As a business leader, you likely put a lot of effort into building your team and fostering industry-related technical skills, or hard skills, such as coding, data analysis, or SEO marketing.

But you should also dedicate time to improving their soft skills, the more intangible abilities that can help make them more efficient team players and valuable assets to your organization overall.

But what exactly are soft skills? Essentially, they are the people skills and personality traits that enable employees to communicate well, get along with others, work out solutions to complicated problems, manage their work, and lead effectively.

Valuable soft skills

While they are called “soft” skills, these attributes’ contributions to the workplace can be powerful, making them especially sought-after. In fact, highly successful companies like Google and Amazon consider these traits to be just as important as or even more valuable than hard skills, especially as rapidly changing technologies make expertise in some technical or specialized areas obsolete. That’s because individuals with soft skills can more easily adapt and stay relevant in changing work conditions. With the right training and support, you can help your employees build their competencies so they can help you take your company to the next level.

While many soft skills can be useful in the workplace, these are some of the most essential.

Communication skills
This group of skills includes the ability to communicate clearly with colleagues, clients, and vendors. Employees who excel at communicating can do so regardless of whether it’s faceto- face or via phone or email.

Critical thinking
In any business, the ability to think clearly and rationally and interpret data without bias is highly important; critical thinkers are more apt to evaluate situations logically and use resources efficiently.

Emotional intelligence (EI)
High-EI individuals can recognize and manage their emotions and empathize with others. They are also likely to be calm under pressure and have the perseverance to overcome obstacles.

Creativity
This soft skill is useful for brainstorming new ideas and solutions, finding better ways to complete tasks, and propelling a business forward.

Flexibility
People who have this skill can think on their feet and adapt to changing roles and circumstances, making them more likely to succeed even when conditions aren’t ideal.

Leadership
Those with leadership skills can guide, inspire, influence, and mentor others; they can also positively and effectively take the lead in collaborative projects.

Organization skills
Well-organized employees are likely to be punctual and dependable, manage their time and resources well, and meet deadlines.

Problem-solving
Team members who think outside the box are an asset to any business— they may be talented at resolving conflicts, stretching resources, and formulating new ideas and processes.

Collaboration
Those who can collaborate effectively with fellow employees are likely to be valuable team members who enhance company culture and help create a better working environment for everyone.

Boosting your employees’ soft skills

Since these skills can have a significant impact on your team’s productivity and your company’s success, it’s to your advantage to actively work on bolstering them. You can do so in a variety of ways. For instance, creating an environment where your employees have the freedom to try new things will allow them to grow and develop their soft skills naturally. Just make sure to let them make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes to avoid hampering their growth.

Alternatively, you could provide your staff with specific soft-skills training. Try to offer a variety of teaching methods to accommodate various learning styles, such as coaching or mentoring sessions, group learning activities, book groups with a business/soft-skills focus, and self-guided learning opportunities like on-demand videos and podcasts. You could also try tapping into the abilities of your staff so they can help train your other employees. Some ways you can do this include having supervisors model appropriate behavior and providing job-shadowing opportunities so your staff can learn from each other’s examples. If you don’t have the resources to present this training on your own, consider hiring an outside agency or partnering with a university or nonprofit organization.

Before deciding on the method and content you’ll use, monitor your employees to determine what training they may need. Managers and team leaders can help you collect data on your staff’s skill sets through observation and one-onone meetings; you can also ask employees to provide feedback on the skills they possess and which ones they’d like to improve. Continue this evaluation once you establish your training program to see how your team is progressing and what adjustments you should make.

For a fun take on soft-skills training, try a variety of teambuilding activities—they can be excellent for teaching concepts like communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership. Some activities to consider are brainstorming sessions, community service, online games, company picnics, and team sports.

Make it a point to recognize your employees’ improvements. Ask managers to reward their team members for their soft-skills successes, and encourage your employees to nominate each other for recognition. Some ways you could highlight employees’ achievements are in a company email, blog, or video or with individual or team gifts, such as a dinner out.

Once you start a soft-skills training program, don’t forget to reinforce what your employees have learned by giving them the time and opportunity to continue improving—that way, your team and your business can keep the benefits coming.

TAKE ACTION:
Evaluate your team, and identify soft skills that could bring them success.