If You Hire for Soft Skills, It’s Just as Important to Train Them

May 1, 2018
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These FREE online courses can develop your employees’ most critical soft skills for today’s work environments.

Soft skills are now a primary trait employers look for in candidates, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Employers want natural leaders who can work as part of a team, solve problems, and communicate effectively. Abstract qualifications like these matter as much or more than educational pedigree and practical job skills.

We covered the importance of identifying character and soft skills in new hires, but it’s just as crucial to train our employees in these skills. Soft skills are evolving quickly as workplaces evolve, making training an ongoing professional development necessity. Many of us in HR and management are constrained by time and financial resources, so while we agree with the proposition that soft skills training matters, we can’t easily find ways to provide it—until now.

Just present your employees with the opportunity to develop the soft skills they will need throughout their careers in these FREE multimedia online Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs):

Working in Multidisciplinary Teams (Polimi OPEN KNOWLEDGE): Cross-departmental collaboration is a trend that’s here to stay, but many of our employees have had no training in this discipline. This MOOC trains employees to develop holistic problem-solving skills that derive from collaborating with people representing different perspectives. It teaches them the value of contamination between different values, management styles, and attitudes in multidisciplinary teams, and how to contribute effectively as a member. This video introduces the course:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNgDuc74uCU[/embedyt]

Communication in the 21st Century Workplace (University of California Irvine, via Coursera): This course teaches every member of your team how to effectively use both verbal and nonverbal communication in the workplace. This course provides employees the interpersonal skills and awareness they need to communicate with colleagues of every gender, age, and culture. Key areas of concentration include behavioral patterns, verbal and nonverbal cues, tact, anger management, constructive feedback, conflict resolution, leadership, and use of technology tools to communicate more competently.

Management for a Competitive Edge (International College of Management Sydney, via Open2Study):  This course focuses on the key traits of an effective manager and how to perform in different organizational settings, including those that may involve a variety of different corporate cultures. The MOOC also delves into management strategies and tools that managers can use to fine tune their management skills, the building blocks of leadership, how to work in team environments, and how to effectively communicate.

Not only are these resources beneficial for the training they provide, but they also encourage lifelong professional development. This is recurring theme throughout many programs like the examples above. So suggest these resources to your employees today, and share this article with other workplace colleagues and industry peers.

If you are a manager and would like to develop your own leadership capabilities, learn about Four Online MOOC Courses for you.