Soft skills for tough times
The pandemic has shown that insisting on results or a strict work schedule is inappropriate in times of crisis. Agility comes from elsewhere.
A hard focus on the bottom line and an unrelenting work schedule does not work in times of crisis. During the current health crisis, your staff is more likely being called upon to use soft skills such as resilience, empathy, agility, and communication. Even before the pandemic, according to a 2018 Canadian survey of business leaders, employers listed such skills as their top priorities – above industry-specific knowledge.
Furthermore, in a LinkedIn survey on the future of work published in January of this year, 55 percent of respondents said that a purposeful and caring mindset was the number one thing they wanted to see in their leaders. “With coronavirus, we’re getting a mix of personal and professional topics in the workplace in ways we haven’t before, and I think that’s putting more emphasis on the requirement for soft skills,” says LinkedIn’s Jonathan Lister of this trend.
To go further
«It’s time to brush up on your soft skills in the age of remote working »
by Jared Lindzon (The Globe and Mail, 3 july 2020).
To go further
« New research shows how leaders should be preparing for the future of work »
(LinkedIn, 16 january 2020).
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