Soft Skills Training and How eLearning Addresses Training Challenges

When you hire a new employee, your ultimate goal is to most likely have someone who’s going to stay with your company for the long-term and make a positive and valuable impact.

If you have a high turnover rate, you’re probably questioning why that is.

Leadership IQ, a company providing research and leadership training, found some interesting statistics as far as why new hires fail, and much of their research points to the importance of soft skills training.

Why New Hires Fail

Leadership IQ tracked a huge number of new hires – 20,000 to be exact. And of those they found a staggering 46% failed within 18 months.

The reason? 89% of the time new hires failed was because of their attitude, while only 11% failed because of a hard skills deficiency.

These new hires failed because of reasons related to issues of emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament, according to the study.

How does attitude relate to soft skills? Basically soft skills are directly related to an employee’s attitude, and attitude can be improved or worsened as a result of underlying soft skills.

Some employers believe there’s no way to change the attitude of a new hire that doesn’t fit with the corporate culture, but there are ample opportunities to train employees on the soft skills that can play a key role in their attitude.

eLearning Addresses Deficiencies in Soft Skills Training

In the past, soft skills training was seen as somewhat of a black hole. Yes, employers could try to incorporate soft skills training into their overall corporate strategy, but it was often ineffective.

Today, thanks to eLearning and mentoring, there are tremendous opportunities to create soft skills training that actually works. Why is that?

eLearning has provided the following benefits to employers who want to focus on soft skills:

• Learning management systems provide opportunities for non-linear learning, and it has the capability to speak to a variety of learning styles. This is important in all training, but particularly soft skills training because the learner becomes more engaged on a personal level when they feel like they’re getting information in a medium that works for them. It really allows for customization and tailored options depending on the audience, and that delivery tends to be more welcome for learners.
• With multimedia learning, there are also creative opportunities for critical thinking, and that kind of thinking is imperative to effective soft skills training. Rather than being a passive observer in training, the learner can face a variety of scenarios and situations that will allow them to put themselves in a particular situation, evaluate how they would respond, and thereby develop their soft skills more effectively.
• Multimedia learning provides opportunities for resource-saving blended learning methodology, which is important to the development of soft skills. For example, the learner can be introduced to these skills initially through an eLearning module, and then work with a mentor or coach to receive assessment and feedback. The result is that the coach or mentor has to spend less actual time with the employee, but there are still opportunities for combining learning methods to maximize effectiveness.

Learning management systems are advancing in their capabilities every day, and employers are no longer seeing soft skills training as a fruitless effort. Instead, by utilizing all of the abilities of eLearning, it’s possible to develop soft skills, and shift attitudes of employees, which will lead employers to have a more successful and long-term workforce as a result.

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