You are probably a very busy businessman or woman with a packed schedule. But, pause to think whether the people you hired are indeed the right candidates for the job. It is essential that you take charge of making the right talent management decisions about your company’s hiring strategy. You would have done all that it takes to choose the right employee in terms of hard skills required for the job. It will, however, be of no consequence whatsoever if the hired worker does not possess any of the required soft skills needed to execute and complete the given task.

You require a talented candidate to handle a job-specific duty. For instance, if you are building an app, you will look out for a person with exceptional programming skills and experience. It will benefit you further if the individual fits in your company’s work culture. That is, however, not enough if you want them to succeed. If you have, for example, hired one of the best programmers you have come across, he/she still might fail to deliver if they lack specific soft skills like communication or teamwork. This may prove to be fatal if you have been trying to build an app with your team. The confusion that this can create could prove to be a hindrance to your accomplishment. This makes soft skills as important as hard skills, if not more.

Soft skills are social cues and personality traits that you do not learn in schools. Soft skills not only help build resilience, but it also plays a crucial role in keeping the employees engaged. These skills are very critical in every sphere of life and essential in all careers and industries. It encourages ownership and is needed for nurturing a supportive, fruitful, and healthy workplace.

Our world is changing, and so is the way we work. Everybody does not work together and with each other anymore. In the mere need to keep themselves relevant, businesses try to develop soft skills among their employees.

Paying attention to soft skills is working for businesses. That is proven by the fact that employees with high emotional intelligence or Emotional Quotient (EQ) perform far better than those with low emotional intelligence. Similarly, companies that encourage soft skills like collaboration and empathy outperform organizations that don’t value this.

Soft skills – what are they?

Soft skills, simply put, are non-technical skills that enable people to interact well and effectively with others. These skills are crucial and can affect behaviors, attitudes, culture, leadership, and mindset.

Soft skills fall into the following categories:

• Good negotiation and communication
• Teamwork and working together
• Time management skills
• Conflict resolution
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Management and leadership
• Listening skills and empathy
• Interpersonal skills
• Initiative-taking and entrepreneurship
• Problem-solving skills
• Willingness to acquire new learning skills
• Training and teaching skills

Attributes of soft skills also include work ethic, dependability, positivity, and motivation.

Today, there is an urgent need for workers who exhibit these skills apart from the hard skills that they are trained for. The soft skills of the employer and his team will decide the fate of the organization.

Hiring managers lookout for people with sound hard as well as soft skills. Your chosen candidate may have excellent technical and job-specific skills. They will, however, fail to succeed if they cannot handle their time or work together as a team. Soft skills are crucial in deciding the success of the person as well as the organization.

Build your team using soft skills

You might assume that you know what soft skills are required for a chosen job while interviewing candidates. However, you must bear in mind that two or more opposing attributes can be extremely useful sometimes. An outgoing individual can succeed in a given position as much as an introverted person. This also applies to curious vs. patient, or practical vs. creative.

Differences and diversity make a team

While teamwork is critical in any organization, difference or diversity of thought is equally important. When all team members think exactly alike, you might miss out on some crucial elements that could come in the way of your success.

When a group of people work on a particular project, similarities in many personality aspects or attributes might prove helpful. However, it closes the door to possibilities. If everybody in your group of, say, 15 members, has big ideas, there would not be anyone to point you out the small details that could be crucial to your win. Similarly, if there are people with great ideas in your team but none to execute them, it is of no use.

You must watch out for the gaps in your team while hiring candidates for a specific position in your company and pick the people who will add value to your group.

Every employee is unique and has a place

If a candidate that you thought would be a perfect fit for your team turns out to be the wrong person for the role, do not get rid of him/her. People are the greatest asset for any company. It is essential to evaluate if that person has attributes that suit another position in your organization. You must find out the personality strengths of that person and see if those strengths can be used elsewhere in your establishment.

Talk to the person and see what drives them. Figure out if you can offer a position that drives or motivates them to perform better.

Create a strong, unique team

Every person, no matter what position they are in, is unique. Celebrate the uniqueness of each of your employees. That is what will make you a strong and creative team and a force to reckon with.

Using TalenX’s service to put together your team

A person with strong soft and hard skills is likely to perform better and take bigger responsibilities. Every organization must aim at developing the soft skills of their employees.

TalenX’s services and Personality Inventory will give you individualized results for all your employees.

A good company will consider all soft skills or behavioral competencies while chalking out a career plan for their employees.

These skills will help you determine if the chosen candidate is equipped with the qualities required to embrace huge accountabilities and responsibilities. You can avoid choosing the wrong person for a specific position, which will otherwise lead to low productivity and high turnover.

TalenX Analytics, with high-quality technology, powered by I/O Psychology, will help match the skills of every employee with the job roles that he/she best fits in.

The high technology will enable you to strategize your company goals and align them with your manpower. You will have individualized guides to help design and chart their career paths in your organization.

Valuing soft skills

New and innovative jobs such as Augmented Reality Consultant and AI-Assisted Healthcare Technician have made their way into the job market. It is impossible to rely solely on work experiences and education while deciding to hire.

TalenX offers accurate information on leadership, critical thinking abilities, innovative skills, resilience, and many more. The tool is at least 86% more accurate in judging the success of a candidate in a specific job role in comparison to that which uses only work experience and hard skills to assess a candidate’s success.

Development plan based on validated psychometric tool results

TalenX compiles an individualized development plan for each employee depending on the results derived from the psychometric tool. There is no requirement for any professional training to understand the tool. Its intuitive language can be comprehended by any individual wanting to upskill themselves.

Provides accurate data to make unbiased decisions

It is easy to make biased decisions when someone claims to fit into a role. TalenX enables you to delve deeper into the soft skills of the employee. It can give you data-driven results to help you make the right hiring decision or identify an emerging manager/leader.

Soft skills – importance in a workplace

It is crucial to have excellent soft skills as the benefits are many. That includes:

• Improves relations among employees: Improving and developing your soft skills will improve your relationship with your coworkers.
• Reduces organization’s cost: Developed soft skills among employees can help reduce businesses cost due to increased efficiency. For example, a good and pleasant experience of a customer from a customer sales executive can improve the numbers of the sales team and help them win more customers.
• Less training required: If your employees already have good soft skills, it saves your company time and cost. Your firm will not need to train them on soft skills. Managers or team leaders can instead help the employees improve upon their soft skills.