Abstract:

Soft skills include certain personal and interpersonal features such as flexibility, team spirit, communication, motivation, critical thinking, adaptive, multi-tasking and innovative responses, social and collaborative problem-solving abilities, etc. These characteristics that actually form the way any person approaches life, are considered to be major factors of success in private and professional well-being, therefore adding to the overall prosperity of labor markets. On the other hand there is lack of clarity in defining, classifying and acquiring them which leads to a general absence of proportionate skills development policies and strategies. Consequently training actions on developing such skills is, in general, quite hard to implement and even harder to measure results on, despite the fact that such skills, if they already exist or somehow acquired, show profoundly in the workplace. Moreover, it is generally accepted that businesses, institutions, organizations, etc. that thoroughly invest in soft skill training for their employees, tend to gradually grow in revenue and create better workplace environments for all stakeholders, possibly due to the alignment of goals. According to a study from MIT Sloan, a controlled, 12 month trial of soft skills training in five different factories yielded a 250% ROI in a period of eight months. Their training on soft skills like problem solving and decision making appeared to boost productivity, make complex tasks more efficient and improve employee attendance. It seems that commitment to advancing employees on a deeper conscious level puts an organization on the fast track to gaining high employee engagement which in return may as well affect every subfield of the business. Another study from Stanford Research Institute, determines that 75% of long term success in a job role depends on mastery of soft skills, while only 25% of that job success originally derives from technical skills. Moreover according to the World Economic Forum (2018) Report on The Future of Jobs, the top skills for the 2022 employee include active learning, creativity, critical thinking and analysis, complex problem solving abilities, leadership, emotional intelligence and reasoning. From the above it derives, that the factor of soft skills development is essential in labor markets, raising the question of how to practically implement it among adults. The present paper examines thoroughly the above ideas, while trying to note and classify the current worldwide trends and approaches concerning soft skills training, trying to answer questions relevant to the ways soft skills could practically be obtained (on-the-job experience, vocational education and training programs, recent learning technologies) and evaluating the return on investment whenever possible. A deeper analysis of the matter is considered essential as it could prompt employees to personal and professional growth while creating strong competitive advantages for businesses at the same time, consequently creating a win-win situation that may gradually advance both labor markets and individuals.

Keywords:

Soft Skills, Smart Skills, Labor Markets, Innovation and Training, ROI Growth.