The drive for organisations to be more productive is a never-ending challenge, and here we will show you why soft skills are vital in making any organisation more efficient.
Having technical skills are no doubt important but equally what employers need are the interpersonal and people abilities too.
Soft skills are the people and interpersonal skills required in most jobs. Both technical and soft skills are necessary, but they are quite different. Technical skills are easy to measure and can be learnt, the softer skills can also be developed but require practice and are not as easy to measure – but matter hugely.
Improved Communication
An employee may have the most incredible technical abilities and knowledge, but if they cannot communicate effectively then their company will struggle to succeed. We all communicate slightly differently. Being able to adapt your style of communication to different people so that your message is clearly understood by all, will help you to influence and persuade others, improve the sense of team engagement, and lead to higher performance.
Team Building
Creating a cohesive team comes from great open communication, explaining and getting buy in from people about how their role fits into the grander scheme is essential and hugely important. It often releases discretionary effort and sense of direction and pride. An effective team resolves disputes with speed, fairness, and trust. Effective teams are far more accountable and understand a business’s priorities, this can all come from a good leader and/or from qualities of the team itself.
Change
Any organisation that wants to successfully thrive through change will need people with interpersonal skills to help navigate to the end goal. Leaders and staff who are able to communicate regularly and honestly with their employees is imperative; especially as many handle the complexities and disturbance of change in very different ways. Celebrating and recognising successful milestones in a change journey and the efforts of people is just one way to make the journey smoother.
Improved Decision Making
Having the ability and skills to make efficient and effective decisions some find easy, whilst others with training, experience, confidence and sometimes bravery can learn. Without these skills decisions are often either not made or made in haste. Learning how to problem solve, using intuition, leadership and assertiveness all play a part in decision making. Also as with many observed positive behaviours, others see our decisiveness and therefore often become more confident decision makers themselves – Behaviour breeds behaviour!
Reduced turnover of staff
Hiring staff takes time and is an expensive process, keeping great staff is what most businesses strive for. The skills of motivation, staff development, praise, encouragement, emotional intelligence, leadership, conflict management, compassion, collaboration and managing staff welfare all count hugely to people. Those who possess and have learnt excellent interpersonal skills will find that navigating these subjects and issues well will not go unnoticed by others. The morale of those working in a supported and challenging environment is clearly a bonus to all resulting in productive, motivated, and valued people who stay.
Final thoughts
We hope you have found that these attributes of soft skills can help your organisation be more effective. It’s all about people – our most valuable asset.
As Richard Branson said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”