‘Soft’ skills

Soft skills are those skills that go beyond the technical requirements of a role and influence how we interact with each other. They are often intangible and therefore more difficult to teach. They have increasingly being recognised as being as important as job related skills.

Different roles will often require varying levels of soft skills such as:

• Listening skills in a customer service role
• Decision making in a managerial role
• Creativity in a marketing role

You could use LAW Day to highlight soft skills required for job roles or look at how you could be a more customer-focussed business. Often, these are skills that can be useful at home too.

Activities

Communicating with customers
Creative thinking
Creativity is for everyone!
Developing emotional intelligence
Crucial conversations hints and tips
Crucial conversations questionnaire
Getting your point across
How to start a conversation
Team Learning
Presentation Tips for Public Speaking

Developing the learning further

For advice on addressing literacy and numeracy issues in the workplace, to find out about Government support for training,or to arrange a visit from a skills broker, call 08000 15 55 45 or visit www.traintogain.gov.uk.

Further links

www.personneltoday.com/articles/
http://us.deskdemon.com/pages/us/career/softskilsfacets