‘Soft’ skills are more than just CV fluff

In 2015, McDon­alds attempt­ed to put a val­ue on soft skills to the UK econ­o­my – a fig­ure that came in at a whop­ping £88bn. Today, against a back­drop of skills gaps and ever­more com­plex work­ing envi­ron­ments, that fig­ure may be con­sid­er­ably more. A 2021 gov­ern­ment skills gap report found that after IT skills, the top five skills UK busi­ness­es were most in need of were all soft skills.

These soft skills are gen­er­al­ly defined as non-tech­ni­cal, trans­fer­able and inter­per­son­al skills, such as com­mu­ni­ca­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and crit­i­cal think­ing. While they are often dis­missed as some­thing appli­cants use to pad out their CVs, these vital qual­i­ties need nur­tur­ing and shouldn’t be tak­en for grant­ed. Not all jobs will require advanced tech­ni­cal skills, but pret­ty much every job requires a degree of organ­i­sa­tion and the abil­i­ty to col­lab­o­rate and com­mu­ni­cate well.

It’s this acknowl­edge­ment of their val­ue that has led soft skills to go through some­what of a rebrand in recent years. Ude­my Busi­ness’s 2022 Work­place Learn­ing Trends Report argued that it was no longer appro­pri­ate to call them ‘soft’ skills, as this implied “they rep­re­sent a less impor­tant set of skills in the work­place”. In real­i­ty, the report explained, “these skills aren’t just nice to have. They’re essen­tial for chang­ing the work­place.” And so, soft skills became ‘pow­er skills’. 

Sim­i­lar­ly, a 2021 report by Amer­i­ca Suc­ceeds pop­u­larised the term ‘durable skills’ to describe a com­bi­na­tion of char­ac­ter skills (such as being a team play­er) and appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge (such as cre­ativ­i­ty). It found that 70% of the most request­ed skills in US job post­ings would fall under this cat­e­go­ry. 

“Soft skills are becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant across all sec­tors, but par­tic­u­lar­ly in finance, account­ing and tech­nol­o­gy,” says Matt West­on, senior man­ag­ing direc­tor for the UK, Ire­land, UAE and Benelux at recruit­ment agency Robert Half. “Many busi­ness­es are mov­ing away from siloed ways of work­ing, and there­fore those in high­ly tech­ni­cal roles are now expect­ed to be able to clear­ly explain and com­mu­ni­cate com­plex mat­ters to oth­er teams and senior lead­ers, who may not have a good under­stand­ing of the work they do on a day-to-day basis.”

As organ­i­sa­tions piv­ot rapid­ly to keep up with dig­i­tal change, nav­i­gate uncer­tain­ty and break down silos, they’ll need flex­i­bil­i­ty and an abil­i­ty to learn fast. West­on explains: “Skills like adapt­abil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty remain impor­tant, par­tic­u­lar­ly as many employ­ers are adjust­ing their strate­gies to recov­er from any set­backs suf­fered as a result of the pan­dem­ic, and to take advan­tage of the buoy­ant econ­o­my. Many employ­ers are also seek­ing work­ers with plan­ning and organ­i­sa­tion­al skills who can bring their vision for the com­pa­ny to life in a time­ly, effec­tive and pro­duc­tive way.”

But per­haps even more cru­cial now are those skills that deter­mine how peo­ple relate to each oth­er. The hybrid, agile work­ing world is com­plex, diverse and accom­mo­dat­ing. Your staff will have to nav­i­gate rela­tion­ships both on and offline, on dif­fer­ent sched­ules and across teams. They’ll need to work just as smooth­ly with the remote employ­ee who’s a bit abrupt over Slack as they will with the close col­league they sit next to every day. 

McKinsey’s 2021 glob­al skills sur­vey found that respon­dents say­ing their com­pa­nies were address­ing inter­per­son­al skills and empa­thy skills had near­ly dou­bled in a year. And Raconteur’s own recent audi­ence polling saw com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion come out on top as the most impor­tant soft skills for hybrid work­ing, with empa­thy and under­stand­ing and adapt­abil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty also seen as impor­tant. Effi­cien­cy and time man­age­ment lagged firm­ly behind, sug­gest­ing that ensur­ing a har­mo­nious and hap­py team is per­haps more of a pri­or­i­ty now than sim­ply build­ing a pro­duc­tive one.

West­on explains the vital­i­ty of hav­ing the right inter­per­son­al skills to nav­i­gate the new world of work: “Emo­tion­al intel­li­gence is high­ly val­ued by employ­ers as busi­ness­es work to become more inclu­sive and instil a sense of belong­ing in employ­ees. Inter­per­son­al skills are cru­cial for man­agers and senior lead­ers to be able to effec­tive­ly man­age their teams and iden­ti­fy ten­sions that could impact reten­tion. While these com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills have always been impor­tant, they have become more desir­able in a world of hybrid teams, where it can be hard­er to pick up on cer­tain behav­iours or signs of burnout that would need to be addressed.”

Claire McCart­ney, senior pol­i­cy advis­er for resourc­ing and inclu­sion at the CIPD agrees that it’s vital for man­age­ment to expand and devel­op their soft skill set. She explains: “Effec­tive man­age­ment will be key to the suc­cess of hybrid work­ing for many organ­i­sa­tions. Man­agers should be sup­port­ed to devel­op a range of skills, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regards to com­mu­ni­ca­tion and time man­age­ment for exam­ple, as this will help them to best sup­port their teams to suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate hybrid work­ing.”

McCart­ney con­tin­ues: “It’s also impor­tant for organ­i­sa­tions to pro­vide spe­cif­ic train­ing for man­agers on how to man­age hybrid teams effec­tive­ly and sup­port hybrid work­ers, includ­ing per­for­mance man­age­ment, well­be­ing, inclu­sion and rela­tion­ship build­ing.”

Of course, devel­op­ing skills is also of great ben­e­fit to the employ­ee, and in the cur­rent tal­ent cri­sis, organ­i­sa­tions must be proac­tive in pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn. Recent research from Robert Half revealed that a quar­ter of employ­ees who are like­ly to look for a new role in 2022 say that bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties for career devel­op­ment and train­ing is one of the main push fac­tors behind their deci­sion. 

“Employ­ers that focus on build­ing skills – whether tech­ni­cal or soft skills – will be able to reap the rewards when those new skills are put into prac­tice with­in their organ­i­sa­tions, and it can also boost staff sat­is­fac­tion and improve reten­tion,” says West­on. “In today’s tight mar­ket where can­di­dates will often have more than one job offer on the table, addi­tion­al com­mit­ments, like train­ing, can be an impor­tant dif­fer­en­tia­tor, as it says a lot about how a com­pa­ny sup­ports its staff.” 

So, don’t be deceived by a name. Soft skills have hard busi­ness ben­e­fits and, espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent cli­mate, should have a seat at the table along­side tech­ni­cal skills in your hir­ing and train­ing strate­gies.