The modern focus within workplaces highlights the importance of not only hard, but soft skills too. The modern dilemma persists around hiring managers especially when you have before yourself, two or more seemingly qualified candidates. Possessing an understanding of soft skills has become progressively important especially in the current competitive world of work. Obtaining soft skills such as actively collaborating, presenting, listening, and communicating have become highly cherished in the modern areas of work. Moreover, it is known that these soft skills can make certain that a productive, healthy and collaborative environment prevails through the interpersonal skills of the team.
Statistics by the Harvard Business Review reveal that there are currently 59% of the hiring managers, and 89% of executives that find difficulty in hiring candidates with the required soft skills. Being highly essential to possess soft skills, and with the increasing difficulty to develop due to the current pandemic (COVID-19), people are less able to develop communication, teamwork and leadership skills. Moreover, the Harvard Business Review suggests that recent cultivation and training of soft skills are being done through virtual reality means. (Meister 2021) This allows for the need to have in-person education and training. How innovative.
One of the drawbacks of having an extremely large-scaled business, is that decision making can sometimes be slowed down. It is extremely valuable to liquidity and time factors, to have the ability to make decisions at a quick rate. Having individual confidence is not enough, as being proactive and able to solve problems heads-on are important traits needed in the modern world of business. On the other hand, it was revealed by the managers and supervisors that our TAVEC students got in touch with, that in most cases employees that portray their skilled decision-making abilities have higher chances of being promoted to top management levels.
One of the many other findings that our students have retrieved is the importance of employing a workforce that is not only creative and critical in thinking, but also compassionate in leadership roles. The ability for one to play the role in a firm as more than one person highlights the competence and abilities of the flexible participant. Having compassion and being truly intrigued, were soft skills that were highlighted to be most effective pre-requisites of team building and communication. Human Resource departments are continuously working closely to ensure that they recruit the right mixture of soft skills, to ensure a stable and proactive working environment for the firm.
Trans-Atlantic Virtual Exchange and Collaboration
With the same concept of being split into groups of four, students have been representing Hochschule Fresenius, Germany, and Adelphi University, New York. Having worked independently during the months of September until December 2020 and being able to focus on the areas of career interest, the students reached out to representatives of firms to better understand the business world in different countries. Business morals and practices have been identified by the TAVEC participants as they all have recorded and highlighted important aspects that were discussed by the employee of the chosen firm and career path.
After interviewing several companies and departmental units, the students have been learning the importance of having skills to work individually, versus in a group dynamic. Few examples of soft skills are the combination of leadership qualities, attitude, work ethic, teamwork, time management, communication, empathy, critical thinking and many more. One of the soft skills being noteworthy is to naturally feel at ease when working within a group. Consisting a diversity of personalities within a group always tests the ability of participants to work as a communal whole. It was noted that courses such as public speaking, can aid in successful and efficient interpersonal communication skills, increasing the employee’s confidence within a group. Here is a little bit on the reflection of our TAVEC students.
I feel I have improved a lot in my communication skills. Also, body language helped a lot with interaction!
Salomon Arcelema, Adelphi University
Our project is based on interpersonal communication. Well, communicate should be easy to explain right? But no. Communication is a person-to-person difference. It’s how you perceive the world.
Lea Effertz, Hochschule Fresenius
I think it was nice to get in touch with international students, especially in the first months of our studies. We were able to gain many experiences, where this was using zoom, holding presentations, writing business emails, finding an interview partner and finding the right spots so everyone could join the meeting due to time difference.
Ugur Alaca, Hochschule Fresenius
SWOT analyses have been created by the individual groups to highlight the prevalent cultural differences in how businesses are carried out. Moreover, this task highlights the set of soft skills that are seemingly demanded under a specific cultural realm. After having delivered the presentable during the much-awaited Trans-Atlantic Student Conference (TASC) in Spring, 2021, the winning team will be granted the opportunity to visit the partner University! How exciting!
Sources
- Peoplescout
- Harvard Business Review
- Image resource: @phc.vector – freepik.com