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Z całego świata | Z całego świata | 2010-03-31 Which are the Employability Skills – Hard Skills or Soft Skills?  Bildquelle: fotolia.com (By Prof. M.S.Rao, India) Are both Soft Skills and Hard Skills new domains in management? If these were not new, would these be the reinvention of the previous management jargon? What are the much talked about employability skills? Which of these two skills are known as employability skills? It is essential to know what are soft and hard skills before addressing all these questions.
“The average man who is successful is not a genius. He is a man who has merely ordinary qualities but who has developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.” – Theodore Roosevelt What are Soft Skills? “Soft skills are the traits and abilities of attitude and behavior rather than of knowledge or technical aptitude” - Tobin Soft skills are the skills and abilities that are essential to communicate with superiors, peers, subordinates, clients and vendors. These are the skills related to both verbal and non verbal language for effective and efficient communication. Soft skills constitute communication skills and various others skills such as interpersonal, team building, time management, leadership, decision making, problem solving, negotiation skills to name a few. Communication skill is the heart of soft skill. Soft skills are also known as people skills, life skills, interpersonal skills, employability skills and domain skills. The soft skills are referred with different names across the world. Importance of Soft Skills: “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” – Anthony Robbins Soft skills are important to everybody. These bring out multiple benefits such as enhancing self-confidence and self-esteem among the individuals. These equip certain traits and attributes among the individuals leading to personal, professional and social survival and success. For the students passing out from educational institutions, these skills would help them getting employment as the corporate insist on plug and play recruits. For the working professionals, these equip the tools and techniques to handle difficult people. In addition, these promote advancement in career. For the organizations, these skills help staying ahead of their competitors. Most of the conflicts in organizations arise due to improper communication either by the sender or receiver or by both. Soft skills minimize misunderstandings in communication and eliminate conflicts resulting into better productivity and performance. These skills promote fraternity and good will among the individuals Soft skills are essential for the success of any organization especially those who deal with their clients directly. Service sectors such as IT, ITes, Banking, Retail, Hospitality, Tourism etc., provide soft skills training to their employees to reap several benefits. Soft Skills Vs Hard Skills: A few people confuse soft skills as softness and hard skills as hardness while it is not so in real sense. According to Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D, CEO of Performance Support Systems, Inc., based in Newport News, VA, in the world of work, “hard skills” are technical or administrative procedures related to an organization’s core business. By contrast, “soft skills” (also called “people skills”) are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure. "Hard skills" refer to specific skills that are used on specific jobs. For example, being able to back a semi-trailer up to a loading dock without hitting anything or anybody is a "hard skill" that is necessary to be a truck driver. Reporting to work on time, being able to take direction, and having enough initiative to be productive are "soft skills." It is noticed that how these skills are important to truck drivers. Employers seek these skills in everyone they hire. Soft skills are the skills, attributes and traits related to personality, attitude and behaviour pertain to non-domain skills. As already stated, soft skills constitutes collection of several skills. In contrast, hard skills are the core skills that are essential to execute job related tasks. These are also known as technical skills, core skills and domain skills. The soft skills are transferable skills necessary in every domain while hard skills are confined to particular domain. Hard skills stress on ‘what you say’ not ‘how you say’. In contrast, soft skills emphasize on ‘how you say’ not ‘what you say’. For instance, ‘don’t smoke’ depicts hard skill. On the other hand, ‘thanks for not smoking’ demonstrates soft skill. Succinctly, soft skills are the polite and pleasing presentation of your hard skills. Are Soft Skills more Important than Hard Skills? “In today’s competitive environment, it is not enough to be the best in your field, intellectually. Competency is only half of what you need to climb the ladder of success. The other half is the softer side of you – it’s that part of you that will be liked, admired, trusted and remembered.” – Carole Nicola Ides. There are several statements more in support of soft skills than hard skills among people. For instance, Studies by Stanford Research Institute and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation among Fortune 500 CEOs found that 75% of long term job success depended on people skills and only 25% on technical skills. The Harvard University stated that someone achievement on career are 80% determined by soft skills and only 20% determined by hard skills. It is of more tilt towards soft skills rather than hard skills. Besides, it is felt that many employers are more interested in "soft skills", because they can teach "hard skills" to those that are ready and willing to learn. It’s not hard to teach someone to use a computer or machine. It is very hard to teach someone to show up on time, ready to work. In Indian IT (Information Technology) industry, the slogan is, ‘Soft skills are more important than software skills’. The IT industry feels strongly that if the people are good at soft skills they can be easily taught about software skills. Survey from National Association of College and Employee NACE), USA (2002), to 457 leaders in USA, about 20 important quality of success people, the result shown that 18 are soft skill and only two on hard skill. To wrap up, it is difficult to emphasize that soft skills are more important than hard skills although organizations insist more on soft skills than on hard skills. Both soft and hard skills are complementary. These are two sides of the same coin. While hard skill is the infrastructure the soft skill is the superstructure. Any structure is complete only when it has both infrastructure and superstructure. The relation between both soft and hard skills is that of relation between wife and husband. It is tough task to conclude that husband is superior to wife or vice versa. What is essential is blend of both soft and hard skills for professional survival and success. Employability Skills: Kanter defines, “Employability is the new security, if individuals have acquired and maintained their employability then, should their job come to an end, they would be able to find employment elsewhere.” It is essential to know what unemployability is before explaining employability. Unemployability is all about possessing requisite educational eligibility but lacking suitability and capability to perform the tasks at the workplace despite availability of employment opportunities. It is different from unemployment where there is educational eligibility, suitability and capability but there is dearth of employment opportunities. In certain parts of the world students possess educational qualifications to be short listed for interview but fail to get employment as they don’t demonstrate the requisite skills and attitude expected by the potential recruiters which are nothing but soft skills. Although students are good at their hard skills they fail to grab the employment opportunities due to dearth of soft skills. Soft skills promote employability skills. As a result, soft skills are referred as employability skills. The HR practitioners stand by the slogan of ‘Recruit for Attitude, Train for Skill’ during the employment interview thereby further strengthening that soft skills are employability skills. In Australia, employability skills are defined as “the skills required gaining employment or establish an enterprise, but also to progress within an enterprise or expand employment capability, so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to an enterprise’s strategic directions.” The eight employability skills are initiative and enterprise, learning, self-management, communication, teamwork, problem solving, planning and organizing and technology. Which are the Employability Skills – Hard Skills or Soft Skills? “Soft skills give us the tools with which to take stock of our situation, take control of our development, and take responsibility for our future.” - Tobin People think hard skills like technical competence, domain knowledge, knowledge and qualifications as employability skills. In fact, hard skills help you to pass out with degree but it is the soft skills such as interpersonal skills, communication skills, social grace, etiquette, team building and leadership skills that provide employment. In brief, hard skills get you qualification while soft skills get you employment. Hard skills take you up to interview but it is the soft skills that get you employment. Thus we can call these soft skills as employability skills, not hard skills. Things are changing rapidly due to globalization. The domain skills are fast getting defunct. It appears that ultimately what would survive in the long run are the soft skills which seem to be permanent. It is also possible that the so called soft skills may become hard skills over a period of time. Robert Katz and Soft Skills: Although both hard and soft skills sound new and are frequently used these days, the literature to this effect was already mentioned by Robert Kart way back in 1974 in a different manner. Robert Katz (Robert Katz, "Skills of an effective administrator," Harvard Business Review, September-October 1974, pp. 90-101.) identified three skills such as technical, human and conceptual which are essential to managers at each level of management such as lower, middle and top level management. The ratio of each skill varies depending upon the level of management. Both technical and human skills can be substituted by hard and soft skills respectively in the present context. Keeping soft skills and hard skills in view, let us summarize that hard skill deals with technical and domain competency, soft skill concerns with the ability to interact with people in a pleasing and polite manner and the conceptual skill deals with ideas and insights. According to Robert Katz, technical skills deal with things, human skills pertain to people and conceptual skills relate to ideas and insights. At the lower level management, the people need high degree of hard skills and low degree of conceptual skills and a requisite ratio of soft skills. At the middle level management, the people need to possess equal level of hard and conceptual skills and a requisite ratio of soft skills. Finally, at the top level management, the people need to display low degree of hard skills and high degree of conceptual skills and a requisite ratio of soft skills. From all the three levels of management it transpires that the ratio of soft skills required remains constant irrespective of the level of management. Thus soft skills are needed to be demonstrated not only at all levels of management but also in every sphere for ensuring professional survival and success. Academic Examples: Let us take Robert Katz’s concept academically. A faculty member in any educational institution initially need to be good at more of hard skills and less of soft skills, after reaching to the position of Senior faculty, s/he need to possess both soft and hard skills equally as s/he has to teach and manage the department. When s/he reaches to the post of Dean/Head of the institution there is more emphasis on soft skills and less on hard skills as s/he teaches less and manages more. Conclusion: There is a saying in business world; "People rise because of their hard skills and fall because of (the lack of) soft skills". Soft skills are going to play a crucial role not only to get employment opportunities for the students but also to ensure professional survival and success for the employees in organizations. The higher the position you reach in organization higher the ratio of soft skills needed to excel as a leader. Possessing qualifications is a hard skill and acquiring competencies is a soft skill. Your hard skill can take you up to the employment interview. But it is the soft skill that can get you employment opportunity. Therefore, we can conclude that it is not the hard skills but the soft skills which are known as employability skills. However, it is essential to blend your both hard and soft skills not only to get employment but also to ensure fast track career growth within the organization. References: Author’s Blog: http://profmsr.blogspot.com ‘A Whole New Mind’ by Dan Pink Robert Katz, "Skills of an effective administrator," Harvard Business Review, September-October 1974, pp. 90-101. ‘Lesson from the Top’ by Neff and Citrin (1999). National Association of College and Employee NACE), USA (2002) Online References: http://www.2020insight.net/Docs4/PeopleSkills.pdf http://www.breitlinks.com/careers/soft_skills.htm http://www.softskillsindia.com/whydevelopsoftskills/importanceofsoftskills.html http://www.breitlinks.com/careers/soft_skills.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills www.frieyadie.com.html www.usatoday.com www.dbcc.fl.us.htm http://www.crc.ufl.edu http://www.acci.asn.au/text_files/skills_blueprint/Chapter12-EmployabilitySkills.pdf https://mail.voctech.org.bn:987/onlinereg/.../09-Wagiran.pdf Author’s Profile: The author, Prof. M.S.Rao, has 29 years of experience. He is a trainer, teacher, writer, orator, mentor, researcher and consultant and leadership practitioner. He has 6 qualifications - MBA, MA, PGDBM, PGDCLL, BSc, DME (Aeronautical). He is a Corporate Trainer in Leadership Development conducting training programs for various corporate and educational institutions. He is a Motivational Speaker and delivers 'Guest Lectures' upon request. He is a specialist in Soft Skills and Leadership Training. His areas of interest include Leadership Development, Soft Skills, Self-improvement, Corporate Training and Entrepreneurship. He worked as a ‘Consulting Editor’ in IBS Research Center, Hyderabad, India. He successfully delivered two books titled “Soft Skills for Better Employability” and “Secrets for Successful Public Speaking”. His books titled ‘Secrets for Success’ (Foreword by Lenny Laskowski, International Professional Speaker, National Best Selling Author, “10 Days to More Confident Public Speaking”) and ‘Soft Skills – Enhancing Employability’ (Foreword by Ken Shelton, Editor of globally renowned magazine, Leadership Excellence) will be released shortly. He has more than 150 articles to his credit published in various global websites, newspapers like The Times of India, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle, magazines and journals like Emerald. He is a member of Emerald Literati Network, U.K. He can be reached at: profmsr7@gmail.com, profmsrce@yahoo.com. He has a Blog titled ‘Where Knowledge is Wealth’ vide URL http://profmsr.blogspot.com is widely read and appreciated across the world.
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