Importance of Soft Skills in the Future Success of the Students

By: Arijit Dey & Lucy Tudu

Introduction

Soft Skill is a personal attribute that supports situational awareness and enhances an individual’s ability or skills to get the work done. It also improves and enhances the EmotionalQuotient of an individual and helps them maintain the emotional stability during trying situations and handle stress more effectively.

In this article, we will attempt to explain what soft-skills really mean in simple terms and how or why they are so critical for the future of the students.

Image Source: www.thebalancecareers.com

Understanding the Soft Skills

In away, Soft Skills can be considered as super set and the communication as a proper sub set of that super set.Soft skills can be defined as the way one interacts with fellow people (as individual or as a group) and the various kinds of emotional and cognitive trends and signals that are being displayed and exchanged overtly or covertly during such social or professional settings. Soft skills are all about the way an individual perceives the world around and within, processes it and then act/ react accordingly. A lot of emphasis is on ‘How’ an individual processes any stimulus as this determines largely ‘What’ the response would be.

The soft-skills are the part of an individual’s personality – they define their attitude and shape their behavior. The soft-skills are difficult to quantify and measure but they do form the foundation of a successful personal and professional life. The soft-skills are also known as “People Skills” as they form the basis of the inter-personal relation and the quality of it between two individuals.

Few Examples of Soft-skills:

Image Source: www.ionos.co.uk

Soft-skills Vs. Hard-skills

 Hard skills are the technical skills acquired through formal education and training. Hard skills are job or role specific and can be learned and transferred. Few examples are: Mechanical Engineering, Computer Language, Accounting, Financial Planning, Data Analysis, Product Development etc. Typically, the hard skills are measurable skills and can be compared objectively. In contrast the soft skills are typically difficult to measure, difficult to quantify and difficult to compare. These are the qualitative traits on someone’s personality like – one’s emotions and the way one displays them. Soft skills are subjective and difficult to learn as one need to challenge the core beliefs, values, views, understandings etc. and change himself or herself internally to acquire them. It needs to push oneself beyond the comfort zones and it is not an easy task for many of us. An interesting example to explore to clarify the above discussion would be – Someone with an excellent understanding and knowledge of a language (like- English or French for example). He or she has an excellent understanding of the language, its history and development over the ages etc. – This is an example of ‘Hard skill’. This skill makes this individual qualified for some role (like- a language teacher or an interpreter or a language expert or a critique etc.). However, having extensive knowledge about a language doesn’t ensure that the same individual would be a great orator as well. Being a good orator requires that the individual must have good ‘Inter-personal Communication Skills’, which is an example of ‘Soft skill’.

Image Source: www.indeed.com

Importance of the Soft Skills

In the present corporate world, soft skills such as - effective inter-personal communication, attracting new customers and retaining the existing ones, ability to resolve conflicts effectively, effective networking, understanding of business etiquette and proper mannerism, efficient people management skills, ability to capitalize on strengths, engaging with passion and gaining confidence – are invaluable qualities.

In a research carried over by Professors from University of Michigan, Harvard and Boston College pointed out that appropriate soft skills training delivered positive impact over productivity, employee retention, job satisfaction and most importantly professionalism of a workplace. The crucial benefits were that such programs resulted in higher return on employer investment and leadership development in a sustainable way.

For example, lack of communication skill may create confusion, tension, misunderstanding and an overall negative impression of a person with the colleagues or the superiors without any knowledge to that individual giving rise to conflicts in relationships and unnecessary stress at work.

The Soft skills Training Programs

Properly planned and executed Soft Skills training programs help to enhance the many capabilities that are inherent in individual and also pick up new ones. During many such sessions, it has been observed that the individuals themselves were completely unaware of their inherent skills till the time. One of the critical objectives of the soft skills training programs is to remove the existing mental or psychological blocks and barriers that prevent the individual from utilizing his/her skills effectively. These training also make the individual aware of his or her hidden and unexplored capabilities and to refine it for overall development and success of the individual both at professional as well as personal walk of life.

Image Source: www.conovercompany.com

Role of Soft Skills in the Future Success of the Students

Technical knowledge which is also known as “Hard skills” are definitely very important to know the aptitude of the students. But another component that matters in today’s world is the attitude of the person which is defined by their “Soft skills”. The overall presentation, communication, and appearance of the candidate determines their way to move forward, their thinking about the profile they are getting enrolled. In today’s world, the education system is also a built of mixture of both hard and soft skills. People are looking for versatility in every job profile; be it technical or non-technical roles. Along with the technical know-how, if the students have the correct attitude, outlook and behavior towards the work, it will automatically help in increasing the productivity of different sectors such as agriculture, industry, services, etc. The differentiating factor which plays the major role here is the soft skills of the students.

Looking at the level of competition between the qualified work forces of the society, their ability to sustain for a longer time is at times at stake due to inability to react to the situation proactively. Here, the soft skills like appropriate communication level and situational awareness helps in adequate sustainability of the jobs which in turn provides a healthier competitive environment and hence secure the future of the students.

·        Emotional Intelligence: In order to grow in any industry few soft skills are extremely important, like - decision making ability, perform under pressure, proper handling of the emotions under inconvenient circumstances and take proactive actions whenever possible. All these skills are part of the emotional intelligence programs that are being conducted through classroom and on-job training, workshops, seminars, etc. With a proper emotional intelligence, the students who are the future workforce will not only have the ability to control their own emotions but also understand the emotions and reactions (visible or suppressed) of the other people around which is another part of the soft skills in order to grow in any industry.

Image Source: https://www.media-partners.com/blog

·        Nurture Interpersonal Relationships: In order to bring in the concept of social etiquette into the students, the ability to understand the behavior between students and people around is a major component that every student need to learn. This in turn develops the inter-personal relationships which helps the students to interact with each other with a sense of empathy which comes from the study of the behavioral pattern in the classroom.

·        Better understanding of Classroom Lectures: Introduction of different soft skills into the class room lectures automatically makes the class energetic. Every student comes for the classroom lectures to learn something new which will help them to nurture their future. Hence different soft skills techniques are introduced into the regular curriculum. This can be done in two ways: create a separate soft skill class which will teach the students the technicality and usage of the soft skills; mainly the definitions. On the other hand inculcate the soft skills techniques into the regular subjects by making it more interactive.With soft skills students will be able to adapt themselves to different teachings and learning patterns. Students can solve problems employing the principles of soft skills while staying inquisitive about their surroundings and the subject matter. This will in turn help the students to build a strong future with confidence.

·        Goal Setting and Target Achievements: Now a days,almost every work is time- bound. Everyone is given a target and is expected to complete it on or before time and with due quality. The art of time management, goal achieving techniques, handling pressure during target oriented activities can be taught with various soft skills. These skills will help the students to stay focus and aware about the outcome and goal.

·        Problem Solving: In order to complete the work which are target-oriented needs proper decision making ability and problem solving attitude. The students will get proper trainings on the soft skill development which will help them to influence their problem solving abilities and in turn help students to analyze upcoming issues and develop creative solutions to overcome themselves. It will also make the students develop their critical thinking, decisive powers, putting up questions in an appropriate way. Students need to develop their problem solving ability by:

o  Discuss a problem to the point

o  Estimate the risk matrix

o  Provide mitigation measures

o  Come up with possible solutions

o  Plan to implement the solutions

Conclusion

With all the above discussion about the importance of ‘Soft skills’, one must not, however, undermine the significance of the ‘Hard skills’. Any employer who advocates the necessity of the soft skill, do so only with the assumption that the candidates are qualifies and have the necessary ‘Hard skills’ with them. It is important to understand without any ambiguity that the ‘Hard skills’ and the ‘Soft skills’ are complementary to each other and not substitutes. For success, both are essential.

Balance is the key:

Students must understand very clearly that the ‘Technical skills’ that they are learning during their formal education are absolutely ‘Essential’ without an exception. They need to be ‘good’ in these skills. It is these hard skills that will get them hired for a role. No one would be interested in hiring a ‘Software Engineer’ with excellent communication skills but with no grasp over any of the computer languages.

In crafting a successful career path, both these skills go hand-in-hand. The ‘Hard skills’ will get you hired, will get you the role you have been preparing for and the ‘Soft skills’ will help in growing out of that initial role. The ‘Technical Acumen’ with establish your credential within the team/ department/ organization and the ‘Inter-personal Qualities’ will help you move forward to the next role or the higher role efficiently.

The final words:

As a student, one must focus on developing the ‘Technical skills’ for which the formal education all about. There are lot of students who would be at par or better. If one is below par in terms of the ‘Hard skills’, no amount of ‘Soft skills’ would help in competing in the job market. However, when one is at par in terms of the ‘Hard skills’, the added ‘Soft skills’ become a ‘Winning formula’. Someone with excellent ‘Soft skills’ and adequate ‘Hard skills’ has a much better growth prospect in the modern corporate settings where (after a certain point) qualities like – excellent communication, team building, leadership, empathy, collaboration, synergy, creativity, agility, trustworthiness etc., become increasingly important and crucial with every higher role.

About the Authors:

Arijit Dey is working in the capacity of Director – HR & Strategy with DYLIS Business Services Pvt. Ltd. He is also a guest faculty of XISS, Ranchi. He has been awarded as “Distinguished L&D Professional” in 2019 by Aon Hewitt, “101 Top HR Tech Minds” in 2019 and “101 Top Training & Development Leaders” in 2020 by World HRD Congress, ET Now and CHRO Asia.

To know more about Arijit please visit: www.dhirubhai.net/in/arijitdeyand

https://dylis.in/page.php?url=our-team

Lucy Tudu is a 1st year student of PGDM-IT at XISS, Ranchi.

To know more about Lucy please visit: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/lucy-tudu-868360192/