'It's a call to action for companies to help employees develop these particular skills'
When it comes to promotions, people who list their soft skills as well as their hard skills on LinkedIn are promoted eight percent faster than those who only listed hard skills.
Additionally, employees who added new skills on a quarterly basis were promoted 11% faster than those who did it intermittently, according to a LinkedIn report.
“For talent professionals, that’s a good reminder that these soft skills should be a serious part of your hiring criteria,” the researchers write. “It’s also a call to action for companies to help employees develop these particular skills.”
Soft skills training is a culture-wide shift
However, soft skills aren’t something that can be trained over a weekend workshop or a seminar, according to Priya Mistry, director of open enrolment and executive programs at the Sauder School of Business.
Instead, it’s about a company-wide culture shift that requires buy-in from all levels of the organization, from senior management to junior staff, she said.
“You can't just have an away-day once a year, or a training program once a year and leave it at that,” Mistry said. “You can change that mindset and the structure of a team as a collective, rather than just as one individual. Changing it with your team actually really helps.”
Programs that focus on topics such as mindful leadership, conflict management and impactful communication are popular with professionals who are realizing that connection with colleagues is becoming just as important as technical accomplishments or quotas reached, she said.
Immersive programs that apply theory and practical methods of learning are the most effective, she said, but these have to be long term.
“That is a very hands-on type of learning, where you're thinking about your challenges that you have in your workplace, discussing them, applying them, having that personalized feedback, and then taking those lessons back to your workplace,” Mistry said.
“You need to continue, whether that's reading a book or reading articles, learning with your peers, doing some practical exercises as a team … soft skills come with practice, it is actually something you have to invest in.”
What’s the ROI on soft-skills? The intangibles
In its The Future of Jobs Report 2023, the World Economic Forum (WEF) listed soft skills as the top nine skills most valued by employers, excepting “technological literacy” at number six. As AI and other technology advances, cognitive and other “human skills” are expected to become more and more in demand, the WEF reported in its findings.
Analytical thinking, creative thinking, resiliency and agility were all soft skills that employers ranked in their top 10 most sought-after skills when hiring.
LinkedIn’s data showed the soft skills that had the strongest correlations to faster promotions were organizational skills, teamwork, problem-solving and communication – all skills that are not easily quantified with financial gains but trackable through other data like engagement surveys, retention and turnover rates.
“We are a bit more hybrid; there are multiple generations and different dynamics that you have to work with, those soft skills are now more important than ever before,” Mistry said.
“If they're happier, they're going to be more productive, they'll actually do more for you. They'll work longer hours, they will stretch themselves and go the extra mile … you'll see an improvement even in your customer service, or how people actually see your organization.”
