents a whole set of new challenges of how to communicate effectively over both screen and in-person. It should not be up to employees to navigate these difficult waters alone; businesses have a duty to provide support and training so that employees can more easily adapt to new processes and make for a cultural shift within the organisation as a whole.

Yet, despite this, just 23% of HR leaders have offered people development plans which focus on behavioural skills in the last year. This is not good enough. As we continue to move through the rest of 2022, HR leaders must shift gears to implement people development plans that prioritise ‘soft’, or behavioural skills, so that employees are better equipped for the new reality of their work lives.

Soft skills – what’s the hype?

So, what do we actually mean when we say ‘soft skills’? Soft skills are behavioural and interpersonal skills that sit outside of the specific requirements of one’s job, but that are nevertheless essential to being successful in a role. The phrase is an umbrella term, encapsulating skills such as strong communication, good teamwork, a knack for problem solving, the ability to be empathetic in the workplace, and much more.

These differ from the ‘hard’ skills which often make up the list of requirements on job postings. These can include anything from the ability to code, to understanding SEO, and the ability to make latte art – depending on the business. Ultimately, soft skills are about how you work, whereas hard skills are about what you do. But the two are entirely entwined. For instance, someone may be incredibly talented at writing concise, creative reports and campaign briefs. But, if they lack the communication skills to work with their team and generate ideas, the final product will never be as good as it could be.

Soft skills are for everyone, at all levels

The presence of soft skills in an organisation can also have a major impact on retention. For instance, it doesn’t matter how excited someone was to start their new role in an apparently remarkable company – if their manager is abrasive, absent or poor at communicating and training, they may very well leave. A weak manager in an office is one thing, but in a hybrid or remote working model it can be even more frustrating. The need for soft skills exists all the way up and down any company’s structure, no matter someone’s seniority.

Last year, Gartner found six key gaps between leader and employee sentiment. One major difference was that, while 75% of execs feel they take employees’ perspectives into consideration when making decisions, just 47% of employees feel the same. This is a big disparity. Here, soft skills like listening, empathy and communication on the part of the leaders could make a huge difference.

The challenge of soft skills is that they can be much harder to teach. They’re more intuitive, people skills, etc. which most of us aren’t exactly taught are a priority for being employable in school or university. Elements of it also come more naturally to some than others, but this doesn’t mean that everyone shouldn’t have access to training and resources that help them improve in this area.

Communication has changed forever

As we’ve already mentioned, the world has embraced a much more remote and hybrid approach to work in the last two years across many industries.  Almost all (97%) of learning and development leaders surveyed say that it’s important to adapt people development programmes to the current business climate challenges. However, it’s difficult to know if this has actually played out in practise. And with the majority (73%) of leaders admitting their employees complain of a lack of training and development, it seems highly possible that learning and development programmes are not yet doing enough to support workers and are failing to target the most important areas.

Employees have had to re-learn how to interact with, and in some cases lead, their co-workers through the medium of a screen in the past two years. Soft skills have arguably become even more important as employees work in these digital and hybrid workplaces, where the aids of body language and facial expressions may be lost through video or audio meetings. What’s more, according to IDC, many hybrid work models are still evolving, meaning we’re still not settled on a definite ‘new normal’.

It’s pivotal that organisations equip their employees for whatever the future of work may look like and ensure that they can continue to collaborate and communicate with each other. Now is the time to refocus on soft skills.

Wellbeing and resilience

Health and wellbeing is another core area that soft skills can assist in. Employees that are struggling in this capacity may often find communication, leadership and associated soft skills more difficult. Yet only a  very small proportion (13% and 38% respectively) of HR leaders have offered training on uncertainty and wellbeing in the last year. This is in spite of the growing mental health crisis brought on by the pandemic. A quarter of British employees hit a psychological breaking point during this time, and more than half of the global workforce admitted to experiencing significant damage to their health as a direct result of Covid-19. Employees shouldn’t settle for organisations that aren’t providing support in this area. It has therefore never been more apparent that businesses need to do more to support their employees with their mental health and wellbeing

One crucial soft skill that can help employees when it comes to health and wellbeing is resilience. Resilience is the ability of an individual to cope with a difficult or stressful situation. It allows employees to recover quickly from challenging, stressful events, while continuing to perform their tasks with optimism. Needless to say, this is important for overall productivity, but also for the general morale of teams and positivity of individual workers. Developing resilience, and other soft skills, can be done by adopting learning approaches that focus specifically on developing these types of skills – such as coaching. By embracing this, as well as providing strong support for employees, employers can ensure they are among those that will come out on top in today’s digital-driven workplace.

The companies that take the time to build a culture of openness and tolerance around these issues in the workplace will likely be the ones with happier, more effective workforces. This in turn boosts outputs, but it can also help with employee satisfaction and retention. And employees who have been better supported with their mental health will be better placed to develop hard and soft skills alike later down the line.

Building a people development programme that includes balanced, in-depth learning for employees on soft skills is an urgent requirement for businesses, and one that has long been under-served. For employees and new joiners, it is important to consider an organisation’s offer when it comes to the development of soft skills, as this is increasingly likely to be of significance when it comes to their overall career trajectory. For companies, a focus on soft skills not only affects the bottom line, but contributes to improved talent attraction and, ultimately, better talent retention.