Developing Soft Skills

What are “Soft Skills”?

Cognitive skills are related to the process of cognition, i.e., evaluation, comprehension, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and knowledge acquisition. Cognitive skills often pertain to mathematics, language, and other academic disciplines. Cognitive skills refer to the ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, and to overcome obstacles using mental abilities.

Non-cognitive skills refer to personal traits, attitudes and motivations. They are defined as the patterns of thought, feelings and behaviors. They are influenced by both “nature and nurture” (genes and environment), and can be developed throughout a lifetime.

Employers often refer to “hard” and “soft” skills. These terms are not universally defined and there is much debate about the terminology. To simplify, “hard” skills are job-related, technical skills; “soft” skills (also called life, socio-emotional, behavioral, or non-cognitive skills) refer to behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets. It is important for employers and educators/trainers working as partners to reach understanding and adopt common definitions for these terms.

“Soft” skills refer to behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets, such as dependability, flexibility, problem solving, grit and communication skills.

Researchers and practitioners have tried to systematize various skills into skill frameworks, and to determine which skills (both cognitive and non-cognitive) are the most important predictors of success in school, work and life for young people. They have called these special skills sets “core skills for employability”, “21st century skills” or “transferable skills.” Although referred to by different names, most studies agree on the importance of the following skills:

Dependability – reliability, hard working, work ethic, character skills

Flexibility – adaptability

Higher order cognitive skills – problem solving, critical thinking, critical decision making

Inter-personal skills – communication, collaboration, teamwork, leadership

Intra-personal skills – self-control, future orientation, grit (perseverance)

Benefits of Developing Soft Skills

For the young student/trainee/job seeker:

Achieve better results in their current education or training program.
Acquire or further develop skills necessary to obtain, retain and progress in their job.
Become better equipped at managing their relationships with others, both in professional and personal life.
Improve their chances of getting better quality jobs, earn more, and/or continue their education.

For educators/trainers:

Improved education outcomes of students and increased graduation rates.
Decreased occurrences of negative and risky behaviors, such as drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancies, crime and violence.
Improved transitions to further education or employment.

For private sector employers:

Newly hired employees who were trained in soft skills are better prepared and more workplace ready, and perform and behave better on the job.
When employers provide soft skills training to their existing workforce, or support soft skills development through mentoring schemes, they benefit from increased productivity, reduced absenteeism and turnover, reduced conflict in the workplace, and better quality of service to their customers.
Firms with higher overall soft skills of workers have higher psychological capital, resulting in improved competitiveness and market performance.

For communities:

Diverse and high quality skills are linked to positive development outcomes for countries (employment, productivity, economic growth and competitiveness).*

Soft Skills Standards of Excellence*

These standards of excellence have been carefully formulated for organizations interested in creating a new program, or improving an existing program, for soft skills development. These principles are well aligned with international best practices in successfully delivering soft skills training for young people.

Selecting curriculum and engaging relevant stakeholders

Core soft skills are included and key stakeholders’ needs are addressed
The curriculum is adapted and piloted (to ensure it is relevant for the target audience)

Selecting and training soft skills trainers/facilitators

Trainers are selected based on consistently applied criteria
A robust training of trainers is administered to prepare and develop facilitators
A mentoring program is organized to support trainers’ continuing development

Creating an environment conducive to soft skills learning

Interactive, participatory, and practical teaching methodologies and tools are used
Adequate time is allowed for each soft skills lesson within a well-paced schedule
An effective and comfortable learning environment is created for all participants

Monitoring and evaluating soft skills program

Soft skills training is adequately monitored and evaluated to improve program outcomes

Best Practices

For selecting curriculum and engaging relevant stakeholders:

“One size does not fit all” – when designing a soft skills program (curriculum content, delivery approach, teaching methodology, materials, etc.), it is important to align all of its components with students’ needs and employers’ requirements and priorities.
Well-structured programs are flexible and can be customized for a specific industry sector, job family, and local market.
Examples, case studies, practice scenarios and program materials are adjusted and relevant to the youth target group (age, gender, level of education, etc).
Establishing a curriculum committee, or a program advisory council, with representatives from various stakeholder groups and instructional design and delivery experts, to review and provide feedback during the design and implementation of the soft skills program.

For selecting and training soft skills trainers/facilitators:

Candidates for soft skills trainers should have experience working with the target population, delivering training using participatory and interactive training methodologies, and facilitating similar programs; they should epitomize the behaviors, attitudes and skills they will be developing in youth.
New soft skills instructors must be prepared to deliver the program through a comprehensive workshop, and be well supported with adequate resources (master trainers as mentors, facilitator’s manual and other teaching materials, etc.).
To ensure high standards of training are maintained over time, a quality assurance process should be instilled; master trainers could evaluate instructors’ performance, provide feedback and additional professional development; some programs recertify their trainers periodically.
Young people participating in soft skills programs benefit from having other role models in addition to trainers; job coaches and mentors can
provide students with encouragement, examples of desirable behaviors, and opportunities for discussion, practice and reflection on newly
acquired soft skills.

For creating an environment conducive to soft skills learning:

To accommodate students with different learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic), the program should be delivered using a combination of interactive learning strategies. Small group activities, individual exercises, role plays, games, etc. are alternatives for practical application of learned topics.
The process of instilling each soft skill should contain information that helps students understand the components and importance of that skill as well as multiple opportunities to practice that skill, time for reflection and visualization, and reinforcement of acquired skill through assignments with mentors or others.
All content and program logistics (schedule, facilities, class size, etc.) must be culturally sensitive and comfortable to youth target group.
Instructor’s approach, language and teaching methodology, should support the development of a growth mindset in students.
Training can be enriched with guest speakers (employers), site visits to firms, community-based service projects, team sports and arts events.

For monitoring and evaluation of soft skills program:

To continuously improve the program and demonstrate its effectiveness to employers and other stakeholders, a well-designed monitoring and evaluation system should be established from the start with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goals, and success indicators.
Satisfaction of students, employers, and trainers are important indicators, along with the calculation of return on investment and program
results against set objectives.

Promising practices for soft skills programs:

Leveraging technology to enrich students’ experience (digital simulations of the workplace, microlearning videos, practicing skills through computer games, virtual mentoring platforms, etc.) and to collect and analyze program data.
Blend online learning with in-classroom, instructor-led sessions.

Examples of Soft Skills Development Programs

Akazi Kanoze in Rwanda. Designed by EDC, Akazi Kanoze started in 2003 as a USAID funded workforce readiness project for out-of-school youth. Over time, with support from the government of Belgium and the Mastercard Foundation, Akazi Kanoze scaled up to provide workforce readiness curriculum (p. 14) for 190 TVET schools and 249 general secondary schools in Rwanda.

Education for Employment’s Al Morad program in Morocco. Al Morad project has helped to integrate formal career and employment preparation into the classrooms of universities and other public institutions for the first time. Through the project, EFE-Maroc formalized agreements and offered training programs within universities and public institutions. At the individual level, the Al Morad project provided job opportunities for youth through access to high-quality, market-driven skills training. Nearly 2,750 youth learned soft and professional skills critical for success in the workplace. In addition, 12,250 students learned important job search skills through the Finding a Job is a Job (FJIJ) program.

Arab Community College (ACC) in Aman and Global Communities in Jordan. ACC adopted Global Communities, soft skills curriculum, and combined it with additional modules (entrepreneurship, English language, computer skills) thus creating a work readiness course that is free and mandatory for all first-year students.

Generation has programs in five countries (India, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, United States). Generation integrates behavioral skills (teamwork, compassion, adaptability to change, professionalism, etc.), and mindset development (personal responsibility, persistence, growth mindset, future orientation, etc.) into an intensive work-readiness, job specific training lasting 5-12 weeks, with over 75 percent of the program as practicum.

International Youth Foundation (IYF) and Hilton Worldwide introduced the Passport to Success program for the hospitality sector. Several Hilton properties in South Africa, Namibia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have adopted this program which covers four core competencies: professional development (developing self-confidence, setting goals, building leadership skills), problem solving (listening, creative thinking, managing conflict), healthy lifestyles (managing risky behaviors, promoting healthy living habits), and workplace success (working in teams, respecting diversity, time management).

Educate! In Uganda. (p.42-43) Educate! is a student mentorship scheme to empower secondary school students in Uganda by developing their leadership and business skills so that they can become effective entrepreneurs in their own communities. The program targets students in their last two years of secondary school. Mentors are recent graduates from local universities who receive training before being placed at partner schools. Each mentor works directly with students to help build non-cognitive skills such as self-confidence, communication, and leadership. The mentors also teach a more formal, two-year entrepreneurship and leadership course to students, where practical business skills are developed. The Educate! model is described here.

CAP-Youth Empowerment Initiative in Kenya. (p.23) Since 2010, CAP-YEI uses the BEST model for training outof-school youth on soft, technical and entrepreneurship skills. The BEST model was developed in India by the CAP Foundation and later expanded in partnership with Plan International, and with support from various donors. Currently, with funding from the Mastercard Foundation, CAP-YEI is expanding and embedding its program within the TVET system in Kenya. So far, 46 vocational training vendors have been trained in the BEST model delivery.

BITE in Dominican Republic. (p.29) The Business Initiative for Technical Education (BITE) is a network of 10 local businesses, including the Center for Occupational Research and Development, that have been investing since 2007 in developing the capacity of the Loyola de San Cristobal polytechnic school (IPL) to improve the quality of uppersecondary education and to offer a career pathway program within engineering areas. Based in Santo Domingo, this education initiative helps youth acquire leadership and interpersonal skills through debate and simulation activities. Also, teachers participated in intensive professional development. The learning curve or training period for graduates upon employment in industry was dramatically reduced from 18 months to 3 months.

Kanumuru Education and Knowledge Limited (KEKL) program in India. (p.56-57) Teachers are trained in core skills and are assessed periodically. The training methodology is considered the most effective way of building and delivering soft skills, oral communication skills, personality development, life skills, thinking skills, group work skills, aesthetic/design skills and information and communication technology skills.