These days people more and more frequently tend to point towards soft skills as the keys to professional success. But what can be defined as a soft skill, and why is it that important?
It turns out that the term 'soft skills' first appeared in the U.S. Military between 1986 and 1972. Since the 1960s American Army had been investing substantial amounts of resources into developing training procedures. The researchers noticed that one of the main factors determining the victory of soldiers’ groups was how they were led. Thanks to one of the U.S. Army's training manuals, 1972 was the year when 'soft skills' have finally started to be a widely used term.
Soft skills are opposition to hard skills. So, what do these terms mean?
The term 'hard skills' refers to technical and administrative competence; meanwhile, soft skills are linked much more to people's emotional side. Soft skills tend to be defined in a variety of ways. The Collins English Dictionary explains this term as "desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge; they include common sense, the ability to deal with people and positive, flexible attitude." Various definitions generally link to particular character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person's relations with others.
Examples of soft skills include the ability to communicate with clients, mentor coworkers, lead people, or negotiate. Those qualities lead to developing self-awareness, self-management, ethical decision-making, and the feeling of responsibility for a person's behavior.
The "Future of Education and Skills 2030" report by OECD highlighted the growing importance of soft skills in education due to globalization, advancements in technology, and especially the AI. It has also highlighted the importance of metacognition in the essential process of lifelong learning. Metacognition can be defined as "thinking about thinking" and "knowing about knowing." This quite general term describes the study of monitoring memory, self-regulation, and self-awareness.
For a long time, hard skills were thought to be the only necessary competencies for a successful career. Employers and companies used to depend on them because they are easily measurable.
In recent years significant changes in perceiving humans in the labor market have been made. A Career Builder survey from 2014 revealed that 77% of employers believe that soft skills are equally important as hard skills.
The education system has also developed its ways to start shaping students' sets of soft skills. Group projects are often described as the most common way to improve those particular skills in young people. However, an objective evaluation of these projects remains a significant obstacle.
But are soft skills realty that profitable to companies?
The answer can be found in the results of an experiment run by Namrata Kala, assistant professor of economics at MIT Sloan, who was accompanied by her colleagues from the University of Michigan and Boston College. They have partnered with Indian garment manufacturer Shahi Exports and discovered that a 12-moth soft skills training program focused mostly on communication, problem-solving, decision making, and stress management delivered a 250% return on investment. It also turned out very beneficial for the workers participating in the experiment, who claimed that it had increased their self-esteem, assertiveness, and confidence.
In the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, depending solely on hard skills might be a disastrous choice. Advancements in the process of robotization can pose a severe threat to people working in jobs requiring repetitively performed technical abilities.
Professions that are at least at risk of automation are mostly jobs that involve the substantial use of soft skills and human observation, for example, medicals, lawyers, supervisors, or managers.
Those facts unanimously speak in favor of soft skills such as communication, courtesy, flexibility, integrity, interpersonal skills, professionalism, or teamwork. That's why developing various methods of soft skills training could not only help companies in raising their effectiveness and returns but also local workers and societies on the road to greater prosperity and the feeling of professional fulfillment.
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