Soft Skills: What are they and what is the importance to the corporate world?

The model of work established by Fordism in 1914 for years has shown that it is increasingly with the days counted. The mass production conceived by Henry Ford comes, with the advancement of digital, giving space to a more comprehensive work model, which allows – and encourages – employees a vision of the whole of the company, in recognition of the process that enables the feeling of belonging to a final result. It is feeling useful and significant, understanding the importance of work itself in the construction of an objective. In this modern model of labor relations, technical knowledge still counts and a lot, but it is soft skills – or behavioral skills – that often dictate the rule of recruitment and define the best employees for a corporation. The concept, however, is not very recent. Peter Schutz, a German entrepreneur and speaker who chaired Porsche between 1981 and 1985, has said in the last century that we should "hire character and train skills." The maxim reflects in theory part of this silent revolution that we see happening in the personal department over the past few years when soft skills are being taken very seriously in job interviews. Unlike technical skills – hard skills – that are acquired or developed in courses, training and professional experience, skills such as empathy, team collaboration and resilience are part of emotional intelligence and deal directly with the relationship and interaction of each other. Although soft skills are not easily measurable at first, having employees who present these domains allow the daily life in any corporation to be more fluid, relaxed and, consequently, more profitable, since motivated people engage together in a unique sense of purpose aligned with the expectations of the company. The leadership skill, feared by the most conservative corporations, is seen today as fundamental. Teams with people who possess this ability are more able to promote quality debates and reflections, where innovative solutions are created from a collective thought. Today, in the globalized world and with organizational structures that evolve every moment, engaging with technology is a minimum requirement, an undergraduate is no longer something that differentiates a candidate greatly from another, online courses form specialists in various subnichos at all times, but it is emotional intelligence that involves skills such as focus, motivation and personal productivity, so important to the work environment. Skills that are generally not included in a curriculum, soft skills are mental, emotional and social skills and different from hard skills, are easily qualified, although they cannot be measured. Some of the most desired by companies are: - Initiative / proactivity: Have autonomy to know what needs to be done, even without a direct leader delegating functions or activities. - Creativity: Knowing how to find innovative solutions in the face of problems that arise. - Collaboration: Knowing how to work in groups understanding limitations and qualities of the other. - Flexibility: Also called resilience, is the ability to adapt well to the changes that arise, especially in companies that constantly evolve. - Working under pressure: Involves time management and agility to raise priorities, keeping the focus without stressing. - Results orientation: Also called orientation for goals, focuses on objectives and similar, is to direct the actions themselves aiming at a final result achieved as a team or individually. - Effective communication: Listen carefully and know how to communicate clearly. As soft skills are behavioral skills, developing them is a very individual process and demands a reflection on oneself and attitudes themselves, in a process of self-knowledge and continuous improvement. One of the very recurrent ways in the corporate environment to stimulate a behavioral change is through coaching, which can help the professional define the potential and what is the best way to develop it. Another way to develop soft skills is by submitting to situations that require these capabilities, if inserted in occasions that require teamwork or in discussions with people whose point of view is totally different. Thus, you will be stimulating yourself as working better as a team and being flexible with opinions very different from yours.