Gone were the days when a recruiter considered a candidate’s technical skills, degree, and certifications alone for a post. Although possessing those hard skills is still an advantage, in today’s changing work environment it is the power skills that will get you the job.
What Are Power Skills?
First, let us define what these skills are not. They do not describe the ability to use a computer or how to manage a project or write a presentation. Those are the tangible and measurable hard skills sought after in the past. Power skills, however, are human-centered skills formerly known as soft skills. They are behavioral as opposed to technical, highly complex, and a lot harder to acquire because learning them involves self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
Power skills are essential in the post-pandemic world, where both employers and employees must adapt to changing scenarios in remote or hybrid workplace models. Power skills include empathy, negotiation, flexibility and adaptability, effective communication, creativity, conflict management, teamwork, and curiosity.
In the past, curiosity was associated with children, who are curious and eager to learn about the world around them. Now, that trait can be translated to a corporate environment and considered a key power skill. Curiosity leads to innovation and creativity, to thinking outside the box and finding solutions to pesky problems.
Power Skills Development
There are no manuals or textbooks out there teaching power skills. They are learned through discussions, debate, learning from mistakes, performance feedback, and purposeful practice. Companies can design development programs around their employees’ needs that involve group activities, among other methods like gamification. The focus should be on authenticity, curiosity, empathy, active listening. Corporate solutions like collaborative platforms that foster these skills are needed right now.
Benefits
According to a survey by PwC, 88% of managers state that their companies have a higher turnover than usual. To bring this brain drain to a halt, employers must focus on the career development of their employees, provide opportunities for growth within the company, and, yes, help them grow their power skills.
The success of your company depends on focusing on the development of power skills. Otherwise, your company runs the risk of creating a toxic work culture where everybody is in competition against each other, and worse. Frustrated employees leave and you lose unhappy customers. Therefore, strong skills make for effective and happy employees, enhanced performance, a healthier environment in the workplace, and collaboration between teams and departments through better teamwork.
How English Services Can Help You and Your Team
One of your responsibilities as a manager is to ensure the professional development of your employees. This will enhance productivity and improve the bottom line, as well as prevent high turnovers through employee satisfaction.
An IBM study on power skills includes foreign language proficiency among the most critical behavioral skills. English Services can help you and your team learn new languages and develop power skills with our double impact programs centered around specific topics like conflict resolution. After all, our goal is to help people communicate better.
To learn more about our services, click here.
