Research

THE HARD FACTS About Soft Skills

A survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council found that although MBA’s were strong in analytical aptitude, quantitative expertise, and information-gathering ability, they were sorely lacking in other critical areas that employers find equally attractive: strategic thinking, written and oral communication, leadership, and adaptability.
Research at DePaul University concluded that recruiters want business schools to pay more attention to people-oriented skills like leadership and communication. Students, however, frequently complain that those "soft skills" won't get them jobs, and they're pressuring their business schools to focus instead on functional or technical content, the researchers say.
One study found that among 358 randomly selected Johnson and Johnson managers, the best performing ones possessed significantly higher levels of self-awareness, self-management capability, social skills, and organizational savvy.
Research on more than 200,000 managers and workers at multiple companies during a 10-year period links employee recognition with financial performance. According to the data, companies that effectively recognized personal excellence had triple the profitability—as measured by return on equity (ROE)—in comparison with firms that didn't.
Although building workforce competency is generally focused on first-time employees, human resource professionals say in Critical Skills Needs and Resources for the Changing Workforce—a poll released in June 2008 by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in conjunction with WSJ.com/Careers—that many workplace soft skills have become more important for experienced employees than for new workers. These skills include critical thinking/problem solving, leadership, professionalism/work ethic, teamwork/collaboration, and adaptability/flexibility.
Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) has found that, while credentialing in the form of degrees and certificates is important, development of soft skills—skills that are more social than technical—will be a crucial part of fostering a dynamic workforce. Skills projected to be in the highest demand for all Indiana occupations through 2014 include active listening, critical thinking, speaking, active learning, writing, time management, and social perceptiveness.
Findings include that soft skills can not only improve employee performance and satisfaction but can also prepare technical workers for promotion into supervisory roles. Using the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (IDWD) occupation projections, IBRC found that projected needs for social skills are greater than the needs for technical, systems, and resource management skills.
In the America's Promise Alliance's Every Child, Every Promise (ECEP) report, economists Flavio Cunha and Nobel laureate James Heckman say soft skills are just as essential to a young person's success as the more frequently cited academic indicators. Yet according to Are They Ready to Work?, a report commissioned by leading organizations and associations representing the business sector, three-quarters of surveyed employers said that incoming high school graduates were deficient in soft skills. Additionally, 40% of employers said that the high school graduates they hire lack adequate soft skills competency for even entry-level jobs.

The ECEP data indicates that young people not only lack the soft skills themselves but the opportunity to develop them. Most students say they are not being sufficiently challenged in high school, their work is not relevant to potential future careers, and they experience few significant career-building opportunities such as internships. Although soft skills deficits are even more prominent among young people of color, from low-income families, and whose parents didn't graduate from high school, the deficits cross the lines of race, ethnicity, education level, and family income leaving almost all young Americans at risk of entering the workforce lacking the skills needed for success. Employees recognize that the incoming workforce will need expensive remedial training to learn critical soft skills.
A study by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) confirms the importance of strong soft skills in the development of effective leadership. Although leaders who were most effective during organizational transitions were skilled communicators—able and willing to articulate the rationale for change and good listeners who demonstrated sensitivity when dealing with employees—more than half the survey respondents reported that the leaders in their own organizations were not able to clearly communicate rationale for change.
Computerworld's 2007 hiring and skills survey reported that IT executives are increasingly looking for staff who demonstrate a broad range of soft skills in addition to their technical abilities. Survey respondents said writing and public speaking are two of the most important soft skills they look for when hiring new employees. Additionally, they favor candidates who understand the business process, can work well with a team, know how to get their points across, are inquisitive, use initiative, and are willing to take risks.
When hiring administrative staff—according to a 2007 survey conducted by OfficeTeam, HR.com, and the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP)—sixty-seven percent of human resource (HR) managers would hire an applicant with strong soft skills whose technical abilities were lacking. However, only nine percent would hire someone who had strong technical expertise but weak interpersonal skills.
The overwhelming majority (93 %) of the HR managers surveyed said technical skills are easier to teach than soft skills. The most in-demand soft skills cited by the managers are organizational skills (87%), verbal communication (81%), teamwork and collaboration (78%). problem solving (60%), tact and diplomacy (59%), business writing (48%), and analytical skills (45%). Also surveyed were IAAP members, who were asked to report the soft skills areas in which they would like to improve. The areas they mentioned the most were analytical, verbal communication, negotiation, and problem-solving.
In a Job Outlook 2008 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE), the top characteristics looked for in new hires by 276 employer respondents (mostly from the service sector) were all soft skills: communication ability, a strong work ethic, initiative, interpersonal skills, and teamwork.
In a survey of 100 human resources executives conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm, nearly half said that entry workers lacked writing skills and 27 percent said that they were deficient in critical thinking. “It appears that young employees are writing company e-mails as if they were texting cellphone messages with their thumbs,” noted the New York Times (Phyllis Korkki), adding, “in response employers a sending a message of their own: When you’re in the office, put on those dress shoes and start spelling your words correctly, and in full.”