Soft Skills Training to
Boost Business Performance

How Soft Skills Training Benefits Your Business

When it comes to training in the workplace, soft skills are often overlooked because they’re not as tangible as something like project management or working with software. Therefore, training someone on developing these crucial business skills is harder to deliver and measure results on.

Although it may be harder to deliver this type of training, it’s also more important than ever. The businesses that invest in soft skills training for employees are the ones growing in revenue and leading their industries. In these times of change and uncertainty, providing training content that helps your employees develop their soft skills proves you’re committed to seeing a bright future for your organization, and for them as individuals.

When your employees are able to align their personal goals with your business goals, you’ll start seeing increases in business results across the board.

One study from MIT Sloan found that a controlled, 12-month trial of soft skills training in five different factories yielded a 250% ROI in just eight months. Their training on soft skills like problem solving and decision making boosted productivity, made complex tasks more efficient, and improved employee attendance.

Demonstrating your commitment to developing employees on a deeper level puts your organization on the fast track to gaining and sustaining high employee engagement, and that particular benefit affects every part of your business.

The positive results you can see from soft skills training are virtually endless – check out our online learning library to get started boosting your business results!

View Our Business Skills Training Library

Training Strategies to Address the Soft Skills Gap

As technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning lessen the demand for technical skills, soft skills are becoming more in-demand for businesses to create and maintain a competitive advantage.

We partnered with Training Industry to research the soft skill gaps organizations are facing today and what can be done to address them. This ebook details the results of that research, and provides you with strategies to identify and close gaps in the soft skills your employees need.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are the competencies that allow your employees to interact effectively and productively with others, no matter the role or the setting.

As an organization, you can’t make the mistake of seeing “soft” as “unnecessary” or “inferior.” Soft skills are what separate average performers from high performers. The Stanford Research Institute International determined that 75% of long-term success in a job role depends on mastery of soft skills – only 25% of that job success comes from technical skills.

While technical skills obviously have importance, many organizations have been giving them disproportionate weight in job descriptions and training, but that is changing, and fast. These are some of the skills that are becoming most in-demand in today’s workplaces:

Strong communication skills are foundational for today's employees to perform well in their roles, and everyone has an area where they can improve the way they communicate.
Knowing how to manage others well requires a strong understanding of human behavior and how to positively influence those behaviors.
When employees understand how to collaborate well and work out solutions as a team, organizations see performance improvements across the board.
When time is a resource you can't get back, it's important for employees to understand the difference between efficiency and effectiveness when managing their time.
Sometimes conflict can be healthy, but often it ends up having negative consequences for your employees and organization - that's why conflict resolution skills are essential.
When employees and leaders are well-versed in change management, they can quickly adapt in response to new ideas, circumstances, requirements, and other changes.
Knowing how to use PowerPoint is not enough – your employees need to understand how to present information in a clear and engaging way that leads to action.
Developing EQ is becoming increasingly important – this is how your employees understand themselves and others, so they can better manage relationships.
This is the skill of figuring out a way to change what is into what’s desired when the situation is messy and regular methods won’t work.

Evaluating the Impact of Soft Skills Training in Your Organization

If you or your leaders aren’t fully on board with the impact that soft skills training can have on your workforce, you’re not alone. Soft skills are often intangible, which leaves many people mystified with how to measure the effects of improving them.

This ebook will show you a few different methods for looking at the impacts of soft skills training, so you can prove the value of your training investment.

Can Soft Skills Be Learned Online?

When you know that soft skills training is important to include in your training program, the question is then, “How do we deliver this in an effective way?”

Some would say that learning soft skills can only be accomplished through experience, when you’re in the thick of things, working side by side with your colleagues. While that’s certainly necessary for putting soft skills into practice, today’s learning technology plays a significant role in teaching employees to understand these abstract concepts and make sense of how to implement them on the job.

Video-based microlearning and online interactive learning have proven to be effective ways to learn complex skills because training can be done in short, engaging bursts, and then practiced in real-life situations right away. This makes online learning highly efficient and cost-effective for subjects like communication, business etiquette, presenting, time management, ethics, and more.

Breaking down complex topics into manageable chunks also makes training much more accessible than if you relied on instructor-led training sessions alone for teaching soft skills. Online, on-demand content is a powerful tool for delivering effective soft skills training, especially when you use it in conjunction with on-the-job coaching and training scenarios.

Providing an online learning library full of expertly-created content can greatly improve your company culture because it allows your employees to self-direct their development. This capability empowers them to make learning and growth a part of their everyday routine, giving your business a strong competitive advantage to provide the best experience and solutions to your customers.

The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide to Online Learning Solutions

If you want to implement soft skills training that leads to better business results, you’ll need an online learning solution that combines engaging content, modern technology, and a strategic partnership.

There are a lot of options out there, so this guide will look at the most important elements of a learning solution, and how you can find the right fit to empower your employees with building their soft skills.

BizLibrary’s Online Solutions Make it Easy to Build Soft Skills

Our online training library, The BizLibrary Collection, provides your employees with comprehensive video and interactive content. You’ll find training for every area of development they need, along with curated learning paths of pre-selected content to guide them.

Incorporating soft skills development into your employee training plan can be tricky and difficult to measure, so along with gaining access to tons of professional content, you’ll gain a dedicated partner with extensive knowledge in how to see results from your training program.

Interested in more than soft skills training? The BizLibrary Collection provides you with online training on a wide variety of topics, like customer service, leadership and management, sales, compliance, software and IT, workplace safety, and more!

These titles represent just a few of the soft skills training courses available in The BizLibrary Collection:

  • Critical Thinking 101
  • Igniting Creativity
  • Using Emotional Intelligence
  • A Guide for Healthy Communications
  • Art of Assertiveness
  • Cognitive Flexibility
  • Coordinating with Others
  • Negotiating Skills
  • Building Great Relationships

Here’s a small taste of what our content library has to offer – enjoy this 1-minute preview on developing empathy as a skill. Feel free to browse our business skills topics to see more previews!

Learn how BizLibrary can help your employees improve their soft skills!