|
Communicating Skills
Some people are very confident with their technical skills but the
moment they are called up on the stage, they started shaking in their boots. Whether it is a
business, social or even your personal success, it largely depends on how well you communicate
with your fellow beings. Just as technical skills can be learnt similarly we can have total
command over our communicating skills I personally feel that the best way to speak good
English is to talk to yourself in English. We have some 60,000 thoughts coming to us daily. Just
imagine when we have these thoughts in English who can stop us from communicating well in
this most international language.
Self Management-
Self-management skills tell an employer whether you possess a personality
that fits the company, the superiors, and most importantly your colleagues. Self-management
skills are very important as 85% of the businesses have failed owing to lack of management
skills. As a matter of fact, they are the pedestal of all the additional management skills.
Decision Making And Problem Solving - are two of the most important things that are required
in contemporary times. Your aptitude to effectively fulfill these two skills on a day to day basis
is a great determinant of how victorious you can be in achieving the necessary goals in your
life .It is very important to be well informed ,while making a decision. It is essential to use your
intuition when you are making a decision or solving a problem. Researches have shown that we
make use of our gut feeling or our sixth sense to make successful decisions. Don't panic while
making a decision and make a list of all pros and cons when you are making a decision.
Team Management –
There are few jobs that cannot be accomplished alone and Individuals
need to come closer and get together to discuss things with each other and work jointly to
fulfill the goals. The people who form a team need to think and work on more or less the same
frequency and need to have similar interests and frequency. People with diverse tastes can’t work
in co-ordination with each other. Their objectives have to be the similar. Leadership – An employee must have the leadership qualities if he wants to be successful in
life. We all know that headship is the core of every companies pounding success. If the company
organizes a leadership development program it will lend a hand to bring out leadership traits in
an individual to take the organization ahead. These specially organized programs have a vital
part in producing a good leader. Large number of people believe that leadership is an inborn
quality but it is a misconception. With appropriate leadership training programs, excellent
leaders can be created. So it is significantly important to brush your managers to become
successful leaders by arranging leadership coaching for them.
Experience –
Every organization looks for a dissimilar combination of soft skills and experience
depending on the job or the business they are in. Experienced person is a great asset to the
company and when you deal with the things practically you know how to deal with a problem
on a day to day basis. You may have higher degrees but an individual with more experience can
handle the situations more confidently and with a lot of aggression.
Professionalism –
Everyone knows that it is important to be a thorough professional if you want
to be a success. For a few, to be a professional may signify dressing smartly at work, or doing a
fine job. For the rest of them, being a professional means possessing better degrees or additional
certifications. Professionalism takes in a lot of unusual qualities, and, jointly, these traits identify
and describe a professional. Dedicated Knowledge, capability, sincerity and veracity, liability,
Self-Regulation and Image building are all a part of professionalism.
Comparative analysis of soft skill
Communication is the most significant talent and ability of different age groups, and
majority of the employers rank it as No 1when they interview the candidates. According to Crawford, Lang, Fink, Dalton & Fielitz, Communication and decision making
and problem solving are ranked as No 2 when it comes to hiring fresh employees.Faculty and
employers are in coordination with each other when they have to give their choice of rankings.
When we see the student's viewpoint they totally have a different set of priorities and consider
Self Management , Professionalism, Team abilities much inferior and think Leadership and
Experiences superior in significance than employers or Faculty.
The major difference in the standpoint between students and employers is for the experience soft
skills group. Major difference arises when students rank experience as the 3rd most skill to get
entrance into the workforce whereas employees consider as the 6th most vital skill to get entry.
The Employability Challenge UK Commission for employment and skills, South Yorkshire:
UK 2009, Pg 3 revealed,” These Employability skills (soft skills) are the lubricant of our
increasingly complex and interconnected work place. They are not the substitute for
specific knowledge and technical skills: but they make a difference between being good at a
subject and being good at doing a job.
THE HARD FACTS about Soft Skills
What researchers have to say about Soft Skills
Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) has found that, while credentialing in
the form of degrees and certificates is important, development of soft skills—skills that are more
social than technical—will be a crucial part of fostering a dynamic workforce. Skills projected
to be in the highest demand for all Indiana occupations through 2014 include active listening,
critical thinking, speaking, active learning, writing, time management, and social perceptiveness.
• Findings include that soft skills can not only improve employee performance and satisfaction
but can also prepare technical workers for promotion into supervisory roles. Using the Indiana
Department of Workforce Development (IDWD) occupation projections, IBRC found that
projected needs for social skills are greater than the needs for technical, systems, and resource
management skills.
• In a Job Outlook 2008 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges &
Employers (NACE), the top characteristics looked for in new hires by 276 employer respondents
(mostly from the service sector) were all soft skills: communication ability, a strong work ethic,
initiative, interpersonal skills, and teamwork.
Research quoted by the protocol school of Washington, DC and counted by Harvard
University, the Carnegie Foundation and the Stanford Research Institute has shown that
technical skills and knowledge account for about 15 percent of the reason an individual gets a
job, keeps the job and advances in that job. The remaining 85 Percent of job success is based on
the individual’s “People skills” Similarly, in his book entitled People Skills, author Robert
Bolton (1986) reports that 80 percent of the people who fail at work, do not fail due to their
lack of technical skills but rather because of their inability to relate well with others. For
everyone who has wrestled with how to deliver bad news to an employee, handle an emotional
conflict, motivate a team, calm their own anger, inspire others toward a vision or persuade an
audience to a course of action, it is vividly clear on a deep personal level how hard the soft
interpersonal skills can be to master. Helping people define, develop, make tangible, personalize
and effectively use the soft skills that provide enduring value is mission of many leadership
training initiatives.
Contribution of English Teachers in Business and Engineering Institutes
Teachers should instantly pay attention to the upcoming needs and equip themselves and react
to the changing scenario and to meet the varying needs of the students. Particularly, the English
teachers, at this important juncture, need to play a pivotal role to bridge the gap and should make
soft skills part of the academic curriculum which is in great demand in the present day corporate
world. These English teachers should do their best in accomplishing two goals simultaneously,
first by making them expert in communicating skills and secondly by training them to handle
other demands through soft skills.
For this they have to move from the traditional method of teaching English and shift to a more
communicative method of teaching. The modern-day English teachers require to focus on
enhancing language effectiveness and other soft skills by bringing in actual life circumstances as
teaching methods. For this the teachers need to adopt a more analytical, creative, logic-oriented
methods that help you in interacting with the outside world. The gist is that the English teachers
need to become a launching pad for the overall personality of a student. For this they need to
make a few amendments in the teaching methods, should go in for constructive assessment of
students and should be ready to help them in times of need.
Employers of Reputed Companies
The employers of the reputed companies also prefer and give importance to that work force who
are equally qualified in hard skills as well as soft skills. Human Resource professionals recognize
that training on soft skills helps in the growth of 'Emotional Intelligence' and consequently
notably understands the value of the companies 'human assets'. In a book, Winning with People
by John Maxwell says, 'In life, the skills you use and the people you choose, will make or break
you'.
Conclusion
People in the corporate field come up with numerous arguments whether it is viable to augment
or develop soft skills in a span of a few hours of special training on soft skills. The reaction to
this is very ruthless but valid. A professional who wants to take his professional graph higher is
not left with any choice.
In the preliminary years of your professional career, your technical skills are very vital but to
sustain your job and to reach the zenith it is the soft skills which are very crucial. Being trained
in soft skills is all the more pertinent in a nation like India where developing the personality is
not a part of the education system. So for that matter Soft skills training is indispensable because
it is not a part of our academic curriculum. For that reason, business houses have to involve
themselves in grooming the employees who link the company with the external world so that
they are able to represent the company in a more authoritative and confident manner.
If we take an instance of learning how to drive the car.
The majority of us commence it by reading the printed matter by the Motor Vehicles
Department. Though the start was good but then also the achievement of the proficiency
of driving is certainly not there. Paradoxically, many people and their directors expect the
attainment of soft skills can be accomplished by going through interesting books or attending
morally boosting presentation but they are wrong. For this formal and practical training is
provided by the trained drivers or parents and for this an empty space is seen so that appropriate
training is offered that involves auditory, visual and kinesthetic learning. The chief aim being
to have adequate mastery and pass the driving test and get the license. Similarly, in case of soft
skills also there has to be a lot of drilling and hammering in case you want your professional
graph go high up.
In order to go higher, we initially require to 'grow up' i.e. expand ourselves. And if we want
to grow we need to shed off our shyness towards self development, change and relationship
enhancement.
References:
Bolton, R. (1986), people skills, Touchstone Books, New York, NY.
Goleman, D. (1995), Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, New York, NY.
Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) American psychologist
Crawford, Lang, Fink, Dalton & Fielitz. 4 August 2011. Comparative Analysis of
Soft Skills
 |
|
