Four Facets of Soft Skills In Action

Interpersonal Skills

Employers appreciate employees who get along with people at all levels. Therefore, they seek employees who have good interpersonal skills, such as communication, problem solving, and teamwork abilities.

Interpersonal skills enable you to work with others harmoniously and professionally.

Effective interpersonal communication skills can increase your effectiveness at work, as a parent, and as a partner in relationships. In addition, it can help you to get closer to significant others, resolve problems with others, or change what you don’t like in relationships at work and home.

Interpersonal Skills have as much to do with knowing when and how to express emotion as they do with controlling it. The ability to manage feelings and handle stress is another aspect of interpersonal skills that has been found to be important for success. Empathy is a particularly important aspect of interpersonal skills, and researchers have known for years that it contributes to occupational success.

Communication Skills

Learning how to become an effective communicator will be one of the most valuable skills you can learn. It will help you in your day-to-day personal, academic, and professional life. Knowing that you can effectively speak and present to others will give you the confidence to do well in many spheres of life. In your role as a employee, you will find that being able to understand and communicate with your peers will make your job much easier and rewarding.

As an effective oral communicator there are several elements of oral communication that you should be aware of; these include eye contact, body language and style/tone. What makes a person a good communicator is not always what comes out of their mouth, but how well they pay attention to detail.

Communication skills include the mix of verbal, interpersonal and physical strategies needed to interact confidently and effectively with a range of audiences. A skillful communicator draws on a number of different means (e.g., graphical, visual, statistical, audio-visual and technological) to get the point across.

Problem Solving Skills

Problem solving is a tool, a skill and a process. It is a tool because it can help you solve an immediate problem or achieve a goal. It is a skill because once you have learned it you can use it repeatedly, like the ability to ride a bicycle, add numbers or speak a language. It is also a process because it involves taking a number of steps.

There are many approaches to problem solving, depending on the nature of the problem and the people involved in the problem. The more traditional and rational the approach is it typically involves clarifying the description of the problem, analyzing causes, identifying alternatives, assessing each alternative, choosing one, implementing it, and evaluating whether the problem was solved or not.

Before you start to tackle the current problem, it is important to clearly understand the difficulty and why you are unhappy with the current situation. This may seem obvious, but it is important that you really think about and gather information about the problem, and make sure that the problem you are trying to solve is the “real” problem.

Teamwork

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.-Andrew Carnegie.

The effective use of teams to achieve an organization’s strategic objectives and increase productivity can make the difference in keeping a healthy and positive work environment. Team Building improves workforce morale and provides important opportunities for leadership; it also makes efficient use of the organization’s talent.

Team building learning programs should focus on improving workforce productivity. In addition, they should build skills in time management, problem-solving, risk taking, coaching, and information sharing. Topics include employee motivation, leadership, customer service, diversity, and communication.

The best proven strategy has always been to analyze the current situation and to formulate the best plan for improvement. This can lead to different services for different situations. The goal is always to determine the strengths of the team, potential weaknesses, and how to help maximize the performance of the group.