What Are Soft Skills in the Workplace?

Soft skills have become increasingly important in the modern-day workplace. Small businesses and large companies alike encourage their workers to develop soft skills. Using these interpersonal skills, workers are more productive. But what exactly are soft skills in the workplace? Whether you're an employer or employee, you should familiarize yourself with the definition of soft skills and how they are used in the modern-day workplace.

Overview of Soft Skills

Also known as interpersonal skills, soft skills are traits, characteristics and qualities that affect a worker's ability to communicate with other people. In the modern-day workplace, workers are typically required to communicate with other people on a daily basis. A worker may have to talk to his or her coworkers, boss, customers, clients, vendors or other people. Soft skills refer to a worker's ability to perform these communications.

Soft Skills vs Hard Skills

There are also hard skills, which contrast in comparison to soft skills. Hard skills are technical skills that workers use to perform their job. Operating a lathe or milling machine, for instance, requires hard skills. A worker must know how to safely use the lathe or milling machine. Therefore, he or she needs hard skills on this topic.

Workers typically learn hard skills through training. Employers provide training courses to new employees to teach them the hard skills to perform their job. Soft skills, on the other hand, can't be learned through training. Employers must use other methods, such as fostering a positive company culture, to help their workers build stronger soft skills.

The Importance of Soft Skills in the Workplace

Soft skills are important in the modern-day workplace because they affect the way in which workers communicate. If a worker has poor or nonexistent soft skills, he or she won't be able to effectively communicate with other people.

Workers with strong soft skills also have a lower turnover rate than those with poor or nonexistent soft skills. With strong soft skills, workers are more likely to stay with their current employer rather than quitting to find a different job.

Workers use a variety of skills to perform their respective job. However, nearly all of these skills can be classified as either hard or soft. Soft skills are interpersonal skills that affect worker's ability to communicate with other people, whereas hard skills are technical skills that affect a worker's ability to perform a specific job-related task.