Has your organization transitioned to a hybrid work model but realized that some employees struggle to adapt? Have you been frantically searching the web for “employee training soft skills” in hopes of uncovering ways to help your employees succeed in a hybrid work environment? Do you want to know which soft skills are most important for hybrid and remote workers?
If any of this sounds familiar, you are in the right place. While most employees (53%) expect their employers to provide hybrid work arrangements, not everyone has the skills necessary to succeed in this environment. This lack is understandable, as facilitating hybrid work at scale is uncharted territory for many companies and employees.
In light of these facts, you must do your part to help your employees succeed by upskilling them. You can accomplish this with soft skills employee training.
Must-Have Soft Skills for Hybrid Work Environments
Before we explore how to improve employee skills with training, it is important to understand which soft skills are most relevant to the hybrid work environment. The term “soft skills” refers to non-job-specific abilities vital to an employee’s success. Soft skills are centered more on interactions with other employees and have less to do with an individual’s technical competencies.
We will focus on soft skills. Most job-specific technical abilities translate well to hybrid work environments. However, the soft skills required to succeed in a hybrid environment vary slightly from those needed for traditional, in-person work.
Although soft skills have always played an important role in an employee’s success, they have become increasingly important due to the widespread transition to hybrid work. As a result, some experts now refer to this class of talents and abilities as power skills.
Generally speaking, hybrid workers need to have good emotional intelligence, email etiquette, collaboration capabilities, and communication skills. Of these, emotional intelligence is particularly important.
Hybrid workers often communicate using channels such as email, chat apps like Slack, or video conferencing software. These channels are excellent ways of conveying information. However, aspects of communication like tone, body language, and non-verbal cues are diminished or not present at all.
Employees with high emotional intelligence will leverage this skill to effectively interact with co-workers even when these important pieces of non-verbal information are absent from the conversation.
Why Soft Skills Employee Training Is Essential
Like most organizations, your company has likely experienced the effects of the worker shortage and ever-widening skills gap. If so, you know just how challenging it can be to find and hire talented employees. If you further heighten your expectations by adding power skills to your must-have requirements list, you will inadvertently shrink the already scarce applicant pool.
Fortunately, you can work around these challenges while ensuring that your staff possesses the skills needed to succeed in a hybrid work environment. You can accomplish this by investing in soft skills employee training.
This approach will solve your talent shortage problem, and it can improve employee retention.
Employees want to work for companies that invest in their success and development. Soft skills training does precisely that when paired with other employee development initiatives. Ultimately, soft skills employee training improves staff morale, maximizes productivity, and leaves you with a more talented and competitive workforce.
How to Improve Employee Skills with Training
As you can see, soft skills employee training is undoubtedly a worthwhile investment. But how exactly do you develop an effective training program that produces measurable results? The answer lies in skills tests.
Skills tests are highly effective tools created by subject matter experts. Companies use these multi-question tools to screen new hires before offering employment opportunities. However, they are also exceptional at optimizing skills training programs.
If you want to maximize the efficacy of your skills testing strategy, we recommend administering these tests before you create and launch your training program. This approach will reveal what skills your current employees lack. After identifying soft skill deficiencies, you can create a tailored training program to remedy these shortcomings.
You should also administer soft skills tests after training is complete to determine whether your training was effective and what level of improvement your staff experienced. You can use the feedback from these post-training skills tests to improve your program.
There are many soft skills tests available. A few examples include Emotional Intelligence, Attention to Detail, and Following Directions. You can also create a custom skills test using many expertly crafted questions.
How eSkill Can Enhance Your Employee Training Soft Skills Initiatives
Do you want to upskill your staff by improving employee skills with training? Contact eSkill to request a demo.
