While people need to be qualified to do their jobs, there is a range of less-measurable skills that are just as important to workplace success. Known as 'soft' skills, these include attitudes, behaviours and interpersonal skills.

But what exactly are soft skills? How do they affect the work environment and how can they be improved? 

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are all the non-technical aspects of a job, including things like:

• interaction with co-workers and clients
• organisational ability
• communication and listening skills
• willingness to learn and take on new responsibilities
• whether you are a team player
• influencing and negotiating skills
• personal and professional attitude.

Why are soft skills useful?

While labelling them 'soft' may make them sound less important than technical skills, in fact soft skills are imperative to all businesses, and can actually mean the difference between success and failure.

Employing staff with good soft skills will mean they are more effective when interacting with people. This is particularly important if your business is largely based on face-to-face contact or dealing with clients.

But it's not just your sales that will benefit from good soft skills; they are also integral to the efficiency and productivity of any business, from the way that co-workers interact and co-operate to get things done to the accountability of individual staff members.

Encouraging good soft skills

Just as technical skills can be learned and developed, so too can soft skills. In fact, soft skills are continuously developed over the course of a lifetime, but there are ways that you can encourage the process in your business:

• Hold a workshop explaining soft skills and conduct exercises to strengthen them, such as tasks that rely on listening.
• Consider sending your staff to a soft-skills seminar or giving them an instructional DVD.
• Encourage staff to participate in group activities, such as a work sports team.
• Evaluate staff - review their strongest and weakest soft skills and develop a plan to strengthen these over the coming year.
• Encourage staff to provide input, suggestions and advice - this will help them to develop lateral-thinking skills.

Benefits of good soft skills

• ·A company displaying strong soft skills will develop a loyal clientele.
• ·Staff will work more co-operatively and be more productive.
• ·You will foster a friendly company culture and contribute to staff development.
• ·Organisational skills will be improved.
• ·Leadership skills among staff will be developed.

Skilled for success

Placing soft skills high on your list of business priorities could be just the thing to see your company succeed.

To discuss how to improve the soft skills of your employees, talk to a training specialist today.