Posted by Vanessa Branscome on Jul 4, 2019 10:00:00 AM

A Shifted Focus on Soft Skills Training

Tips From Your Corporate Training Company

Employee Soft Skills Training_TrainingFolks

 

Out with the old and in with the new. The beginning of a new cycle often brings various changes for organizations. The emphasis is on refining strategies and exceeding past performance levels. One ongoing priority for employers is to focus on evaluating candidates for soft skills in the workplace while also investing in ensuring their current teams possess these essential qualities. While there has traditionally been more emphasis on hard skills, the realization has grown that there's a need to balance this with strong soft skills among employees.

 



When employees don’t hire the right fit, this can be extremely costly to them. Hard skills can always be learned, but it takes time to develop soft skills. Investing in the development of employees’ soft skills training courses will result in an increase in leadership potential, satisfaction in the workplace, and work performance.

Here are some of the top skills that employees are looking for and how you can integrate them into your next soft skills training programs.

 

Emotional Intelligence

According to Psychology Today, emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to identify and manage our own emotions as well as the emotions of others. People who have high EI skills can respond better in stressful situations or when under pressure. This is highly valuable in the workplace, especially when dealing with teammates or customers. Employees with high EI skills know how to foster healthy relationships where everyone feels respected and the conversations are both positive as well as productive. Employees with high EI skills also help increase customer satisfaction levels and are better for business overall.

Before going into training, your employees should have a general understanding of what their EI levels are so that they can assess their progress as changes are made. Asking questions such as “How do you handle stress?” and “Do your feelings have an impact on decisions you make in the workplace or how you treat others?” are crucial in helping your employees determine EI levels. Organizations should develop stress management techniques and the training should also include a measure of empathy building.

Creativity

Organizations are looking to add creative minds to their team more now than ever before. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Mark Cuban states that many jobs that are now considered safe will soon become redundant due to increased automation and that free thinkers or creative minds will be the ones who survive in the job market.

Employees need to start being trained on how to think out of the box in order to come up with fresh, new solutions to problems. After all, creativity is what sparks big ideas and generates passion and excitement.

Brainstorming sessions and role-playing are both great techniques to incorporate in the work environment. Allow your employees time to bounce ideas around with each other to help take current processes or ideas to the next level.

Adaptability

Employees who can easily adapt to an ever-changing workplace are crucial to companies. Problems will arise and companies need employees who can adapt to the situation and resolve conflicts without panicking.

Integrating the skill of adaptability into your next training can be a lot easier than you think. Managers should support their employees in developing this skill by providing additional opportunities to work on new skills outside of their current skill set. Engaging in activities that lie outside of our comfort zones will help us become more adaptable. Knowledge-sharing sessions across different departments are a great place for this to take place as well.

Learning how to become adaptable will enable you to work with a wide variety of people who all have different skills and perspectives and be able to collaborate with them.

Time Management

With multiple projects coming at you from every direction, time management is an important soft skill to learn. Some advantages that come along with effective time management skills include decreased stress and anxiety, improved productivity, as well as increased work quality.

We’ve all heard the saying that “time is money.” If employees are getting less work done than they should, they are essentially costing their employers money, which is why training your employees on this skill is important.

Managers should be able to assess their employees’ productivity to make sure they are making the most use of their time. Reviewing the steps and processes that an employee takes in their job can be a great way to make sure they are being as efficient as possible. Employees can also create to-do lists and learn to start their days off with the activities that will yield the highest results.

By implementing more of these soft skills within employees, you will see a more positive impact in the companies they work for. Not only will the interactions and relationships among clients, customers, and other stakeholders be improved, but performance within teams will also increase as employees will start to contribute a greater deal to their company’s vision.

If it is time to build out a new soft skills employee training program for your workforce, get in touch with the corporate training experts at TrainingFolks today.  Our experienced team will work with you to ensure the right skills are put into place for long-term success of your evolving organization.

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https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/emotional-intelligence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&amp=&v=CxD4F3MQRDI

 

Topics: corporate training company, emotional intelligence, soft skills training, employee soft skills

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