It’s important that everyone within the workplace is aware of their soft skills however these can be easily overlooked.

Is your team actively taking step to continue developing these skills, learning about any new soft skills that they may start to notice within themselves or observe on others?

Below are 3 key areas where you can grow your staff teams soft skills…

Having strong soft skills lubricates the interactions between them, their team and your customers, providing positive outcomes for everybody, helping your organisation to grow.

Speaking:
One of the most important soft skills that your staff team can have is good speaking skills. Giving your employees the space and necessary guidance needed to become better at speaking will help them to feel more confident in their day-to-day life. You can do this by figuring out who amongst your staff team is the most confident with speaking and who struggles with it.

Start with small communicating tasks for those who struggle and give those who are more outgoing tasks to do in front of large groups. The tasks set must both be a push for the individuals who are more introverted and those who are more extroverted. However, make sure you are not pushing your staff team too much.

Listening:
Help your staff team to understand the importance of good listening skills. Helping your staff team to improve their listening skills is another great key soft skill that they will need within their working environment but also in their home life.

Just like speaking skills, listening skills are a fundamental part of life. You can help your staff team to improve this soft skill by setting an example. When you are able to prove that you know how to effectively listen well others will begin to mimic this skill and see the importance it has face on. Really show that you are listening to what your staff team is telling you by asking questions, repeating key parts of what they have said and of course demonstrating good eye contact.

Problem solving:
Allow for growth by letting your staff team solve problems amongst themselves or individually. As a manager, you are not always available to help and sometimes might not know the solution yourself.

You will be responsible for solving the major problems that are facing your organisation but it’s important that you are allowing your staff to come together to solve disagreements or any minor challenges that they may be facing. By allowing them the space to do this freely you will be letting them increase their confidence when it comes to solving problems and creating a necessary key soft skill needed within the working environment.

You can continue to support the individual needs of each member of your team by creating a PDP (Personal Development Plan) to ensure that their current soft skills are constantly improving. You can create a PDP for your staff team HERE