Soft Skills: Critical to Employee Success

Soft Skills: Critical to Employee Success

shutterstock_66590788

Attend any leadership conference, and someone likely will bring up startling statistics regarding how employees and leaders lack something they refer to as soft skills. This term is used to describe many qualities that include interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, and other personality-based issues. The problem that many organizations have experienced is that people are hired for their hard skills, or in other words, for what they know (knowledge). Then later, are often fired for their lack of soft skills, or what they do (behaviors). If employers recognize the importance of soft skills, they can avoid costly hiring and training mistakes, improve turnover, and boost productivity. Continue reading “Soft Skills: Critical to Employee Success”

Companies Jump through Hoops to Please Millennials

Sixty Minutes did a great show on the millennial generation titled The Millennials Are Coming.  In that report, they explained how Generation Y or millennials are unique in their expectations at work.

The Wall Street Journal’s article Firms Bow to Generation Y’s Demands continues to explore how companies are offering incentives and jumping through hoops to keep millennials happy.  This has become a problem for older employees who feel this is inappropriate.

Companies are bowing to younger generations’ needs because, “they bring fresh skills to the workplace: they’re tech-savvy, racially diverse, socially interconnected, and collaborative. Moreover, companies need to keep employee pipelines full as baby boomers entire retirement.”

Companies like Aprimo are dangling the carrot of the probability of a one-year promotion to attract talent.  Their OnTrack program, launched in 2005, has had 100% of participates receive promotions and increased salaries within a year.

Companies are witnessing personality conflicts within the workplace because boomers may view that millennials receive special treatment.  “Boomers often gripe about their younger colleagues as arrogant kids who don’t know how to dress appropriately, deal with customers or close deals.”

The key to handling multiple generations within the workplace may revolve around understanding individual personality preferences. To find out more about personality types in the workplace check out:  It’s Not You It’s Your Personality:  Skills to Survive and Thrive in the Modern Workplace.

Related Articles:

How Millennial Are You? Take The Quiz

Check out this interesting quiz by clicking here.   It  is only 15 questions long and lets you know if you fall into the Silent, Boomer, Gen Xer, or Millennial category of personality type.  The higher your score, the more you have in common with the Millennial generation. They define Millenials as those born after 1981, Gen Xers are those born between 1965-1980, Boomers are those born between 1946-1964 and the Silent Generation are those born between 1928-1945.   At the end of the quiz, check out the report about Millennials

In our book about personalities, Toni Rothpletz and I wrote about how to get along with this generation. 

Pew research found:

Millennials Less Religiously Active Than Older Americans

A decline in blogging among Millennials but a modest rise among adults ages 30 and older.

Members of the Millennial generation also give generally high marks to societal changes such as the greater availability of green products and more racial and ethnic diversity.

To get the full report click here:  Millennials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit

About the Research

America’s newest generation, the Millennials, is in this coming-of-age phase. Who are they? How are they different? How are they being shaped by their moment in history? And how might they reshape America in the future? The Pew Research Center sets out to answer these questions in a yearlong series of original reports that explore the behaviors, values and opinions of today’s teens and twenty-somethings.

Read more about the Millennials

Download PDF file of the Study Results by clicking here.