20 Sep 2011
I read with interest your article on the importance of soft skills (IT pros feel their lack of soft skills is holding them back). The business world is constantly evolving and we’re seeing businesses becoming less dictatorial and more social in their approach to employees, culture and overall management style. This shift has facilitated a change in attitude towards soft skills and therefore the findings of the recent CWJobs survey, highlighting a lack of soft skills in IT, aren’t surprising but are concerning.
The aim of deploying and developing soft skills is to enrich the working environment by helping employees develop new communications skills, express themselves with confidence and clarity, contribute more productively, and above all become effective in driving the organisation forward.
Failure to invest or develop soft skills is something an organisation will do at its peril. For decades, organisations have focused on the benefits of hard skills, centred on an employee’s technical skills required to carry out their job. However, organisations today crave employees with critical soft skills.
For example, if you have an IT manager that cannot relate or communicate with other employees or departments regarding a technical issue or development, you will see an impact in productivity, engagement and motivation. It could also result in negative thinking towards the organisation or IT department.
Karen Osborn, Thales Training & Consultancy
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