Soft Skills Evaluation

Don't call customer service soft skills. This 3-part framework makes them just skills. 📚A quick history lesson before we dive in... The term "soft skills" likely originated with the U.S. Army in the 1960s. The Continental Army Command regulation 350-100-1 defined them this way: "job related skills involving actions affecting primarily people and paper, e.g., inspecting troops, supervising." Over time, "soft skills" have come to mean two things to trainers: 1. Interpersonal skills, like customer service 2. Vague skills that are hard to define or measure 🫤 It's the second part that hurts training. You can't consistently train or evaluate a skill that isn't clearly defined or measurable. In 1972, the Continental Army Command held a soft skills training conference to tackle this issue. Dr. Paul G. Whitmore from HumRRO (a contractor) presented a framework to make soft skills easier to evaluate: 1. What is the purpose of the skill? 2. What are typical situations where this skill is used? 3. What behaviors will successfully achieve the purpose? This framework works really well for customer service skills. 🤝 Let's use rapport as an example. The scenario is receptionists at a health club: 1. What is the purpose of building rapport with customers? ↳ Rapport creates a positive experience that encourages prospective members to join, encourages existing members to renew, and makes it easier to quickly solve problems. 2. What are typical situations where rapport is used? ↳ Examples where the health club receptions might use rapport skills include: ✅ Welcoming new and prospective members ✅ Greeting existing members ✅ Assisting members with membership-related issues 3. What specific rapport behaviors should receptionists exhibit? ↳ A few things might be on this list: (1) Use welcoming body language, such as a friendly wave and a smile. (2) Give visitor a friendly greeting such as "Welcome," "Good morning!", or "Hey (name of member)!" (3) Learn and use member names (4) Demonstrate an interest in the member Yes, this takes a bit more effort upfront to define each customer service skill. Here's the payoff: Clear expectations + consistent training + easy evaluation = Skills

They’re the hardest to measure. The hardest to develop. The hardest to replace. And yet, they’re often treated like an afterthought. In reality, they’re what separate great hires from bad ones. 👉 Emotional intelligence. 👉 Problem-solving. 👉 Communication. 👉 Adaptability. 👉 Influence. These aren’t just workplace buzzwords. They’re the skills that drive innovation, collaboration, and leadership. As Peter Drucker put it: “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” But here’s the problem: - Job seekers struggle to prove these skills. - Hiring managers struggle to assess them. - Traditional hiring methods (resumes, interviews, even technical tests) aren’t built to measure them effectively. So how do you recognize spot these skills in candidates? 🔹 Go beyond the resume. Instead of relying on past job titles, ask about challenges they’ve faced and how they navigated them. Stories reveal problem-solving, communication, and adaptability. 🔹 Listen for “we” vs. “I.” UCandidates who naturally talk about teamwork, collaboration, and shared success tend to have strong interpersonal and leadership skills. 🔹 Test for adaptability. Throw in a curveball question. See how they respond to an unexpected change. Are they flustered, or do they roll with it? 🔹 Look for self-awareness. Ask about a time they received tough feedback and how they handled it. Someone with strong emotional intelligence won’t just blame others—they’ll reflect, adapt, and improve. 🔹 Pay attention to how they interact. The way candidates communicate with you in the hiring process is often the best indicator of their soft skills. Do they listen actively? Ask thoughtful questions? Show curiosity? Soft skills might be hard to measure, but they’re impossible to fake. And hiring without considering them? That’s a costly mistake. What are your go-to strategies for assessing these essential skills in candidates? Let’s compare notes. ⬇️

I’ve heard it said countless times that soft skills are too difficult to measure. It’s simply not true! Let’s take the mystery out of measuring soft skills training!   In our latest industry leader talk, Beth Salyers, Ph.D. shared a simple prescription for measuring the outcomes of soft skills training. The secret to success is clarifying expectations before designing learning.   Beth says the fundamental problem with soft skills is that they are aspirational. We want our teams to be more empathetic, better communicators, to nurture inclusive workplaces. Aspirational characteristics are difficult to measure because they are broad and subjective. What does it mean to be empathetic? What does an inclusive workplace look like? You and I and the rest of the world will likely answer these questions very differently. There are many potential variables involved in being empathetic, a good communicator, or inclusive. We cannot possibly measure them all. Nor should we.   Make the shift from subjective to objective by translating our aspirational characteristics into micro-level expectations. Use these questions:   How do we want participants to feel about {insert soft skill}?   What do you want participants to think about {insert soft skill}?   What do you want participants to know about {insert soft skill}?   What do you want participants to be able to do?   This exercise is best done collaboratively with individual contributors, stakeholders, or managers. Anyone with something to gain if participants improve the targeted soft skills. These micro-level expectations will guide your learning content and become some of your key outcome metrics. How do you know your soft skills training was effective? Because you can show that participants changed their feelings, thoughts, knowledge, and abilities in the expected ways after completing the program.   Human growth and development requires cognitive, affective, and behavioral evolution. This line of questioning helps us align expectations around these three essential changes and clarify in advance what to measure to find out if those changes occurred.   If you’re wondering how to tie soft skills training to business outcomes … We must ensure that the answers to our think, know, and do questions are aligned with known solutions to performance challenges. Emphasis on known solutions. If you haven’t done the work to investigate the root causes of performance challenges, then any training program (soft skills or otherwise) is unlikely to be successful.   Because these industry leader talks have been so much fun, I’ve decided to end the year with a day-long extravaganza. Our favorite industry leaders are coming back to share their greatest lessons from 2023 and 3 things they’ll be focusing on in 2024 to improve learning outcomes. Our extravaganza is December 7! Stay tuned for more details after Thanksgiving. #learninganddevelopment #measurementmadeeasy

𝗖𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲: 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 📊 Are your learning leaders hitting a wall trying to prove the value of soft skills training? It's a common struggle when data-driven executives demand hard numbers for what seems unmeasurable. Neglecting soft skills development is a serious risk—it can cripple leadership effectiveness, diminish team performance, sap employee morale, and erode your company culture. Here's your game plan to turn the tide: ⏺️ Set Specific Metrics for Soft Skills: Clearly define what success looks like for each soft skill. ⏺️ Use Assessments Effectively: Employ pre and post-training assessments like surveys or role-plays to collect solid data. ⏺️ Monitor Continuous Improvement: Keep tabs on progress over time, documenting any changes in team dynamics or individual performance. ⏺️ Engage Team Leaders: Get managers involved in evaluating the impact with pre and post behavioral checklist, lending credibility to the observed changes. These strategies will not only strengthen your case for soft skills training but also transform leadership quality, team efficiency, employee happiness, and overall organizational health. What methods have you used to quantify and justify investments in soft skills? Share your experiences and strategies in the comments! ⬇️ #management #leadership #personaldevelopment #motivation #innovation #humanresources

92% of HR leaders believe that soft skills are crucial, even more so than technical skills. At Supersourcing, we’ve observed firsthand that teams with strong, soft skills consistently outperform purely technical teams by 25%. So, how do we evaluate these crucial skills? At Supersourcing, we follow a simple approach: - We use a set of questions on a Google Form to pose questions that reveal candidates’ thought process and understanding, beyond just their resumes. This helps us assess their problem solving skills and the knowledge of our organization. - Out first interviews include behavioral and situational judgment tests to see how candidates manage stress, delegate tasks, and communicate under pressure. - We focus on understanding how quickly candidates adapt to new processes, learn new tech, and collaborate with their teams.   The result? Our clients report a 30% increase in project success rates and a 40% improvement in team collaboration. The bottom line is that integrating soft skills evaluation into your tech hiring isn't just nice-to-have—it's essential for building high-performing teams. At Supersourcing, we've built a pool of 60,000+ developers who excel in both technical and soft skills. It's not just about finding someone who can code; it's about finding someone who can communicate, collaborate, and drive projects forward. What soft skills do you prioritize in your hiring process? Share your thoughts below—let's learn from each other and build stronger, more effective tech teams!