Soft Skills Training

We may be in the digital era, buy good old soft skills have never been more important.

According to a survey conducted by The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 97% of employers surveyed said that soft skills were either as important or more important than hard skills.

Soft skills are broadly classified as a combination of personality traits, behaviors, and social attitudes that allow people to communicate effectively, collaborate, and successfully manage conflict.

Unlike “hard” skills, which often describe a candidate’s technical abilities, soft skills include any skills developed beyond your technical competencies and intellectual knowledge.

Generally, any skill enabling better interaction with people can be considered a “soft” skill. These types of skills can come naturally depending on your personality but can also be very hard to learn – which is where training can help.

With virtual collaboration platforms altering how and where we work, it’s extremely important for team leaders to understand the power and importance of soft skills. Analysts contend that soft skills are becoming a business imperative because legacy skills are losing relevance as the nature of work is disrupted.

A few years ago, LinkedIn surveyed 291 hiring managers in the United States and found that 59% said soft skills are “difficult” to find in job applicants. The problem is serious enough that 58% of respondents said soft skills deficiencies in the pool of candidates are “limiting their company’s productivity.”

Experts in soft skills believe the top 10 soft skills most in demand among employers are:

• Teamwork
• Communication
• Interpersonal Communication
• Organization
• Adaptability
• Social skills
• Consistent punctuality
• Critical thinking
• Friendly personality
• Creativity

In this digital, AI age, the mantra of progressive businesses is quickly becoming: Let’s leave the mechanical tasks to robots and concentrate on having better soft skills.

That’s because studies prove that soft skills are a powerful tool for strengthening relationships and managing change. At the same time, employees and organizations need to recognize the need to both exercise and control these skills—to use them wisely and in moderation.

Of all the soft skills, complex communication may top of the list because digital transformation can require complex changes that require buy-in across an organization.

Your team must be able to take technical terms and explain them — in writing and through speech — in a way that the rest of the business can understand. The ability to persuade and influence others is also a factor.

This is especially true because your digital transformation will touch every department and employee in your company. You need people who can create buy-in and understanding of the process and goals throughout the company, and potentially accomplish these tasks remotely.

Communication and time management soft skills are still top of the list characteristics that organizations want from their management teams.

The ability to communicate with clients and team members is essential, and it’s not just when you are trying to get the point across, either. Now that most communication is done through emails, chats, video or phone conference calls, strong communication skills are more critical than ever.

Emotional intelligence also ranks high on the list of necessary soft skills.

Leaders with emotional intelligence normally possess a mix of self-awareness, self-regulation, social skill, empathy, and motivation. These traits help teams pull together to accomplish extraordinary goals during digital transformation, especially during a crisis such as a global pandemic.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and regulate one’s emotions and understand the emotions of others. Emotional Intelligence helps build relationships, reduce team stress, defuse conflict and improve job satisfaction.

Apparently, a greater emphasis on soft skills correlates with most companies continuing to operate in a remote work environment.

While there are an abundance of soft skills worth noting, a top soft skill that hiring managers are looking for in 2021 is time management. Many employers were forced to take a leap of faith with their employees moving to a partial or fully remote work environment in 2020.

Study after study has shown that employees with soft skill talent help an organization move happily forward. But like management approaches in general, soft skills have also evolved. The soft skills that an organization emphasizes today may be different from just a few years ago, which is why continual education in soft skills training is a good idea for individuals and progressive organizations.

Many experts in this field believe that taking courses like those offered by Tonex in communication soft skills is well worth the investment. It’s one of the most crucial soft skills in any job, in any industry.

Soft Skills Training by Tonex

Tonex offers 17 courses in the soft skills category. These courses are designed to teach participants how to handle anxiety and pressure, which often comes from the expectations others have from you including your supervisors, colleagues, team-mates and even your employees.

The courses touch on various fields of leadership such as time management, project management, negotiation, conflict management and even managing difficult people.

Some of our popular soft skills courses include:

• Mistake Proofing Training/Poka Yoke — A 2-day course that  introduces participants to the fundamentals, process, techniques, and devices necessary to eliminate mistakes, before they happen.
• How to Become a Powerful Presenter — A 2-day workshop that assists attendees in understanding methods, tactics, and tricks of influencing your audience during a presentation.
• Proposal Engineering Workshop (Hands On) — A 3-day course that gives participants a perspective of what an engineering proposal should look like, steps involved, what type of material you would need to include, and how you can write one.
• Effective Team Communication Workshop Training — A 2-day course designed to help solve the existing communication challenges among people of a team and avoid any potential miscommunication in the future.

There’s even The Black Hat Workshop, an unconventional, creative 2-day course that replicates a potential competitor of your business and helps you take all required steps and actions to determine the possible ways the competitor might beat your bids or proposals — and then learn how to neutralize those strategies to stay ahead of your competitors.

Soft Skills Training Categories:

• Administration
• Business Communication
• Communication Skills
• Conflict Resolution
• Culture Change
• Customer Service
• Facilitation Skills
• Human Resources
• Leadership & Strategy
• Management & Supervision
• Negotiation Skills
• Personal Development
• Sales Training
• Six Sigma and Lean
• Stress Management
• Team Building
• Time Management

Why Choose Tonex? 

For nearly 30 years Tonex has been a world leader in producing cutting-edge technology and advanced business courses that help individuals, organizations, agencies and companies stay current in their fields of specialization.

Our instructors are both experts in their subject areas and they also bring real world experience into the classroom.

Tonex is also flexible. We will be happy to work with you to create a course that is tailored to your special needs. Just ask us about it.

For more information, questions, comments, contact us.

Soft Skills Training