10 Soft Skills Needed in the Workforce: A Guide for Companies
Explore 10 soft skills in the workforce that lead to the success of an organization.
Key takeaways
Employees with effective soft skills, also called human skills, can drive a company's overall success.
Eight out of the top 10 core skills employers are looking for in their workforce are human skills rather than technical skills [1].
Examples of soft skills include communication, collaboration, critical thinking, time management, leadership, conflict resolution, and networking.
You can help your employees develop human skills through courses, training, role play, and mentorship.
Explore 10 essential human skills that strengthen productivity and efficiency in the workplace, the difference between human and technical skills, and how you and your employees can enhance human skills through practice, training, and experience. When you're ready to help your employees develop the skills that can drive your business forward, explore Coursera for Business, where you can save on training costs with tailored content and industry-recognized credentials from over 350+ leading companies and universities.
Why are soft skills important in the workplace?
Human skills power the workplace and drive its success. Because these skills involve communication, teamwork, and adaptability, the need to implement them can present itself in nearly every situation, no matter your employee's role. It’s beneficial to hire candidates with these skills and master them yourself.
Human skills vs. technical skills
Human skills are general skills such as critical thinking, adaptability, and emotional intelligence applicable to nearly every job and workplace. These skills help not only with a candidate’s professional life but also translate into their personal life when dealing with, for example, a challenging situation in a relationship. When considering a new hire, asking questions to understand the individual’s capability regarding human skills can help you, as an employer, determine if that person is a good fit for your company.
Technical skills primarily focus on education, training, and experience specifically applicable to the role. For example, an aspiring marketing manager may need technical skills, including SEO knowledge and project management experience.
The World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report reveals that eight out of the top 10 core skills employers are looking for in their workforce are human skills rather than technical skills [1]. These include:
Analytical skills
Resilience, flexibility, and agility
Leadership and social influence
Creative thinking
Motivation and self-awareness
Empathy and active listening
Curiosity and lifelong learning
Service orientation and customer service
Impact of human skills on organizational success
Employers and employees with strong human skills may help influence a company’s overall organizational success. When you hire employees who demonstrate several of these skills, your turnover rates tend to decrease, productivity increases, and teamwork and collaboration typically improve. Additionally, employees with human skills are generally more invested in their work, personally driven, and productive, which can promote a positive environment in your organization.
10 soft skills needed in the workforce
Recruiting employees who have the following human skills and helping your current employees develop them can make all the difference in your organization's success.
1. Communication skills
When employees demonstrate effective communication skills, their interactions involve well-thought-out questions in which they exchange information efficiently and accurately. Essentially, an employee with strong communication skills can motivate their team while reducing miscommunication, helping to create better results for both the individual and the organization.
Additionally, leaders need strong receptive communication skills. When an employee communicates progress on a task or lets you know they need assistance, you, as a leader, must give clear, constructive feedback demonstrating you’ve listened, understood, and conveyed your expectations.
In the workplace, solid and effective communication skills enhance collaboration by building a foundation of trust and enthusiasm, which can contribute to overall employee satisfaction. Advocating for productive communication in the workplace helps your employees share ideas, be more creative, and become more connected as a team while decreasing the possibility of misunderstandings.
2. Teamwork and collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration among coworkers often lead to more efficient operations and increased productivity within your organization. Building trust is a crucial component for further developing teamwork and cooperation. You can help foster trust in your organization by encouraging and demonstrating transparency, humility, tactfulness, open communication, inclusion, and recognition.
When you encourage more teamwork and collaboration in the workplace, you help foster positive working relationships between coworkers. When employees work together in pursuit of a singular goal, it creates a sense of shared accomplishment within the team, which can help everyone feel they belong to something bigger than themselves.
3. Problem-solving and critical thinking
Problem-solving and critical thinking involve a person’s ability to use knowledge, facts, and data to successfully find solutions to problems. The ability to resolve issues with critical thinking and a plan of action allows teams to accomplish more with less time. An employee who is a critical thinker can typically identify the cause of a problem and develop several solutions.
When an employee has critical thinking skills, several characteristics may be present, such as open-mindedness, a respect for facts and analysis, the ability to view and comprehend different points of view, and the capacity to avoid sticking to a single position.
4. Adaptability and flexibility
Change happens frequently, and the ability to adapt to changes on the job is vital to your employees’ professional success. When your employees have strong adaptability skills, your organization can adjust much faster to sudden changes while incorporating new skills and even technological advancements into its repertoire.
5. Time management
Managing time wisely leads to productivity and efficiency in the workplace. Some significant aspects of time management for your employees include how they establish priorities, order their tasks, and schedule their responsibilities over a period of time. When your employees effectively manage their time, they tend to employ specific skills such as planning, goal setting, delegating, and blocking time.
To improve time management skills, encourage your employees to consider keeping a daily calendar that lists what they need to accomplish and when they will do it. You can also help them choose achievable goals, set and adhere to deadlines, and follow a particular plan, modeling these behaviors yourself.
6. Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence focuses on the ability to acknowledge and understand the emotions of others and oneself. In the workplace, emotional intelligence fosters better conflict resolution and encourages more employees to share their thoughts about an issue. This can help avoid the problems that arise with groupthink, which occurs when teams forsake reason and facts in an effort to conform to the group or the group leader.
Coworkers need emotional intelligence to communicate effectively and work well together because it helps them understand each other's different perspectives. Employees look to leaders with high emotional intelligence as those who use empathy to understand, practice self-management regarding their emotions, and provide mentorship and coaching in a respectful manner. Displaying strong emotional intelligence skills may lead to higher positions or promotions for your employees, as they are able to interact well and listen to others.
7. Leadership skills
Strong leaders set clear expectations, motivate others, and cultivate an atmosphere of communication and teamwork that can lead to success. Effective leaders increase workplace productivity and foster a more positive work environment.
Many human skills are interconnected, specifically strong communication and leadership. To be an effective leader, you need strong communication skills because they help you build relationships, develop trust, and motivate others to collaborate. Additionally, delivering your ideas and expectations clearly and concisely makes it more likely for employees to meet them.
8. Conflict resolution
Conflict can happen in any situation, especially in the workplace, and conflict resolution is about how you respond when it arises. Having the skills to find a resolution when conflict exists, listening to both sides of an argument, and having patience with others are essential to succeeding in the workplace and as a leader.
As a leader, when you need to manage a conflict in the workplace, you can demonstrate productive resolution skills by using “I” statements, avoiding casting blame on someone, maintaining a peaceful tone, and including humor when it fits the situation. To strengthen your team's conflict resolution skills, practice role-playing conflicts, attend workshops, and use feedback.
9. Creativity and innovation
The ability to generate new ideas in the workplace can increase productivity, aid problem-solving, and enhance adaptability. A company needs creative individuals because developing this type of culture can improve teamwork. You might also notice a higher retention rate because employees tend to stick with companies that value their ideas.
Allowing your employees to voice their ideas and share creativity can help prevent your company from slipping into a state of “cognitive fixedness,” in which you approach every situation in the same manner. Having an open mind and welcoming creative ideas can improve a business’s practices and help you discover new sections of your industry to pursue.
10. Networking and relationship building
Connecting with others, especially members of your team at work, is essential to success in a professional career. Career advancement includes developing human skills such as networking and building connections. Still, if you hire employees with these skills, these individuals can also help you grow your customer base while increasing the amount of business you do with current clients.
For example, if you own a small business and are struggling to solve a particular problem, employees with robust networking skills might be able to reach out through their network to other small businesses and discover a solution. At its core, networking tends to be about sharing information, and gaining knowledge will likely benefit your business.
Developing soft skills in the workplace
Consider the following ways to improve your employees’ human skills to promote continual growth and learning:
Courses and training: Employees can learn and grow through online courses, self-assessments, and workplace professional development. You can also promote earning Professional Certificates, such as the University of Michigan’s Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions course or Teamwork Skills: Communicating Effectively in Groups provided by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Role play: Role-playing on the job will help your employees further sharpen human skills such as communication, problem-solving, and empathy.
Mentorship: When you provide mentorship opportunities for your employees, you help guide their careers and improve their skill sets, including human skills such as communication, teamwork, and adaptability.
Read more: 9 Ways to Boost Employee Skills at Your Company
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Article sources
1. The American Review of Public Administration. “Collaborative Public Management: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0275074012445780.” Accessed August 16, 2024.
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