One of the hottest topics right now is upskilling, reskilling and redefining jobs, with 34% of CEOs rating it one of their ‘top threats to growth’. But companies still group ‘hard skills’ as technical and ‘soft skills’ as managerial.
According to global HR leader Josh Bersin, it’s soft skills that are hard. So how can you train for these?
In most skills-based solutions, companies group their corporate skills needs into two types: The technical or “hard-skills” in a job, and the people and managerial “soft-skills” in a job. And there are many ways to define this distinction.
Organisations and others, (such as Indeed) define hard skills as “technical skills” and soft skills as “people skills.” – those that require communication, presentation, persuasion, storytelling and public speaking.
Putting it into two baskets, hard skills are the “job skills you need to do the job” (like operating a drill) and soft skills, the “skills you’re born with” (like communications and collaboration).
Hard Skills are soft (they change all the time, are constantly being obsoleted, and are relatively easy to learn), and Soft Skills are hard (they are difficult to build, critical, and take extreme effort to obtain). – Josh Bersin
Think of all the roles where improving these skillsets would have huge organisational impact.
A Soft-Skill Intensive Era
It isn’t difficult to guess that training for the so-called softer skills, is trickier in many ways. There are nuances, innate ability – even likability at play. However, much can be taught and coached.
And organisations are motivated to do so – as there is evidence that these are the skills that are most sought-out by organisations in 2023.
Two-thirds of all jobs in Australia will be soft-skill intensive occupations by 2030, according to Deloitte.
Bersin cites an IBM study, in which executives indicated key competencies of their employees for the future. The overwhelming majority of them are behavioural. According to Bersin, the study suggests that hard skills can be ‘bought’. It’s the soft skills that are so hard to obtain.
By 2023, two-thirds of all jobs in Australia will be soft-skill intensive occupations – Deloitte
These skills can be taught by talented leaders from within the ranks of the company, or external as well. And of course, technology can greatly assist in curating and creating success.
Reskilling & Upskilling Strategies
Our partners at eLB Learning recently held a Reskilling and Upskilling Webinar with Shweta Mogha, Certified Coach and Co-Founder of eWOW.
In the webinar, she outlines four key categories where organisations need to pivot to adapt to today’s workplace challenges. They include areas where soft skills will be essential:
- Attraction
- Development
- Performance
- Culture & Leadership
Training, Practicing and Coaching For Power Skills
There is a new tool on the block for organisations to leverage technology and AI in their efforts to upskill and reskill.
Rehearsal is a video-based platform designed for practice and coaching to help learners at all skill levels to practice and get feedback. And it is used asynchronously.
While Rehearsal is most commonly used for sales enablement and sales in general, it is agile enough to work for a long list of use cases.
Leadership and HR / L&D teams can easily use it for things like training, management coaching, SME presentations and coaching, new hires and employee onboarding, customer service, customer success teams, and anything else that requires practice.
For a demo or help with strategies for integrating this tool into your eLearning, contact the expert team at ITC Learning below.