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INTRODUCTION
Aims and objectives of this chapter.
Soft skills are gaining importance and both employers and employees agree about that. However, there is a great mismatch between the skills of young people entering the labour market and the skills sought. That’s why the BEGIN project team conducted research among the target groups of the project to identify the skills of the present, as well as respondents’ expectations of future changes.
Soft skills do not obey strict definitions or borderlines. They are interconnected and, in reality, we actually deal with combinations of soft skills instead of separate ones. Soft skills overlap in reality and this is natural.
Soft skills are also more subjective than hard skills. This means that the answers from the in-depth interviews conducted by the BEGIN team reflect also the personal experience of the respondents, as well as their expectations for the future of work.
Although soft skills seem subjective and difficult to teach, they are also more transferable and timeless than hard skills. While hard skills are rapidly changing, soft skills will continue to be needed and it is even possible to outline the most needed ones in the foreseeable future.
The purpose of this chapter is to determine and analyse the most important soft skills of the present based on research conducted among the target groups during the development of training courses within the BEGIN project.
The Begin project team conducted interviews with university lecturers, students, and business representatives. Based on this research, 42 soft skills expected by employers were approached.
The research aimed to determine the importance of identified soft skills based on the opinions of target groups. An index of the importance of the most important skills at the moment and the skills that the respondents think will be important in the future was established based on the opinions of the target groups. Thus, a hierarchy of importance indicated by the respondents' soft skills was researched.
The importance of soft skills, which should be developed by students in order to respond to the current labour market needs was calculated using the following formula:
W=A1+A2+ANX
In this formula, W is an important indicator for soft skills; A1, A2,... are indications of importance for a given competence by individual respondents, and X is a number of indications (respondents). In the in-depth interview questionnaire, the values of importance for individual soft competencies were established on a scale where:
1 - means high importance
2 - means medium importance
3 - means low significance
4 - means no meaningfulness
According to the adopted scale of importance, the lower the indicator is, the higher the importance of soft competence in a given group of respondents. The indicator allows comparing the importance of a given soft competence between the heads of the stakeholder groups, i.e. entrepreneurs, academics, and students. Moreover, it allows for the comparison of results between countries.
Based on the research conducted in all partner countries, 18 most important soft skills were identified, both currently and in the future. This chapter will analyse the most important soft skills of the present identified on the basis of the in-depth interviews with stakeholders using the reports prepared by each partner, as well the data from the BEGIN summary from in-depth interview reports.
SOFT SKILLS IN THE PRESENCE
After summary calculations based on the data presented by all partners in the project, a total of 18 most important soft skills of the present were identified as follows:
As mentioned above, according to the adopted scale of importance, the lower the indicator is, the higher the importance of the respective soft skill is, which means that respondents in the survey have outlined “organisation of own work” as the most important soft skill of the present.
The chart above shows the importance of soft skills related to self-management (including striving for results, organisation of own work, decision-making, managing myself in time, and prioritisation) and communication (building relationships with clients, colleagues, superiors, communication skills, teamwork, network work and cooperation, taking care of good atmosphere, sharing knowledge and experience, customer orientation), that are pointed to as particularly important. This could be related to the fact that in 2020 (when the research was conducted) the pandemic forced many employers to switch to home office opportunities, which made self-management an especially important quality.
The remote work opportunities have affected communication (especially the one with colleagues including teamwork) tremendously. The communication is now changed compared to conversations you had with colleagues and employers before Covid, as a lot of people are working from home or having a hybrid work environment (at home and in the office). This is where strong communication skills are going to be even more important as we learn to adapt to building and maintaining relationships remotely rather than in person.
The upheavals of 2020 have pushed forward adaptability and problem-solving skills. If we could describe “hard skills” as “what someone knows, and soft skills describe the person’s willingness to learn”, the pandemic situation has outlined the importance of the last in a year of uncertainty. So, the respondents in the BEGIN survey have quite naturally noted the importance of self-development and problem-solving, pushing forward skills, such as flexibility of thinking, troubleshooting, stress management, mindfulness, adaptability, and readiness to learn. It is clear that changes require different skills that the person might not possess at the moment, so up-skilling becomes one of the most important priorities.
All soft skills identified as most in demand now and in the future are described as learning material in the practical part of Chapter VI. Only the five highest ranked in the research are commented below.
TOP SOFT SKILL 1. ORGANISATION OF WORK
There is no doubt that having a positive attitude and the initiative to work well without around-the-clock supervision is a vital soft skill for any employee. This soft skill not only demonstrates reliability and commitment but also shows that a person can fit efficiently into an organisational structure without the need for constant supervision. The importance of this skill is even greater in the context of the 2020 pandemic situation when many employees work from home and face the challenge to organise their own work without constant supervision by superiors.
Organisation of own work has been ranked of crucial importance in the BEGIN survey held in Germany, where respondents point out that regarding a future training program “students should be presented online (project management) tools for the organisation of own work, good and bad practical examples how organisation of own work could look like and should not look like, so that they can learn from successes and failures.” However, this soft skill has been given high importance in all the other partner countries that pushed it to the top position as the most important soft skill of the present moment.
“Organisation of own work” is closely related to other soft skills in the top 18 list of the present, such as “prioritisation” and “managing myself in time”, which confirms its importance. Arranging thoughts, time, and tasks in a structured way is also a key skill for efficiently accomplishing goals relating it closely to “striving for results”, which also holds a top position.
TOP SOFT SKILL 2. RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
A Gallup study shows that building successful relationships at the workplace is a key separator between high- and low-performing teams. According to the same study, “best friend at work” transforms what the workplace represents. It enables us to move forward into the future workplace - from a past workplace desire merely for a job to a future workplace mindset that, “It's not just my job, it's my life.”
Undoubtedly, the importance of turning good communication into a kind of relationship has profound psychological implications. The need for lasting human relationships has gathered strength with the acceleration of computer technologies and has become even greater in times of pandemic crisis. The important aspect here is recognising the fact that relationships are not limited to private life. Indeed, they play a vital role in career development and are an important element of work performance.
Italian students in the BEGIN study have ranked “building relationships” among the 4 most important soft skills, proposing that a training course on this should teach them how to “identify and initiate working relationships and to develop and maintain them in a way that is of mutual benefit to both a person and the other party.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
10 Reasons Why Networking Is Essential For Your Career https://www.forbes.com/sites/biancamillercole/2019/03/20/why-networking-should-be-at-the-core-of-your-career/?sh=757adc5b1300
16 Key Customer Service Skills (and How to Develop Them): https://www.helpscout.com/blog/customer-service-skills/
20 Time Management Tips for Professionals: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/time-management-tips-for-professionals
2019 workplace trends report: