Soft Skills: The Key to the Modern Workplace

We often talk about establishing learning and development practices that help you to grow personally and professionally, but how do we actually do that? The intersection between personal and professional skill lies in our soft skills. A strong set of soft skills lies at the core of an effective modern workplace. By improving your soft skills, you can grow as a person whilst becoming a more effective team member.

Key soft skills for the modern workplace

Self leadership - The ability to take responsibility for yourself, your work, and your growth is crucial as workplaces become increasingly driven by independent decision-making and flat management systems

Knowing how to learn effectively - With working practices and technology shifting constantly, the ability to be an active, continuous learner allows you to keep you hard skills honed and up to date

Communication - Communication has always been important in any workplace, and the expansion of remote work has made effective communicators highly sought after

Self awareness - Knowing how you work and how to use it your advantage will allow you to work far more effectively, whilst setting you apart as a reflective and effective team member

Why are soft skills important?

So why are soft skills so important in today’s workplace? For a start, hard skills are far more accessible than they used to be. The internet provides us with access to the entirety of recorded knowledge, for little to no cost. With courses and certifications, we can feasibly learn the core hard skills needed for a range of corporate jobs. Compatible soft skills are harder to come by.?

Hard skills might qualify you to do a job, but soft skills are what make you effective in the workplace. They’re what allow you to actually build connections with your colleagues and become a team in more than just name. Soft skills are what make people actually want to work with you, and keep working with you. They’re what makes working with someone enjoyable, and strong soft skills will help you to do your job more effectively.

Think of any time you were particularly fond of working with someone. Was it because they were highly skilled in their job? Or was it because they communicated effectively, managed their time well, resolved conflicts with ease, or worked well in a team? This is the power of soft skills. Well trained soft skills will leave their mark, and permanently set you up as someone that people want to work with.

Can you improve your soft skills?

Honing your soft skills isn’t always as simple as picking up a textbook or going on a course. Some have even suggested over the years that soft skills aren’t something that can be learned, that they’re something you either have or you don’t.?

Learning soft skills is certainly not impossible. In fact, it’s something you can practice every day.?

Practicing soft skills should be a crucial part of today’s learning and development practices. The reason it isn’t is because the approach to learning soft skills needs to be far more individualized than hard skills. We should be considering the way we work together as people, and using that knowledge to grow. By being self-aware and considering those around us, we can build on our soft skills effectively, and continue to improve the way we work.?

Once you’re aware of your soft skills, you can continue to hone them and expand your skill set in other areas. By making a daily effort, no matter how small, to actively use your soft skills and think about how they impact the way you work, you will naturally see them progress. This is also a great way to close the Knowing-Doing Gap, as you can apply what you learn immediately, turning your learning into DOING.

You can learn more about how to build your soft skills at impulzity.com