My previous post on soft skill listed the types of soft skill one should have to be employer but I wondered, what if one doesn’t have it can it be learnt? And what exactly are their importance?
Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, mindsets, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients, among others, that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.
While your technical skills and certificate might get you to the door but your soft skill will get the door open. The importance of soft skill are not talked about much and there are less training for them.
More organizations look out for Soft skills and they are increasingly becoming the hard skills of today’s workforce, you need to develop softer, interpersonal and relationship-building skills that help people to communicate and collaborate effectively.
Can a person Learn Soft Skills?
Soft skills cannot be easily learnt like technical ability, hard skills or reading to pass an exam but they can certainly be developed and improved over time.
I’ll rather go to a pleasant and welcoming Doctor than one who tightens his face as if he carries the problem of the world.
Improving your soft skills makes you the best among your peers and everyone’s favorite but it can be tricky as this requires quite a lot of introspection, Soft skills are help build one’s ability to work with others and can have a positive influence on furthering your career. If you are a small business owner or self-employed, soft skills can help you find, attract, and retain clients. On the other hand, a lack of it can limit your potential or be the downfall of your business
Tip on how you can improve on your soft skill
self-reflection.
Be honest about your shortcomings, recognize and acknowledge the areas in which you need to improve, an evaluation of your business’s performance deficiencies, or through feedback or you ask people closer to you to help you identify your true strengths and weaknesses.
Plan of action
Have you identified those areas you need to improve on, now look for some online courses that will help you learn skills that would be useful in the workplace
Observe and learn from others.
There are many others you can emulate from, look up to people with exemplary soft skills you want to improve, create a relationship and seek for advice.
Practice.
With enough practice and training, you can improve. With the training and coaching you’ve gotten, practice with people around you before your interview, this will help boost your confidence
This answers the question “why are oft skills important?
- Career progression and promotion
- The modern workplace is interpersonal
- Customer service
- The future workplace will rely on soft skills
- Soft skills are hard to automate
- Soft skills are in high demand by recruiters
Benefits
Gain confidence
Increased productivity
Maintain relationships
Improved teamwork
Grow a network
Improved retention rates
Establish a reputation
Improved employee satisfaction
Improves leadership
Attracts new clients
Creating and growing your personal network and making professional contacts.
By developing strong leadership, teamwork, and communication abilities, you can run projects more smoothly, deliver results that please everyone, and even positively influence your personal life by improving how you interact with others.
Developing your soft skill is very important and does matter a lot, not just for job purposes but in every facets of your life.
