Why Hard Skills? Exploring Shadowinner's Strategic Focus

In a constantly evolving work environment, a company's ability to adapt and innovate is vital. While the importance of soft skills like communication and leadership is often highlighted, at Shadowinner, we're taking a different bet. We firmly believe that hard skills, those technical and domain-specific skills, are the key to success in our increasingly technology-driven world. While many may wonder why we choose to focus our efforts in this particular area, this choice is based on a meticulous analysis of market needs, industry trends, and opportunities for more effective training.

The Context: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

Hard skills and soft skills are often presented as two sides of the same coin in the professional world. While soft skills encompass interpersonal and emotional skills, such as the ability to communicate effectively or manage a team, hard skills focus on technical and measurable skills like programming or project management. In our constantly evolving digital economy, the demand for these technical skills continues to grow. That's why it is crucial for both companies and employees to invest in the development of hard skills. Technical skills are often the entry ticket for many highly qualified professions.

Data and Statistics: A Factual Insight

According to a LinkedIn study, 57% of business leaders consider soft skills to be just as important as hard skills. However, an overwhelming majority of 77% believes that a lack of hard skills negatively affects their organization's productivity. This figure is indicative of the importance companies place on hard skills, despite the media attention often given to soft skills. Moreover, a recent survey from Stack Overflow highlights that 90% of developers consider hard skills as the central element ensuring their employability in the tech sector. These statistics only reinforce our belief that the focus on hard skills is more than justified.

The Transferability of Hard Skills: An Undeniable Asset

One of the often-overlooked advantages of hard skills is their transferability. Unlike soft skills, which are often tied to personality traits and social skills, hard skills are easily transferable from one job to another, or even from one sector to another. For example, someone competent in data analysis can apply their skills in the fields of finance, healthcare, education, and more. This transferability not only increases the value of employees but also offers companies great flexibility by allowing them to reassign staff according to the changing market needs.

Shadowinner: A Comprehensive Solution for Hard Skills Development

At Shadowinner, we have developed an innovative platform focused on real-time synchronization of professional skills, or hard skills, within an organization. Our system provides accurate mapping of the strengths and weaknesses of hard skills for each employee and each department, allowing complete visibility and transparency to help companies identify where additional training is needed.

When an employee schedules a task in their calendar and identifies the hard skill they will use to complete that task, our platform springs into action in two distinct but complementary ways. First, it alerts all employees who have expressed a desire to develop that specific skill, thus offering a real-time learning opportunity. Second, if the initiating employee does not have this hard skill as a strength, the system alerts those who are experts in that particular area.

This dual-alert mechanism optimizes human resources in an exceptional manner. It ensures not only that hard skills are deployed where they are most needed but also facilitates continuous professional development and knowledge sharing among employees. They are thus encouraged to work on their weak points, while experts have the opportunity to play a mentorship role.

Towards a New Era of Professional Development

Hard skills and soft skills are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they often complement each other to create a well-rounded and versatile professional. It's important to note that our collaborative application also allows for an indirect but valuable exchange of soft skills. For example, when someone "shadows" a client meeting through our platform, they not only learn the process of proper qualification or asking the necessary questions—those are the hard skills—but they may also acquire communication skills, which are soft skills. Take empathy as an example of a communication soft skill: understanding the client's needs, active listening, and responding appropriately are qualities that can be developed during these interactions.

Thanks to our peer-to-peer approach, we aim to multiply these enriching exchanges across as many people as possible, in order to maximize the sharing of skills, whether 'hard' or 'soft'. Thus, by focusing our efforts on hard skills while facilitating the development of soft skills, we aim to provide companies with the tools needed to not only survive but also thrive in this competitive environment.

If you would like to know how our platform can motivate your experienced employees to share their skills via a simple and fun peer-to-peer format, feel free to contact us.