To What Extent Do Soft Skills Deliver Advantages for Employees - Research Proposal Example

TO WHAT EXTENT DO ‘SOFT’ SKILLS DELIVER ADVANTAGES FOR EMPLOYEES? By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date To what extent do ‘soft’ skills deliver advantages for employees? 1.0 Introduction In the majority of business organisations, Soft Skills have become an important part of the performed job; for instance, in the call centre setting, budgets for supportive training are compulsory since without these skills, such organisations cannot function properly. Basically, employees’ soft skills shrewdness directly connects to organisational agility as well as effectiveness. As it will be evidenced in this piece, soft skills equip employees better to handle the enormous change levels that have become part and parcel of modern-day corporate world. Clearly, soft skills are progressively becoming the modern-day employees’ hard skills since it is not adequate to be trained highly in technical skills, devoid of developing the relationship-building, interpersonal and softer skills, which enable people to collaborate as well as communicate effectively. Soft skills have become more important than ever given that the organisations are struggling to uncover meaningful ways of remaining productive and competitive. Development of soft skills underpins communication, leadership, and teamwork given that all are crucial elements for personal and organisational. The benefits of soft skills to employees include recognition from the peers, employers and industry, increased responsibilities, promotions, and also new employment opportunities. Since competitiveness and globalisation have turned out to be a benchmark of many companies, it is imperative for the workforce to be equipped with better soft skills. The majority of employers are not only considering employee knowledge and skills, but also their personal qualities and other soft skills. Clearly, skill has constantly been an indefinable notion and the growing ‘soft skills’ prominence increases this complexity. This piece offers an insight of benefits of soft skills to employees by critically analysing the existing literature on soft skill as well as report on conceptualisation variations of soft skills and their benefits for the work force. 2.0 Literature Review Soft skills have been described by Wushe et al. (2014) as a catch all phrase utilised to describe the non-technical abilities of employees. Therefore, they describe soft skills as a set of non-technical, competences like customer service, interpersonal and communication skills and individual traits like responsibility and integrity. Soft skills, according to the authors, comprise of skills related to the behaviour needed for interpersonal interaction. The authors further mention that business soft skills are necessary as employability skills due to their intuition, communication, creativity, and problem solving skills. Soft skills largely focus on the emotional as well as attitudinal aspects and are crucial in meeting the needs of the people. Wushe et al. (2014) further observed that soft skills enable the companies to realise their organisational core strategies, objectives and goals. Soft skills, according to Grugulis and Stoyanova (2011), entail positive attitudes towards self-promotion, self-confidence, change, political focus, and creating as well as exploring opportunities. Schulz (2008) describes soft skills as a cluster of social graces, personality traits, optimism, and personal habits, which mark employees to different levels. The author notes that hard skills are complemented by soft skills, which are Job’s technical requirements. The author outlines some examples of soft skills; creativity, teamwork capability, communication skills, time management, conflict management, self-esteem, and so forth. In Nickson et al. (2012) study, they observed that understanding the employers’ soft skills demands is crucial and must bring policy discussion up to date of UK and other countries’ employability. This is attributed to the fact that the systems of skill forma­tion cannot effectively operate during change periods like during economic downturn. Therefore, the available techniques of equipping employees with skills could be ineffective when understanding of skill demands. Citing a number of previous studies, Nickson et al. (2012) posit that the embodied dispositions or what is considered as aesthetic attributes and capacities, which are deemed as part of the soft skills that the employers are demanding, are not distributed socially and equally; therefore, the majority of individuals could lack the needed soft skills to become employees in the service sector. Akin to the employers, Andrews and Higson (2008) observed that hard skills were considered by most of graduates as an integral and crucial part of their portfolio. Even though the majority of these gradates believed that they are more qualified with reference to discipline-focused abilities, they deemed themselves as having inadequate presentation skills. The majority of graduates as observed by Andrews and Higson (2008) believe that they cannot gain adequate experience or expertise to make verbal presentations while in higher education. A number of studies as cited by Andrews and Higson (2008), observed that presentation skills are one of the crucial employability factors; therefore, suggesting that such skills have to be integrated into the undergraduate syllabus. In Grugulis (2007) study, skilled work and skills are conceptualised as social products which are created and make contribution in producing broader social structures set, which includes those focusing on work organisation, and relations of gender, race and class. Grugulis (2007) analyses how the interplay between training and skills as well as between the design of jobs and work are shaped by the wider social-structural context wherein interaction happens. According to the author, lack of regulatory and institutional infrastructure needed for preventing employee poaching, promote production strategies for high-skills, robust qualifications is guaranteed, and by this means stimulating highly skilled workers demand. The author stresses the significance of training and skills’ political dimensions, maintaining that the set of social relations where the development of skills happens is attributed to relations of status and power. Focusing on ‘soft skills’, according to Grugulis (2007), could act as a tool for employers’ prejudices as well as preconceptions, resulting in the favouritism of while men over ethnic minorities and women in promotion and employment. According to Grugulis and Vincent (2009) there is shortage of responsible, reliable and stable workers. The demands for soft skills are increasing, but are experiencing new developments which are shaping both the importance they assume and qualities demanded. Such developments, according to Grugulis and Vincent (2009), include: the service sector growth; the emergence of lean manufacturing; and, the use, privatisation, and marketisation, of new management approaches within the public sector. Even though the high skill economy is exceedingly attractive, Grugulis et al. (2004) posit that it is not essentially a rational strategy of management. Employers are using a simple product option, low value added, and low skill as a strategy of penetrating and competing in the market. The majority of employers consider that low skilled workers supply necessitate the need to set the training costs in opposition to other issues such as the threat of skilled labour quitting their jobs to join the competitors. Grugulis et al. (2004) assert that efforts of promoting social inclusion and employability by means of training have been weakened; thus, the pressure for companies to upskill is very little. To address this issues, Callaghan and Thompson (2002) suggested that frameworks of analysis should be developed in order to address associated with recruitment and training. It has become imperative for organisations to shift their focus towards extra-functional skills in order to handle the new organisational requirements. These trends significantly influence the processes of forming competence and skills, and also selecting new employees. Callaghan and Thompson (2002) noted that these changes have forced employers to look for new recruits with social skills. Such shifts have been observed largely in service organisations and call centres. Basically, employees are preeminent resource for all organisations and are crucial for realisation of improved. In their study, Delaney and Huselid (1996) observed that progressive HRM practices are positively associated with organisational performance’s perceptual measures. Findlay et al. (2009) observed that understanding the processes of organisational valuation needs analysis which integrates the sociological debates insights on social skills formation and occupational segregation with those of essential reward systems’ perspectives. Even through emotional labour and ‘soft’ skills have progressively become recognised, their effect on remuneration policies as well as skill definitions remains vague. Findlay et al. (2009) argue that scores of skills related to women’s work are extremely undervalued, not rewarding noticeable emotional skills as well as inadequately recognising technical skills. In Pirzada et al. (2013) study, the made a number of observations; financial performance and good productivity cannot be achieved devoid of any clear organisational values, mission and vision. They also observed that effective performance management and appraisal system plays a crucial role limiting low productivity and turnover issues. More importantly, they observed that through training, organisations could get rid of scraps and remarks; thus, reducing costs. In their study, Lloyd and Payne (2009) observed that soft skills have become part of the organisations and can also help reduce costs. They mentioned that qualities like tolerance, politeness, patience, and enthusiasm are also part of the skills. However, they argue that skill without clear connection to knowledge and technical competence can eventually become redundant and meaningless. For this reason, many organisations are investing resources to develop high commitment paradigm that links performance and HRM practices in the same directions. According to Marchington and Zagelmeyer (2008), job stress, work climate, and HR practices are associated systematically with the business units’ financial performance. They also observed that although commitment HRM essentially improves the worker output, it as well increases the labour costs. Many commentators as cited by Hurrell (2016) maintain that the concept of skill has grown from technical to cognitive conceptualisations with the objective of including soft social and interpersonal elements. Even though soft skills are crucial aesthetic and emotional labour in the customer service workplaces, Hurrell (2016) posits that these skills are crucial all through the occupational spectrum. It is widely acknowledged that the interpersonal skills role across different types of occupations depend on team working and improved interdependency because of high performance work systems. Hurrell (2016) observed that soft skills enormously influence management effectiveness. As mentioned by Rees and Garnsey (2003), competence approaches are some of the approaches utilised in measuring the skills, conduct, understanding, and knowledge which are critical to effectiveness of managerial performance. The authors observed that competence approaches develop as well as empower managers allowing them to meet organisational objectives. Soft skills’ core component according to Robles (2012), are people skills. The author describes people skills as the interpersonal characteristics typifying the employee’s relationships with others. A number of studies, as cited by Robles (2012), observed that interpersonal skills are crucial job skills that include career attributes and personal qualities. The author posits that personal attributes includes employees’ amiability, personality, organisational skills, and time management competence. On the other hand, career attributes consists of customer service, teamwork, communication, and leadership. In nearly all business organisations, people skills considered to be the basis of improved customer service. Vijayalakshmi (2016) concurs with Robles (2012) positing the soft skills as a set of personal qualities, play an important part in the success of an employee and could help the employ get used to the new circumstances. As stated by Matteson et al. (2016), soft skills development happens when the desired skills are clearly defined. Given that soft skills are positively associated with organisational success and performance, all individuals in the organisation benefit when the organisation enact procedures for identifying, defining, rewarding and training successful exhibition of such skills (Matteson et al., 2016; Seetha, 2014) 3.0 Methodology In this piece, systematic literature review methodology is used to analyse on soft skills and also how they add advantage to employees. The objective of the systematic review is to address issues associated with soft skills by searching, critically analysing the findings of every high-quality and important study that address soft skills and the benefits to employees. The systematic review is applied to determine the extent to which the existing studies have made strides towards examining soft skills. In addition, the systematic review would identify inconsistencies, contradictions, relations, and gaps in the literature. Through systematic review, the existing studies would be critically appraised. This methodology was selected because it utilises thorough and clear techniques to critically extract as well as appraise relevant studies related to the research topic. Furthermore, it allows the researcher to engage in different research methodologies. Suggestive Argument Soft skills enable employees to make a difference in their workplace, but lack of such skills can possibly destroy a promising career of a person with professional expertise and technical ability but lacking interpersonal qualities. Robles (2012) emphasises that soft skills have become crucial job requirements considering that communication and critical thinking have become significantly important. The majority of employers are hiring people with strong interpersonal skills, but majority of fresh graduates have been unable to satisfy the employers’ expectations (Robles, 2012). For this reason, the employers have started emphasising that institutions of higher learning should start teaching their students how to gain customer service skills successfully and also how to cooperate at workplace. In essence, organisations can become successful by hiring applicants that have interpersonal skills since they will help the company retain its competitive advantage. In the call centre environments, Grugulis (2003) cites that many employees are extensively trained on how to handle their emotions while handling the customers, but they get no training on products they are selling. Soft skills have become an essential part of work, assessing and isolating them is more challenging. According to Grugulis and Stoyanova (2011), there are only a few connections between technical skills and performance, in spite of the fact that they are crucial part of the work process. Grugulis and Stoyanova (2011) observed that the soft skills’ customer support was enormous. Employees need soft skills not just at their workplace but also for their day by day life. Clearly, the modern-day job demands for team building, confidence, creativity, and assertiveness skills. Vijayalakshmi (2016) points out that the contemporary organisations are searching for human capital (employees' creative ideas, skills as well as experience) to utilise for leveraging competitive advantage. Thriving and surviving in the market environments that are highly competitive, organisations need a workforce with communication, problem solving and adaptability skills. IAAP (2007) found out that more than 67% of HR managers prefer hiring applicants with no technical abilities, but with strong soft skills (Vijayalakshmi, 2016). Most employers consider soft skills such as writing skills, flexibility, critical thinking skills, adaptability, readiness to learn, and so forth. Vijayalakshmi (2016) observed that soft skills were necessary for employers and employees’ success since they assist in leveraging globalisation, latest technology, the competitive market, diverse human resources, and differentiating the best company from others. Employees with soft skills are perceived to assets since they generate a beneficial work atmosphere. Undoubtedly, the business scenario have become increasingly competitive; thus, making it more challenging to survive with no soft skills. Many people have traditional certificates and degrees, but soft skills distinguish skilled talent and raw talent. Employees are distinguished by how they apply talent in everyday activities in order to realise organisational goals. Bhanot (2009) indicates that soft skills signify skills combination which makes employees user-friendly to job context. Some of these skills such as communication are inborn, but they need some improvements. In order to become successful in today’s job market, job applicants must have some competitive edge, which differentiates them from other applicants having similar evaluation results and the same qualifications. This competitive advantage can be achieved by having convincing personal habits as well as traits. The majority of employers, according to Schulz (2008) prefer employing productive people such as those who know how to write, make presentations, and communicate effectively. When a job applicant is being interviewed, good communication skills are valuable since they can successfully conceal hard skills weaknesses. When job applicants display positive traits such as flawless appearance, honesty, courtesy, common sense, and flexibility when being interviewed, they are more inclined to be employed even without hard skills. Having good communication skills can help employees cover up their inadequacy in hard skills. Therefore, training to acquire soft skills is very important since it helps employees to improve their performance. The objective of training, according to Elnaga and Imran (2013), is to improve employees’ skills, abilities, and knowledge. Focusing much on soft skills brings about some problems; for instance it can legitimise and support discrimination. Individual qualities, attitudes to work, as well as personal attributes are exceedingly difficult to examine and, practically, proxies are utilised (Rao, 2010). According to Grugulis and Vincent (2009), employees’ job and how they perform them are stereotyped. For instance, male lawyers are expected to be hard-line while female paralegals are encouraged to nurture. The responsibilities of employees is individualised by combining personal skills and attributes and their relational as well as reciprocal elements are neglected. Disturbingly, the relationship that exists between technical skills and soft skills is not harmonising. All work involves a (fluid) mixture of expertise and social skills. A number studies as cited by Grugulis and Vincent (2009) observed that technical expertise and knowledge together with softer problem-solving and team-working skills positively influence productivity, but soft skills are repeatedly considered as alternatives to technical expertise and knowledge (Payne, 1999). Cimatti (2016) posits that soft skills are challenging to define univocally since they involve a number of actors. Conclusion This piece has offered insight of benefits of soft skills to employees by critically analysing the existing literature on soft skill as well as report on conceptualisation variations of soft skills and their benefits for the work force. As mentioned in the essay, soft skills are strategic tool for all companies and they merit high consideration from HRM, not just during the recruitment phase but as well during the employees’ entire professional career. The quality of the industry, in terms of the product quality, of the organisation, of the services and of the workers’ life, strongly depends on the Soft Skills possessed by personnel at any level. The essay has demonstrated that soft skills are effective job performance indicators. Soft skills have been described as interpersonal qualities as well as personal attributes which are intangible. 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