From the desk of Miss Know-All: Looking for soft skills?

(Published on 3 October 2006 in 'Women at Work' - W @ W - a supplement of the Daily Mirror, Colombo, Sri Lanka)

When a friend from Jakarta came down to Colombo on a job assignment – I was all set to help her find her feet and generally introduce her to the place. But the lady in question had done her homework well, for she carried with her a huge file with maps, contact addresses, list of associations, information on club memberships, directions to super-marts, web site URL’s of international schools and application forms of medical clinics and insurance companies. Impressed, I thought it best to step back and let her explore the beautiful country all on her own, till one fine day I got a call with a much exasperated voice at the other end.

“Will you just speak to the gentleman on the telephone line,” she requested. “He just does not seem to understand my requirements.” On the line was the manager of a placement agency equally frustrated and wound up who informed me that all he wanted to know was what skills she was looking for in her domestic help. And in turn all my friend kept answering was - “just someone with excellent soft skills!”

Here I was doing what I do best. Educating the public and coming to the rescue of the distressed. Soft skills are personality traits that do not require specialised training and practice. They refer to personal character and behaviour and include qualities of social graces, personal habits, and sense of responsibility, self-esteem, integrity and honesty, as well as communication skills and the ability to adapt to different cultures. Actually for any career, soft skills go hand in hand with hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job. Hard skills have to be learned and require specialised training. For example: carpentry, plumbing, software programming, engineering, etc. However, to be successful in today’s complex job market it takes more than a sound technical background.

Soft skills play an important part in the success of any organisation and are what sets apart any organisation from its competitors. Every employer seeks a different mix of skills and experience from an employee. But soft skills are something that they look for consistently. Organisations dealing with customer interaction are generally more successful if their recruitment policy mainly focuses on soft skills. For this reason, soft skills are increasingly sought out by employers in addition to the required qualifications. Foremost amongst soft skills is interpersonal skills – the importance of which cannot be more emphasised irrespective of any job in any industry.

My friend has been here for over a year now – and extremely satisfied with the domestic help she has at home ever since. As for the placement agency – I saw their new advertisement in a national daily recently which read:
“Available: professional housemaids, drivers and nannies with excellent soft skills.”

A commendable display of soft skills… for the manager of the placement agency had the humility to follow and the drive to change!

Miss Know-All
wow@dailymirror.wnl.lk