3 Highly Relevant Soft Skills Training for Your Employees

What are Soft Skills and the Importance of Soft Skills? 

Soft skills are non-technical skills that influence how employees perform their jobs and interact with colleagues, managers, and clients. They are essential to every job and field of work. While hard skills help people perform the specialized duties that come with their jobs, soft skills influence how they perform in a team, manage their time, interact with clients, etc. 

A workforce that possesses soft skills along with hard skills makes for a pleasant and efficient working environment. Collaboration, creativity, and innovation flow freely in such environments, leading to improved business results.  

Let us look at 3 highly relevant soft skills that will boost the overall performance of all your employees. Additionally, you will also find some of the best e-learning approaches you can use to develop soft skills through training programs. 

No. 1: Communication Skills 

Communication skills are by far the most relevant soft skill anybody can have. Communication refers to the exchange of information among people using verbal and non-verbal means. 

• Verbal communication includes anything that uses words, such as speech, emails, letters, etc. 
• Non-verbal communication, on the other hand, uses gestures, tone, facial expressions, and body language 

Good communication skills enable a person to use the right verbal and non-verbal tools and signals to interact with those around them. Since all human activities involve some form of communication, it goes without saying it is also essential to professional work where all interactions serve a function and, thus, need to be effective. 

E-learning is a great way to deliver communication-related soft skills training to your employees. Some strategies for impactful communication training are: 

• Microlearning reminders and check-ins such as notifications for actively using communication skills such as active listening, receptive body language, greetings in emails, etc. 
• Video demos or skits to provide audio-visual examples of what effective and ineffective communication look like 
• Taped or recorded conversations
• Roleplay activities adapted to e-learning formats such as fill-in-the-blanks or drag-and-drop exercises 

No. 2: Time Management Skills 

Time management refers to using your time at work wisely by prioritizing tasks, predicting deadlines accurately, and sticking to pre-determined timelines as much as possible. Without effective time management, businesses run the risk of severely underperforming. Poor time management leads to overall unproductivity, a bad reputation with clients and stakeholders, and a stressful working environment. Time is money, which makes knowing how to utilize it well a highly relevant soft skill to have. 

Some benefits of a workforce that knows how to manage its time are: 

• Good work-life balance
• Increased productivity and goal-oriented activities 
• Meeting deadlines and sticking to timelines 
• Improve motivation and morale among employees 

The following e-learning strategies are effective at developing time management skills in learners: 

• Cues within the flow of work to prioritize tasks such as pop-ups of upcoming meetings, events, and deadlines, etc.
• Downloadable to-do list templates that can be customized based on the learner’s needs and preferences. Additionally, fixed templates are a great option for those who prefer having a little more direction 
• Time management exercises such as scenarios where learners need to build timetables or prioritize a day’s tasks for characters 
• Quick infographics with time-management tips and examples for rapid consumption and application 
• Simulation-based trainings or video-based tutorials to teach employees how to use time management applications such as time trackers, task automizers, virtual calendars, etc. 

No. 3: Interpersonal Skills  

Lastly, interpersonal skills are another relevant soft skill working professionals must have for many of the same reasons why they need good communication skills. While communication skills relate to how one relays and receives information from others, interpersonal skills go a layer deeper. 

Interpersonal skills are the ability to effectively communicate as well as relate with other people. Thus, they are often called “people skills,” since they reflect how well you deal with others. Communication skills are a big aspect of interpersonal skills. However, it also includes qualities like empathy, teamwork, patience, negotiation, conflict management, and resolution, etc. In other words, interpersonal skills reflect how well someone works with those around them. 

These are relevant soft skills in working environments because they foster collaboration, cooperation, and an overall smooth flow of work among different members. An organization that works well together is also better at actualizing business goals. 

Here are some e-learning techniques and tools to enhance your interpersonal skills training programs:

• Narratives, roleplays, and scenarios that demonstrate interpersonal skills. For instance, a short clip on two co-workers resolving a work-related conflict
• Virtual interactive classroom activities such as breakout rooms for hands-on experience 
• Regular virtual teamwork and collaboration for business activities and projects so learners can actively apply the interpersonal skills they learn

Infographics

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 

What are soft skills? 

Soft skills are non-technical skills that influence how employees perform their jobs and interact with colleagues, managers, and clients. They are essential to every job and field of work. Soft skills influence how people perform in a team, manage their time, interact with clients, etc. 

What are some relevant soft skills all professionals should have? 

Some of the most relevant soft skills professionals should have are: 

• Communication skills 
• Time management skills
• Interpersonal skills 

How to use e-learning for soft skills training? 

There are many ways to use e-learning for soft skills training. Some tools and techniques are: 

• Infographics 
• Narrative-based learning and exercises
• Video demos, skits, and clips 
• Audio recordings 
• Infographics 
• Downloadable templates 
• Simulations