Are you looking to progress in your career? Soft skills may be the key to propelling you to success. According to the Deloitte Human Capital Trends report, 90% of executives rate soft skills as a priority for their employees. You may have every technical skill mastered for your role, but this amounts to little if you don’t work well with others. The modern workplace requires consistent teamwork, collaboration and communication with little room for those who don’t work well with others.
Unlike hard skills, which can be easily measured and quantified, soft skills are intangible and difficult to quantify. Soft skills are personable attributes, usually linked to how you work and interact with others. Soft skills are necessary for your success and your career development as they help facilitate human connections and relationships. Effective soft skills make you visible for the right reasons, opening up more career-related opportunities such as a promotion to team lead or management.
According to LinkedIn data, the top five most in-demand soft skills in the tech industry are;
- Creativity
- Persuasion
- Collaboration
- Adaptability
- Time Management
Creativity: Creative employees are always highly sought after. You may think that you’re not creative but there are steps you can follow. Creativity in the workplace is about thinking or doing something slightly different. Approach each task in work with the attitude that the current method is only temporary until it is replaced by something better. Discuss your ideas with people, incorporate their feedback and above all else, don’t be afraid to fail. Put yourself and your ideas out there, failure is necessary for success.
Persuasion: Being able to persuade others that your idea or way of doing something is no easy task but it is necessary to achieve your goals and objectives. There are many ways to persuade people, some more shady than others such as nagging and coercion. Successful persuaders get others to buy into their idea. You need to understand how your audience thinks, what makes them tick. Practicing active listening and empathy are excellent ways to discover how someone thinks. You also need to really believe in your idea and communicate it well, don’t be afraid to receive some negative feedback, it is part of the process.
Collaboration: Collaboration is essential in work. Within the tech industry, it is the norm to collaborate across departments and teams due to the nature of the work. Building effective collaboration is more than teamwork, it means building trust. It is important to communicate clearly about everyone’s role in the process and agree upon it. It is important to place the overall goal ahead of your personal goals or recognition, true collaboration is about the overall outcome. Recognising others for their work or contribution and offering credit is a great way to build collaboration.
Adaptability: Adaptability is one of the most sought-after qualities in an employee as advances in technology continue to accelerate at an increasing rate. The ability to modify one’s thinking, beliefs and behaviours to better suit the current or future environment is becoming essential in the modern digital age. It is almost impossible for organisations to keep up with the rate of change, adaptable employees are the key to future-proofing the business. To be adaptable in the workplace, you need to be open to new projects outside your comfort zone, accept and embrace that your role may change to better suit market conditions and convey calmness and confidence when you are faced with a sudden new dilemma.
Time Management: Time is a great equaliser, everyone has the same number of hours in the day and learning how to effectively utilise your time is the key to success. Setting goals and prioritising each goal is a great way to manage time. Before completing any task, assess how urgent the priority is and how much of your time does the task warrant. Consistent planning is an essential element of time management, keep control of your daily, weekly and monthly workflow. For more tips on time management – read this blog (Insert link: https://www.sigmarrecruitment.eu/blog/2019/08/how-to-improve-productivity-at-work).
Posted by Adam Dunne on 9 September 2019