Soft Skills - Can They be Taught in the Classroom?

More and more companies are measuring soft skills in their work force and evaluating their impact on performance. Only recently do we have evidence that soft skills may be age- and occupation-related. This is based on four different studies. The first two studies were conducted in the fall of 2008 (Target Training International). Nine hundred college freshmen from two Midwest universities were asked to respond to an assessment that measures 23 specific soft skills. The results from both groups (business and engineering majors) indicated that, as a group, they have almost no mastery in these 23 soft skills. In fact, their lowest scores were in decision making.

In the spring of 2009, a small group of seniors were given the same survey. The results showed only a slight improvement.

Curriculum or Practice?

Looking at the numbers, it is becoming more and more apparent that certain soft skills cannot be taught in the classroom. To mention a few:

• Interpersonal Skills
• Personal Effectiveness
• Futuristic Thinking
• Self-Management
• Diplomacy
• Goal Orientation
• Flexibility

To support this hypothesis, a group of employed adults (1632) were given the same assessments. Specifically, the research was looking for correlations among people who are passionate about knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Many Ph.D.s fall into this category. The evidence was very clear on all 23 soft skills: There were no correlations strong enough to predict a person will actually develop soft skills based on curriculum knowledge. The assessment used did not measure their knowledge of the skills; it measured their mastery of the skills and the use of these skills in their work. In other words, Do they walk their talk?

Only 27% of large organizations are Transferring Knowledge from retiring baby boomers to younger employees.

• -Novations Inc.

The bookstores are full of self-help books that would lead you to think that buying a book can lead to developing and mastering certain soft skills. Merely reading a book on how to persuade others will not make you a successful sales person.

So what are we to do? The knowledge needs to be incorporated into activities, experiences and games. Practicing what you preach is the most promising method of developing soft skills. Our ThinkBox tools keep these activities and experiences at the forefront of an employee's personal development through easy to access online tools and self-coaching guides.

A Flooded Candidate Pool...Yet Still Making the Wrong Hire?

With all the candidates available to hire these days, why are organizations still unable to make great hiring decisions? The answer is simple: BIAS. Attracting candidates is easy today. Screening out all of the unqualified to discover a superior performer is the real challenge. This challenge also means we must look at the job objectively and eliminate any biases that keep us from selecting the best candidate.

We all see the world from our own viewpoint. This viewpoint is influenced by how we value experience, knowledge, economics, aesthetics, altruism, power and tradition. When we are confronted by a person who sees the world differently, our views could be called biases. Neither right or wrong, nor good or bad, biases are simply a reflection of our personal viewpoint. Oftentimes, this personal viewpoint is unknowingly injected into the hiring process even when it is not relevant to a specific position or to the organization itself. When this happens, it creates a barrier, preventing us from selecting truly superior performers.

Today we have laws that keep us from acting on our biases as they relate to gender, age and nationality, but there are still biases that get in the way. Many people are also unknowingly biased on experience, education and intelligence, and this keeps them from selecting superior performers. In addition, people bring much more to the job, including their passion, beliefs, personal skills, and behaviors. Perhaps one of the most important personal skills is that of personal accountability, and most companies do not have an awareness of its importance, nor do they have a way to measure it.

Determining the ideal candidate for a position can prove to be not only the most frustrating part of the hiring process, but also the most difficult. Each person involved in the hiring process will have his or her own idea of what skill set, experience and education is required for the position. Job descriptions begin to assist recruiters, internal and external, in narrowing down the resume requirements. Meanwhile, the personal skills, behavioral style, attitude and motivations of the ideal candidate tend to be undefined and left up to the interviewer. This type of hiring process becomes subjective, rather than objective, and leaves all involved parties frustrated and with less than desirable results.

Typical hiring processes allow for little preparation time on the front end, with more time allotted for interviewing. This often results in a partially or even completely wrong hire, which, in turn, contributes to significant managerial time loss. By turning the process around, you will save time and energy, and improve your hiring decisions, therefore improving your bottom-line.

Our system creates a screening assessment based on the behaviors needed to help the organization reach its goals. Plus, it provides behavioral interviewing guides that help you go deeper in discovering the right hire. These tools and processes, has allowed us to achieve a 92% retention rate on the people we placed using these tools. Eliminating bias is the key to successful hiring. The only way to achieve this is through an objective process that looks at all aspects of the ideal candidate.