Impacts of Emphasis on Soft Skills to the Employer, Employee and the Society - Essay Example

?Introduction Soft skills also known as people skills are individual based skills, which are hard to quantify, observe or even measure. Soft skills are essential in every aspect of life as they are necessary in tackling both life and work related issues. Soft skills involve interpersonal skills that touch on communication, listening, constructive engagement in dialogue, ability to give feedback, work as a team, provide solutions to work and work related problems and posses conflict resolution skills. Soft skills are applied to all levels of business management and operations in an organization. Leaders must be capable to build and manage teams, facilitate meetings, develop and encourage innovation, provide workable solutions to problems, delegation, observation and coaching. Hard skills are also known as technical/administrative skills that are necessary for an organizations success and overall operations. Hard skills are required for machine operators, computer administrators, safety officers and even financial procedures. Hard skills are easy to quantify, observe and even measure in an individual; moreover, they are attained through training and apprenticeship as opposed to soft skills which are acquired through life exposures and experiences (Wellington, 2005). Hard skills are easy to learn and acquire as they are physical skills that has no elementary background at the brains cell level. Soft skills are learnt as we grow, interact, do mistakes and get exposed to different life and work situations. Once incorporated and integrated into ourselves, soft skills cannot be replaced. This is because the brain cannot simply delete the behaviours and skills that we may feel are unnecessary. Acquiring these skills can also present a challenge once an individual has grown and become so adept to his old practices. Human resource experts and managers have shifted their focus to soft skills as opposed to hard skills. This has resulted into a wide array of situations for the society, the employees and the employers. In this paper, the analysis of the impacts that this focus has created will be evaluated and critically discussed. Prominence will be given to the advantage of this new approach especially to the domestic and international human resource management and labour issues (Schulz, 2008). Impacts of emphasis on soft skills The increased demand for more employees with both the technical and hard skills has been attributed to the recent happenings in the business world. Competition has reached the highest level and organisations are striving to outdo each other in their innovativeness and good public relations. The growth in multinational companies and globalisation has also created another frontier for competition. The international market is more averse with technology and seeks quality and value in the services and products they seek to buy. All these have prompted human resource managers to develop new ways of promoting, recruiting and assigning responsibilities to their employees (Wellington, 2005). Technology intense projects have proved to have high failure rate when compared to projects that integrate the soft skills of the employees. Failure in any project that the organisation has invested a lot of resources, time and staff reduces the company’s competitive advantage and position in the market. This calls for individuals who can fuse both the hard skills that they posses to their soft skills to make them more viable and productive. The increasing competition in the job market and the increase in the number of fresh graduates and technical expertise have made it quite difficult to choose the best individual to engage (Riley, 2006). In an economy where the applicants have the same training, university academic staff and same graduate degrees, a new approach on how to choose new employees should be adopted. Human resource managers have in the recent past, resorted to sorting out the best employees based on soft skills as opposed to the hard skills. As all graduates will have the same technical skills, an approach that now looks at the interpersonal skills will enable an organization attract the best employees. Competition in the global and domestic market has made important for organizations to develop better and highly innovative products. Talent and individual capabilities are essential traits of employees in today’s highly competitive economic environment (Onisk, 2011). The approach that puts emphasis on the soft skills of an individual’s has a number of impacts on the organizations capabilities, talent pool and innovative nature. It also affects the roles of the employees as it defines new roles, responsibilities and attitudes; thus, the society has a major role to play in the development of soft skills in an individual. Giving prominence to soft skills presents a new role to the society as far as personal development is concerned. The education facilities and institutions must also adopt new curricula’s that puts more emphasis on the developing the personal faculties of an individual together with the technical skills. This will ensure that an all rounded individual who fits comfortably into the current job market is created (Bancino, 2007). The desire to recruit, train and retain employees for a longer period of time directs the actions of human resource managers today. As a result, the shift from hard skill based employees to soft skilled employees has been as a result of the urgent need to ensure that a company boosts it highly talented pool of people. This shift from hard to soft skills has a number of impacts on the employees both positive and negative with have similar impacts on the performance of the business. Dependable, resourceful, ethical, self directed and individuals with great communication skills who are willing to work and learn with a positive attitude has changed the thinking of human resource managers (Babic and Marko, 2011). When shopping for information service professionals to engage, human resource managers have adopted a number of ways to ascertain their qualification. An information service employee, according to a company interviewed by Forbes 500 will interact with both the technical aspect of the job and with the customers. As a result, such a person must have both the technical skills to enable him carry out the job effectively. However, of much importance is how he will be able to handle the customer. Customers are more patient and comfortable with individuals who are personable and patient and able to understand their concerns from the angle of a user. This makes soft skills of great importance to information services employees just like it is to other employees in other sectors of the economy (Bancino, 2007). The employers today change their concentration on the degrees and academic qualifications of employees as the number of technically qualified individuals has risen significantly. The ability to differentiate raw talent from critical and nurtured talent determines the success and innovativeness of the business. Employers must be in a position to create an environment that can enable it to attract, retain and train staffs on the positive values that are part of soft skills. This means that an organization should not just concentrate on attracting and recruiting employees with the right soft skills must also be able to train and nurture the same skills on the employees they already have. As a result, such employees may help in achieving the organizations target and continue the development of new and innovative products (Riley, 2006). Recruiting employees based on the soft skills that they possess presents a major challenge to the human resource department as far as promotion and remuneration is concerned. In a system where every individual has the capability to handle situations that require personal abilities, competition is high and the basis upon which an employee may get a promotion may be based upon their performances. Soft skills, just like hard skills cannot be developed without training and exposure. Employers must also develop proper training opportunities for their employee that seeks to improve on their interpersonal, communication and problem solving skills. Presenting an employee with a situation that requires their ability to think critically and apply problem solving skills. Fresh graduates from our colleges and university may possess the technical skills but lacks the exposure to enable them develop the soft skills (Ajir and Ashwani, 2011). As opposed to hard skills, which can be changed and improved through exposure, and more training, soft skills changing and moulding is more difficult. Soft skills can only be changed at an early stage of an individual’s development and growth. Recruiting and hiring employee with none of the skills that the organisation requires translates to failure as it will be much more difficult to impart these soft skills on an individual on job (Onisk, 2011). It is therefore upon their first employers to present them with opportunities, which can enable them to develop the soft skills. Identifying individuals with great personality and desire to learn is the first critical step for such organizations. This will enable them develop and enhance these skills to suit their requirements and needs to improve their competitive advantage. Soft skill training by employers is also important because it lacks in most curricula’s in high institutions. This means that graduates leave the universities with hard skills alone without the benefits of possessing the soft skills, which has been the focus for most employers. No one else is in a better position to develop and advance these skills on the fresh workers accepts their pioneer employers (Ajir and Ashwani, 2011). Integrity and honesty are virtues that every organization seeks to find in its employees. Soft skills lead to the development of an individual with high personal integrity and honesty that can enable the organization to trust and delegate important duties to its employees. Lack of integrity has been attributed to the high number of layoffs, which causes the loss of highly resourceful individuals from the organization. Training on integrity, openness and honesty improves the level of public trust on an organization and the general image that other market players have on the organization. Employers’ decision to put emphasis on soft skill thus leads to increased level of openness and honesty in the organization. Generally, soft skill emphasis on recruitment exercise improves an organization’s capabilities, strengths and human resource pool. It increases the competitive advantage of the employer and its ability to advance in its innovative products and market share (Onisk, 2011). The shift to soft skills has a number of impacts on the employees and job seekers alike. With the increasing competition in the job market, the ability to appeal to the employer depends on the ability to present both the technical and soft skills. Emphasis on the technical or hard skill has changed significantly among the employees and both local and multinational organization. Retention, promotion or demotion is today based on the skills that an employee possesses apart from the technical skills. This makes a mandatory for employees to develop and integrate soft skills into their technical knowledge. Self-development, talent and innovativeness are used as the basic index for promotion or retention in organizations (Riley, 2006). An organisation that boost of a pool of highly skilled employees armed with both soft and hard skills is placed at a better competitive advantage. Today, the ability to negotiate and communicate effectively to both other industry players and the clients enables an organisation to communicate and factor in the desires of the target market. Recruiting and retaining a pool of employees with the necessary soft skills also enables an organisation to posses the expertise that can effectively present the position of the company to stakeholders and shareholders through oral presentations and communication (ODEP, 2010). A mixture of soft and hard skills improves the ability of an employer to create new products and provide solutions of challenging situations with ease. Bancino (2007) attributes the growing attention that employers have placed on soft skills to improve their strategic and consultative people level. This will make it possible for such organisations to consult from within whenever a situation that requires critical thinking arises. This advantage cannot be gained if an organisation focuses on the technical skills of its employees only while neglecting the other important and equally resourceful soft skills. Employees and other people already in the organisation must be able and willing to develop the soft skills in order to have a place in the organisations leadership position. As a result, there is increased competition among the employees who strive to develop on the essential skills that can improve their interpersonal, interactive, leadership and communication abilities. Personal integrity and honesty pays more than the technical skills and experience in this scenario. As a result, the focus on soft skills has a created a workforce that is dedicated towards culturing and nurturing integrity, openness and transparency (Redford, 2007). The shifted focus to soft skills has also presented a challenge to a number of employees who were already in an organisation. From the tradition of experience and vast knowledge pays to focus in personal attributes, employees have been on the rush to gain some of these soft skills through training and mentorship. Leadership roles are also assigned to employees not based on their experience and vast technical skills but their ability to show leadership and direction to other employees at all times. Promotion and appraisal in organisation has also shifted from hard skills based to the ability of an employee to handle situations and show directions to fellow staff members. This makes it a challenge to those is already in such leadership positions but lack the essential soft skills (ODEP, 2010). College graduates and other unemployed youths who are armed with technical skills but lack the ability to innovate and pursue their talents for the good and growth of an organisation they desire to work for may be faced with unemployment for long. This is due to the fact that the employment process seeks to identify the soft skills in an individual and their talents, hobbies, creativity and innovativeness. This makes it hard for those with the traditional attitude of getting employment to enhance continuity in organisations (Robles, 2012). Samsung international seeks creative and innovative information and computer science graduates who can be able to improve the quality of the products they avail to the market. They already have the technical resources and their focus and target currently is to recruit not only those with technical qualifications but those who are capable of thinking and developing products which can place them at a better edge in the competitive world of electronics and mobile telephony (Babic and Marko, 2011). The society comprises the people immediately around us, our learning institutions and religious centres. Soft skills are gained not only from schools but also from the people we live, interact and play with. That forms the core of the society and this shift to soft skills has some consequences and implication to them too. First, the society is the first body to interact and influence an individual; therefore, the characters and values of such a community will influence and shape the behaviours of an individual. The society has a major role of developing positive behaviours in people that may be of benefit later in the job market (ODEP, 2010). Our institutions must also think beyond the technical and hard skills that they strive to impact on their students. A change of curriculum to include the study of soft skills will enable students and graduates appreciate the importance of such skills later in life. Leadership and responsibility are traits, which are nurtured in individuals, are they are not inborn. The universities and colleges must provide an environment that nurtures and grows leadership and responsibility in their student and graduates (Robles, 2012). The attitude if university curriculum must also be overhauled from making and baking job seekers and breeding a crop of future leaders who can innovate and create job opportunities through their creativity. This change therefore creates a major challenge not just to the graduates but also the institutions that moulds and prepares them for corporate responsibility. The more soft skills are integrated into the technical trainings of graduates, the more successful and desired they will be, this will increase their demand and use in the highly competitive world market and improve the competitiveness of organisations they work for. The intangible soft skills are continuously growing in demand for they have proved to produce more tangible results that can be measured in terms of an organisations success and ability to compete favourably (Redford, 2007). Conclusion The development of soft skills and great personal attributes is a personal thing that seeks to benefit the individual more than the any other person. Individuals with more soft skills are easy and more fulfilling to work with as opposed to working machines that have no ability to interact with others effectively. The increased demand for employees with more soft skills has created a need for change in our education curriculum as it influences the ability of an individual to gain meaningful employment. Innovativeness and uniqueness defines the ability of an organisation to cut a niche for itself in the highly competitive world market. Individuals who can improve the competitive advantage of the organisation are the best crop to move the world of business forward. There is therefore need for individuals to develop and nurture soft skills as they seek to gain the hard skills through training and apprenticeship. References Ajir, C, and Ashwani, K., 2011, ‘Communicative approach to soft and hard skills’, international journal of business and management research., Vol. 1 (1), 1-6. Babic, V and Marko, S., 2011, ‘Soft and hard skills development: a current situation in Serbian companies’, management and knowledge learning international conference. Bancino, R., 2007, ‘Soft skills: the new curriculum for hard-core technical professionals’ techniques: Connecting Education and Careers, v82 n5 p20-22. ODEP, 2010, ‘Effective integration of technology and instructor-led training to promote soft skills mastery’, New York: office of disability empowerment. Onisk, M., 2011, ‘Is measuring soft skills training really possible?’ [Online] Available at: Read More