Better communication, increased empathy and other interpersonal abilities can be taught, and may have a positive impact on the modern workplace.
Interpersonal skills improve teamwork and enhance customer service.
Workplace training sometimes focuses exclusively on the “hard” skills required to use essential technology and perform role-specific duties. This view of employee education is unnecessarily narrow, due to the continuing importance of “soft” skills. Employees who are expert communicators and empathetic teammates are well-suited to both cooperating internally and interacting with customers. Some workers emerge from college without fully developed soft skills, further increasing the importance of learning these abilities on the job.
No matter the industry in question, professional roles involve interacting constantly with other people. The more smoothly these interactions go, the more value the employee will generate for the company. This value may mean that meetings reach satisfactory conclusions, customers receive helpful answers to their questions, or partner organizations get great results from their own interactions with the business. Across industries and cases, soft skills can represent increased effectiveness. Continue reading
