In the modern world, companies pay attention not only to the development of professional skills, which are called hard skills, but also to the ability of employees to apply social skills or social skills associated with personal qualities. Marina Frankova, marketing director of the Future Hub education platform, told socialbites.ca about this.
“Companies look not only for hard work without which it is impossible to do business, but also for skills that affect productivity, teamwork, a healthy atmosphere in the team and the energy level of employees. It has long been known that even the coolest expert with a toxic communication style can ruin both the project and the team,” explained Marina Frankova.
The expert stated that among the social skills that employers closely follow are the ability to get along with people and self-organize candidates. At the same time, different positions require different proportions of professional and “soft” skills.
“For example, an ordinary accountant should have 80% solid knowledge and 20% soft knowledge, while the chief accountant, who has all the staff at his disposal and controls the processes himself, talks to suppliers, customers and authorities. soft skills, on the contrary, will be 70% and will be hard somewhere around 30%, ”said the expert.
He concluded that personal qualities are important even in areas where strong professional training is required.
“To make treatment more effective, doctors need to be able to communicate with patients in an environmentally friendly way, and crew captains need to maintain a friendly atmosphere in the crew to increase the safety and comfort of flights,” said Marina Frankova. .
Formerly a programmer who moved from Russia to Berlin, said About the importance of social skills in IT.