SOFT SKILLS IN THE WORKPLACE: Why They Matter & How To Improve On Them
Soft skills are relevant skills everyone – employers and employees alike – need to possess notwithstanding their professional career because it gives a bedrock to establish one’s self as an ideal employer, employee, colleague, team lead or manager.
Exhibiting required and adequate soft skills within the workplace is becoming progressively important as many organizations look to add additional value to their businesses.
WHAT ARE SOFT SKILLS REALLY?
Soft skills are non-technical skills that show one’s ability to interact with others within the workplace. They are vital in building relationships are not directly related to specific jobs or tasks but are rather centered on the individuals.
These skills are not formally taught within the confines of a classroom, seminar, webinar or course tutorials. They require a certain level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) but that is not disagreeing with the fact that they can be developed or improved on.
HERE ARE TOP SOFT SKILLS TO GROW YOUR CAREER
Some of the top soft skills required to boost your professional career are stated below;
- Critical Thinking
There is a need for employees to be able to think on their feet and come about effective, efficient and sufficient solutions to problems within the workplace before they occur or escalate.
Critical thinking is vital to generation of new ideas, proffering effective solutions to certain problems or occurrences within the workplace, developing unique ways of completing tasks and providing alternatives to the modus operandi no matter the job role.
- Communication
This importance of a good communication skill cannot be overemphasized, in that, being able to communicate your ideas and expertise effectively is essential in growing in your professional career because you will have to communicate constantly over the course of your career.
Think of how many emails you send in a day – that is communication – as well as the phone calls you make with a prospects or clients, a discussion with your team members, colleagues or boss, or even a response to a query.
- Interpersonal Relationship
As much as having good soft skills may seem like a personality trait – it is essential to the success of your professional career.
The ability to work well with other team members makes you a good team player.
Assist your colleagues with a project or just pick up some of the slack. You will also gain a great reputation for yourself as a team player and that can lead to both short and long-term success in your career.
- Leadership
It goes without saying that great leaders are mentors and role models for their employees.
Great leaders know how to delegate and take a vested interest in the career success of their team members – not just their own growth – they also accept responsibility and criticism from others as well as delivering it and giving credit where credit is due.
- Work Ethics
This entails discipline, professionalism, commitment and dedication which also means showing great concern about your work and striving to be better at it.
Work ethics can also be regarded as the ability to accept feedback without getting defensive but rather thinking of ways to learn from it and respecting other people’s opinions.
- Time Management
You need to recognize the time frame of a project and be able to work within them by prioritizing which tasks deserve your attention first.
Being able to manage your time adequately and productively is essential to accomplishing your tasks and jobs well.
- Problem Solving
One important characteristics of a good problem solver is the ability to come up with effective and efficient solutions to existing problems.
You should be able to anticipate problems ahead of time and proffer creative alternative solutions towards addressing the foreseen issues before they arise.
- Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is not limited to just stepping in when there is a fracas among fellow colleagues.
It can likewise mean observing the various individuals on a team and finding sufficient solutions for all, also anticipating conflicts that may occur and preventing them, and equally assisting team members to understand each other’s perspectives.
- Responsibility
Everyone makes mistakes at one point or the other in life but a good employee recognizes and takes full responsibility for his/her own errors, rather than passing the blame to a fellow colleague or team member.
Even if the mistake was a group effort; he/she should own his/her part in it.
- Adaptability
Adaptability in the workplace entails realizing when to change course and being able to find other possible ways of completing projects/tasks.
This gives room for flexibility and is useful in a various settings. Projects may not meet designated deadlines, circumstances may change, workers be required to adapt in order to revise their approach and proffer ways of tackling them.
- Self-Motivation
Having a positive attitude towards work without around-the-clock supervision is an essential soft skill for any employee.
This demonstrates reliability and commitment and it also indicates that you can fit efficiently into certain organizational structures without constant supervision.
WHY DO WE NEED THESE SOFT SKILLS?
A report states that 57% of senior leaders today confirmed that soft skills are more important than hard skills, with creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and time management being among the most desired by employers.
Having to hire employees who lack some of these vital soft skills will put your business at risk of failing customers demand seeing that so many organizations have employees who possess an abundance of technical skills but lack some of these soft skills.
In a situation where your employees are skilled in obtaining clients, but are not retaining these customers, you may have a soft skills gap. And because of the soft skills gap, some organizations can face challenges that include lack of communication, collaboration, and problem solving.
A good instance to ascertain if your organization has employees with vital soft skills is to analyze how your employees acquire customers and how they retain them.
HOW YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR SOFT SKILLS
- Identify Them
Firstly, you need to identify where your strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to soft skills. By being self-aware, you can detect the area or areas where you are need improvement.
Check out the soft skills outlined above and make a list of the ones you practice and the ones you do not really practice.
- Ask For Feedbacks
When you have gotten a list of the soft skills you want to improve on, you can start practicing them in your day-to-day life and also consider asking for feedback from colleagues or your manager. If they do share feedback, listen without being defensive and be open to their suggestions.
- Get A Mentor
Having a mentor or life coach can help you work on improving your soft skills for effective results. But before choosing a mentor or life coach, ensure he/she is someone you can connect to or with and that he/she has the specified soft skills you wish to improve on.
Thank you for reading.
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