Soft skills training can and does work, new research shows


The question of whether soft skills training is ever useful – if soft skills can actually be taught – has seemingly be answered.

HRM has reported on studies showing that soft skills are currently in demand, and others that demonstrate they will only become more important. But such research fails to answer a key concern HR professionals have – can existing employees be taught soft skills, or are they innate?

Because if they were unteachable, then having organisational training would be a waste, and instead HR should focus on making sure they hire people who already have them.

MIT Sloan assistant professor of economics, Namrata Kala, partnering with colleagues at other US universities, may have found the answer. Working with Shahi Exports, a garment manufacturer, they ran a randomized controlled trial across five Bangalore factories. Not only did their training program prove effective, the benefits extended to both the company and its employees.

Soft skills in a hard job

If any type of work didn’t tangibly benefit from soft skills, it would seemingly be a job on an assembly line. Indeed Kala herself didn’t think it obvious that garment sewering would require them. But, as she explains in an MIT Sloan article on the research, it turns out soft skills are quite useful in that line of work.

“When you’re on a production line for eight hours you need to communicate with other team members,” she says. “You need to meet the deadline, and you need to listen closely to your boss who is walking up and down giving instructions.”

The results are pretty astounding. The soft skills training program returned approximately 250 per cent on investment within eight months of concluding. So it more than paid for itself, mostly through increases in staff productivity. The other factors included increased retention during the training, and short-term gains in improved attendance.

These last two seem to support the idea that training is an effective form of employee recognition, as HRM has written about previously.

Employee benefits

In a survey of women who participated in the trial – both those who’d participated in the training program and those who hadn’t – the researchers found that those who’d been trained had marginally higher incomes. More impressively, they were found to have more respect for themselves as workers and were more likely to request training for hard skills.

Outside of work, they were also more likely to save more for their children’s education and took more advantage of government programs.

What type of training was it?

It’s all well and good to say that soft skills training works, and that it delivers on investment. But what sort of training are we talking about – and how costly is it up front?

The program the workers in Bangalore engaged in ran a full year and focused on:

  • Communication
  • Problem solving and decision making
  • Time and stress management
  • Execution
  • Financial literacy, legal literacy and social entitlements

This last dot-point seems at least a little specific to the conditions of Bangalore, and might explain the fact that employees who took part in it became more likely to take advantage of government programs. But the rest are classic soft-skills, the kinds sought after in today’s job market. That the training had a pronounced impact on productivity should be enough to make all employers take note.

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Mark Vollmer
Mark Vollmer
6 years ago

Good summary of classic learning question. My primary challenge is in the title about ‘Soft Skills:’ the capability and skills are not so soft!

I am on a mission to change the reference from ‘soft’ to ‘core’ skills to accurately reflect the value and resilience the skills met brings; to individuals and companies!

Kevin Scott
Kevin Scott
6 years ago

Intuitively, it seems obvious that ‘soft’ skills matter to individuals and workplaces where there is an absence or lack of them. While not disputing the results of the study I would be interested in the intrinsic influence of feeling ‘valued’ along with the greater disposition of women to have or seek to engage in and develop their social skills.

While acknowledging the nature and place of the workforce it still points to the importance of recruitment, induction and ongoing development if one is seeking to realise the potential productivity through workplace engagement

Felicity Donert
Felicity Donert
6 years ago

Such prevelant discussion about the applicability and tangible and intangible results from ‘core learning’.

With people busier than ever and jobs demanding more from employees each day, stress, anxiety and mental health prevelant in society. Organisations have a duty of care to step up and support the well-being of their employees through these core initiatives.

I do however question the valdity of ROI, sometimes very difficult to measure without considering impacts of internal and external environments impacting this organisation.

Thanks for sharing!

Andrew Farquhar
Andrew Farquhar
6 years ago

I have attended a few colleges across Perth WA and Sydney an Queensland via correspondence and I have to say that the courses I have paid good money to attend, ended up with many argument with lecturers who I have to say failed badly with core skills and I found myself wanting at interviews because they failed to cover the primary skills required to do the job. the cover skills not taught that would make me confident enough to begin doing the work on the very first day and not have to be retrained by the new employer. Employees who… Read more »

More on HRM

Soft skills training can and does work, new research shows


The question of whether soft skills training is ever useful – if soft skills can actually be taught – has seemingly be answered.

HRM has reported on studies showing that soft skills are currently in demand, and others that demonstrate they will only become more important. But such research fails to answer a key concern HR professionals have – can existing employees be taught soft skills, or are they innate?

Because if they were unteachable, then having organisational training would be a waste, and instead HR should focus on making sure they hire people who already have them.

MIT Sloan assistant professor of economics, Namrata Kala, partnering with colleagues at other US universities, may have found the answer. Working with Shahi Exports, a garment manufacturer, they ran a randomized controlled trial across five Bangalore factories. Not only did their training program prove effective, the benefits extended to both the company and its employees.

Soft skills in a hard job

If any type of work didn’t tangibly benefit from soft skills, it would seemingly be a job on an assembly line. Indeed Kala herself didn’t think it obvious that garment sewering would require them. But, as she explains in an MIT Sloan article on the research, it turns out soft skills are quite useful in that line of work.

“When you’re on a production line for eight hours you need to communicate with other team members,” she says. “You need to meet the deadline, and you need to listen closely to your boss who is walking up and down giving instructions.”

The results are pretty astounding. The soft skills training program returned approximately 250 per cent on investment within eight months of concluding. So it more than paid for itself, mostly through increases in staff productivity. The other factors included increased retention during the training, and short-term gains in improved attendance.

These last two seem to support the idea that training is an effective form of employee recognition, as HRM has written about previously.

Employee benefits

In a survey of women who participated in the trial – both those who’d participated in the training program and those who hadn’t – the researchers found that those who’d been trained had marginally higher incomes. More impressively, they were found to have more respect for themselves as workers and were more likely to request training for hard skills.

Outside of work, they were also more likely to save more for their children’s education and took more advantage of government programs.

What type of training was it?

It’s all well and good to say that soft skills training works, and that it delivers on investment. But what sort of training are we talking about – and how costly is it up front?

The program the workers in Bangalore engaged in ran a full year and focused on:

  • Communication
  • Problem solving and decision making
  • Time and stress management
  • Execution
  • Financial literacy, legal literacy and social entitlements

This last dot-point seems at least a little specific to the conditions of Bangalore, and might explain the fact that employees who took part in it became more likely to take advantage of government programs. But the rest are classic soft-skills, the kinds sought after in today’s job market. That the training had a pronounced impact on productivity should be enough to make all employers take note.

Subscribe to receive comments
Notify me of
guest

6 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mark Vollmer
Mark Vollmer
6 years ago

Good summary of classic learning question. My primary challenge is in the title about ‘Soft Skills:’ the capability and skills are not so soft!

I am on a mission to change the reference from ‘soft’ to ‘core’ skills to accurately reflect the value and resilience the skills met brings; to individuals and companies!

Kevin Scott
Kevin Scott
6 years ago

Intuitively, it seems obvious that ‘soft’ skills matter to individuals and workplaces where there is an absence or lack of them. While not disputing the results of the study I would be interested in the intrinsic influence of feeling ‘valued’ along with the greater disposition of women to have or seek to engage in and develop their social skills.

While acknowledging the nature and place of the workforce it still points to the importance of recruitment, induction and ongoing development if one is seeking to realise the potential productivity through workplace engagement

Felicity Donert
Felicity Donert
6 years ago

Such prevelant discussion about the applicability and tangible and intangible results from ‘core learning’.

With people busier than ever and jobs demanding more from employees each day, stress, anxiety and mental health prevelant in society. Organisations have a duty of care to step up and support the well-being of their employees through these core initiatives.

I do however question the valdity of ROI, sometimes very difficult to measure without considering impacts of internal and external environments impacting this organisation.

Thanks for sharing!

Andrew Farquhar
Andrew Farquhar
6 years ago

I have attended a few colleges across Perth WA and Sydney an Queensland via correspondence and I have to say that the courses I have paid good money to attend, ended up with many argument with lecturers who I have to say failed badly with core skills and I found myself wanting at interviews because they failed to cover the primary skills required to do the job. the cover skills not taught that would make me confident enough to begin doing the work on the very first day and not have to be retrained by the new employer. Employees who… Read more »

More on HRM