Soft skills being the most desired skills by the industries are often undefined for the stakeholders. Although the meaning of soft skills is understood, but its domain and range and are often not clear. Therefore professionals design these as per their personal understanding. In one study, when respondents were asked to define the contents of soft skills, they attempted to define the contents as per their choice. Mostly people understand the non-technical skills and abilities as soft skills, which includes life skills or attitude related aspects. Earlier days industries were looking for people with high academic accolade. Whoever were having high percentage of marks in the academic qualifications were taken in by the industries. Therefore the importance and weightage were given to knowledge, more than skills, more than attitude. However the present day norm seems to be the reverse, where the importance and weightage were given to attitude, more than skills, more than knowledge. However in a number of professions it is observed that although occupational skills are important, but the ability to deal with people effectively and politely so as to be pally with them, is even more important on the long run. Such skills may be referred as soft skills.

Industries desire their talents to have competencies such as to participate in a team, lead a team, unite a team amidst cultural differences, facilitate learning of self and others, coach others, motivate others, provide services, negotiate, decision making, problem solving, observe etiquette, active listening, maintain meaningful conversation, defuse arguments, taking instructions, being polite, concise language and giving rise to a complete personality. Therefore the corporate expects their employable talents to have an integrated personality with attributes such as lingual elegance, personal habits, effective interpersonal relationships, social graces, convincing communication, personality traits, assertiveness, realistic, effective relationships with others, proper behaviour, positive attitude, appropriate value system, cultural sensitiveness, adapting to situations, influencing other, self motivating etc to give rise to an effective personality. Therefore corporate desire their employees to have a combination of all these along with the technical skills, so that the employees could have appropriate professional and personal life skills.

However considering the entire gamut of the concept, it is understood that the process of search for answers to questions about the inner world and the outer world and the relationship between them is the core around which soft skills builds its anchor. Therefore whenever an individual excels in soft skills, then (s)he must definitely be authentic to his or her feelings and be sensitive to others. In the early days of industrialisation, it was observed that most of the tasks were performed by the scalar chain, thereby instructions and orders from the superiors, but gradually the same did not work long. Thus the work parlance of industries witness the gradual shift from an order driven approach to a human sensitive approach.

If the individual wants to be strong internally then (s)he has to reinforce his or her personality characteristics from with-in. Therefore (s)he has to strengthen his or her emotional construct, thinking dimensions, problem solving skills, general attitude towards life and towards the world. The attempt is to strengthen the individual more than the roles (s)he plays.

It is observed that as individual grows in life and gets into profession, (s)he gradually becomes more responsive towards his/her roles and towards the world more than towards himself/herself. Fig-1 explains this concept in detail. As the individual goes outward than inward, (s)he weakens on self-empowerment and starts giving important to others. Therefore one should have the necessary skills to be self empowered and focus on the core within Empowered self will definitely offer necessary skills to an individual for proper intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that determine a person's ability to excel or at least fit in a particular social structure, including his profession. These skills include competencies in areas such as emotional intelligence, communication, leadership ability, etiquette, conflict resolution, decision making, self-motivation, self-discipline, persuasion, etc, thus expertising him/her to engage and interact effectively with others, obtain acceptance, build consensus, and provide assistance for establishing a life building force in both personal and professional life. Such is the interest of the organisations that, they spend even a considerable amount of capital in several assessment tools including psychometric assessments. Such assessments could be able to indicate and measure the soft skills on some predefined dimensions and on some predefined scales. Soft skills can also be enhanced by group experiences where the candidate uses optimum opportunity to expose his behaviour, give and take feedback, experience new behaviour and develop awareness about self and others.

Having an increased human sensitivity and awareness, the individual must attempt to improve and participate in human affairs. Therefore soft skills also enable candidates to understand themselves and others, change their attitude towards self, others and groups role, increase their interpersonal skills and also provide organizational improvements.

Soft Skills-Conceptual Understanding:

Organisations witness individuals who are professionally skilled for only one department. However irrespective of their professional skill sets sometimes they are being transferred to various other departments and various positions in various locations. Surprisingly although they do not have previous expertise in such departments, still they excel in all of their professional roles keeping most of the stakeholders happy and benefited. The issue here is more than acquiring skills sets. This may be due to an ‘empowered-self’ emerging from a result-driven value system, bearing a positive-attitude and displaying appropriate behaviours.

The road to soft skills development is marched by bringing in necessary changes in the individual dynamics such as values, personality, attitude and behaviour. This is a fact that in comparison to attitude, it is easier to change the behaviour of an individual. Further in comparison to personality, it is easier to change the attitude of an individual and in comparison to values; it is easier to change the personality of an individual. Therefore several of the soft skills development sessions just attempt to work on the skills dimensions without bringing in the change in an individual from within. As a result if the individual does not come across the opportunity to display the skills, then (s)he tends to forget such skills soon.

Therefore as an attempt to understand these terms such as behaviour, attitude, personality and values can be referred from Fig-2. It can be noted that behaviour is the response of an individual towards certain stimuli may be personal, professional or situational; whereas attitude is an evaluative perspective of an individual towards an object, event, concept, situation or individual; and personality is the resultant of totality and uniqueness of an individual; whereas values are the convinced totality of the principles an individual believes strongly. Therefore if any soft skills development session brings in appropriate changes in the value systems of an individual, enhancing his or her personality, bringing in assertive attitude and shaping appropriate behaviour, then this will definitely leverage the soft skills of an individual. Thus if both the facilitator and the candidate understands such value systems then it will definitely help. Value system of an individual comprises of an arrangement of value dimensions such as social value, political value, economic value, theoretical value, religious value and aesthetic value. Fig-2 represents the phenomenon that the particular weightage and the degree of each of these value dynamics in an individual defines his or her value system. Therefore attempts are to be made to deal with the value system of an individual for bringing in necessary corrections in the soft skills.

Although soft skills are defined and understood by various scholars in several connotations, it is worthy to note that soft skills are associated with dynamics such as emotional quotient, socialising skills, life skills, personality traits, world skills etc,. However further introspection of the concept will attempt to furnish more information. Perhaps the process of search for answers to questions about the inner world and the outer world as well as the relationship between them is the core around which soft skills builds its anchor. This definitely attempts to empower an individual to establish synergy among the skill (mostly physical traits), knowledge (mostly cognitive traits), attitude (mostly will driven traits) and values (mostly principle driven traits), therefore conceptualising the synergy amongst mind and body, heart and soul.

In an attempt to understand soft skills which are already defined by several scholars, the following are worth noting. As per soft skills blog spot, soft skills are the important job-related skills that involve little or no interaction with machines and whose application on the job is quite generalized. “The behavioral model as a tool for analyzing ‘soft skills’” discusses leadership and motivation job functions in terms of principles of behavior modification and describes development of a behavioral model at the different levels of an organization. Further soft skills also include the ability of people to balance the commercial needs of their company with the individual needs of their staff. Being flexible and able to adapt to the changing needs of an organisation also qualify as soft skills. Being flexible represents the quality to be able to collaborate with others and influence situations through lateral and more creative thinking. Everyone already has some form of soft skills (probably a lot more than others may realise). They just need to look at areas in their personal life where they get on with others, feel confident in the way they interact, can solve problem, are good at encouraging, can schmooze with the best of them. All these skills are soft and all of them are transferable to the workplace.

Moss and Tilly (1996), in their study investigated changes in kill requirements and the effects of these changes on Black men's access to entry-level jobs, using open-ended interviews of managers at 56 firms in four industries. Managers reported that due to heightened competitive pressure, “soft skills” particularly motivation and ability to interact well with customers and co-workers are becoming increasingly important. Many managers view Black men as lacking in these soft skills. This helps to explain Black men's growing disadvantage in labor markets.

Sanjeev Kumar, and J. Kent Hsiao, (2007), mentioned that today's competitive global market and changing work environment demand that engineers possess “soft skills” in addition to technical skills, and they must be able to understand project goals and have the ability to accomplish them with available resources. Currently, engineers learn leadership and management skills while working, learning “soft skills the hard way.” In order to meet the demands of this changing world, engineering programs are challenged to come up with innovative ways to teach classes so that graduates are prepared to take on the challenges twenty-first century engineers face. This article provides a summary of engineering leadership and its relationship to engineering education, problem-based learning, and service-learning pedagogies as they relate to engineering education, and an example of implementing these pedagogies in an engineering course.

Georges, James C. (1988), in their article titled ‘Why Soft-Skills Training Doesn't Take’, mentioned that skill is the crucial element that turns knowledge into behaviors that succeed in the real world. Often “soft skills,” such as management, leadership, interpersonal communications, and problem solving, vanish when people are on the job, indicating the need for more effective training programs.

Houghton, Ted; Proscio, Tony (2001), in their article ‘Hard Work on Soft Skills: Creating a “Culture of Work” in Workforce Development’ described four highly regarded workforce development programs, concentrating on how they cultivate emotional intelligence, how they prepare trainees for the cultural demands of the workplace. Section 1 describes how ACHIEVE, Cabrillo Community College, Watsonville, California (CA) teaches business dress, skills and culture in two languages using reflection and office simulation. Section 2 describes Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, Brooklyn, New York. It looks at these features: attention to minor rules; required student participation in constant discussion, World of Work course focusing on public speaking and how people present themselves in business and life; and understanding by grilling. Section 3 describes YMCA of Greater Boston/Training, Inc., Massachusetts, which uses the “Lester Hill” job simulation, an 18-week training program. It looks at these elements: seeing the world through a boss's eyes; a corporate atmosphere with a heart; and teaching human relations. Section 4 describes Op-Net, San Francisco, CA, which trains Web designers in five weeks (plus a two-month internship). It sets out how the program reflects the more refined technical skills and subtler social skills demanded by the industry and provides extensive placement and ongoing support services. Section 5 discusses seven real-world lessons that can be adapted to teach any population soft (social) skills with any mix of hard (technical) skills training

Susan H. Pulko and Samir Parikh, mentioned that engineering departments widely recognise an increasing need to equip students with effective study skills early in their university education and basic professional skills prior to graduation. These, however, are traditionally difficult modules to teach successfully to larger groups through traditional lecturing. Observations suggest a poor absorption rate from the students and thus a lack in their ability to benefit from these skills both personally and professionally. This paper documents the findings of an initiative which aimed to improve the success of study skills teaching by combining academic and commercial leanings into a modified teaching approach. The results and specific techniques described in this paper can be easily integrated into most types of teaching material.

Burns (1995) mentioned that hospitality gains profitable value-added from the highly developed social skills of its so-called unskilled labour force. Applying terms such as skilled and unskilled to a post-industrial workforce, especially in services, is not only anachronistic but, in the case of front-line hospitality workers, creates something of a myth that serves to undermine their contribution to bottom line results. This paper examines two key human resource areas. The first concerns categorising workers as either skilled and unskilled, floating a postmodernist idea that perhaps this is something of a social construct, being rooted both in modern manpower planning for heavy industries and in the former power of trade unions to control entry into the workplace through lengthy apprenticeships. The second area reviews the quantitative approach to manpower planning. The contextual frame is characterised by a two-sided cross-cultural theme; first, that the male-dominated culture of Fordism and scientific management socially constructs skill definitions so as to allow management more control over the workforce. Second, that there is evidence of a culture clash when ideas based on this (i.e. essentially Western industrial culture) are superimposed on Third World countries through the manpower planning component of aid-assisted tourism master plan programmes.

As per searchcio.techtarget, soft skills, are personal attributes that enhance an individual's interactions, job performance and career prospects. Unlike hard skills, which tend to be specific to a certain type of task or activity, soft skills are broadly applicable. Soft skills are sometimes broken down into personal attributes, such as: optimism, common sense, responsibility, a sense of humor, integrity, time-management, motivation and interpersonal abilities, such as: empathy, leadership, communication, good manners, sociability etc. It's often said that hard skills will get you an interview but you need soft skills to get (and keep) the job.

As per 2020insight, soft skills (also called “people skills”) are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure. People skills are needed for everyday life as much as they're needed for work. They have to do with how people relate to each other: communicating, listening, engaging in dialogue, giving feedback, cooperating as a team member, solving problems, contributing in meetings and resolving conflict.

Importance of this study:

Soft skills not only is more about positive attitude, values and self-image part of a person, but also is an internalization exercise with self-efficacy and self-development. One can accomplish greater professional success and personal excellence by dint of development in soft skills. One of the major objectives of soft skills is aimed towards displaying organisational citizenship behaviour by the employees and delivering appropriate results as well as adding values towards the growth of the organisation on various dimensions. Soft skills are a combination of skill sets, which will make somebody internally strong and externally adaptable to any situation, with any person and to any organisation. Thus internal maturity and external dexterity defines the legerdemain of soft skills. The external dexterity may include skill such as etiquette silhouette, managing skills, leading skills, conflict management skills, negotiation skills, art of delegation, strategic planning, problem solving, managing customers, motivating and inspiring people, art of selling, telephonic talking, effective presentations, body language, team building and managing teams, social graces, time management, work-life and family life balance, coaching and mentoring skills, managing and adhering to change etc. However one can be adequately skilled on such external dexterity, if the individual is internally matured. Internal maturity certainly speaks about strengthening an individual in his or her behaviour, attitude, personality and values

The phenomenal competition for growth has in turn created the need for technically sound professionals who have the people management skills to be effective managers. Every employee should have proper competencies on soft skills which will facilitate the betterment of the organisation. Soft Skills are highly required to be globally competitive. The wide array of culture, language and environment can oniy be dealt with being proficient with soft skills. To compete with the global competitors, and to continue to dominate this space of business can be possible by up-skilling their employees in soft skills. Therefore, the significant increase for soft skills training in India is registered. The world is flat and we are constantly interacting with people who come from different cultures and countries. Hence it is vital to understand the customer, not only in terms of the project delivery but also with reference to their perspective, in order to relate to them.” says Pramila Mathew, CEO of MMM Training Solutions. “Such compelling need is driving the market for soft skills training like Managerial Training, Team Leadership, Outbound Training, Executive Training and Corporate Leadership Training. Therefore it has been a conscious attempt to develop such skills in employees with several learning interventions. Several way the efforts are planned for offering soft skills to the participants, so that they can ultimately value it in results. As the last decade witnesses volume of soft skills training, therefore a systematic study to understand the interventions for enhancing soft skills is highly called for. In this connection this study is planned.

Objectives:

The objectives of this study are:

• To comprehend the conceptual description of soft skills.

• To appreciate the learning interventions for enhancing soft skills.

• To understand the learning phenomena in enhancing soft skills.

Methodology:

This study is an exploratory design Convenient sampling method was employed to contact about 102 soft skills trainers as sample. The trainers are mostly free lance trainers, trainers of particular organisations and faculty members who also offer soft skills courses in different colleges and institutions. The trainers were chosen from within India. Trainersforum yahoogroup is being choosen as the sample frame. A well constructed open ended questionnaire (some items had options to assign numeric values in rating, ranking and percentage) was sent to each of the samples. Through an earlier pilot survey it was revealed that the learning interventions those are used by several facilitators for enhancing soft skills include Role Playing, Assignments, Sensitivity training, Simulation, Risk taking behaviours, Clinic, Achievement oriented interventions, Decision making interventions, Action Maze, Training by Placement, Values sensitive interventions, Leadership interventions, Creativity interventions, In-basket experiences, Mentoring, Lecture, Case Study, Management Games, Micro Labs, Group Discussion (Fishbowl), Brain Storming, Appreciative Enquiry, Job instruction training, Assessment oriented interventions, Coaching and Demonstrations. Therefore these twenty-six interventions have been given substantial consideration in this research. It may also appear to some of the readers that there is some overlapping amongst some of these interventions. A single cross-sectional survey is done. Depending upon the necessity the respondents were further interviewed for one to one discussion by personal interviewing, teleconferencing as well as video-conferencing. Therefore both primary and secondary sources were taken for data collection. The collected data were put into both qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at findings. Although a sample size of 102 is taken still this study can be generalised.

Limitations:

This study is accompanied by few limitations such as contextual limitations and limited generalizability of the research-results because of partial homogeneity of the sampling units. Limited budget also contributed to limitation of the work to a small extent. There might also be some respondents who may not give appropriate responses due to personal reasons.

Research Findings:

One of the major finding of this study is to define soft skills and conceptualise its contents. This included the domain and range of this term.

Several corporate desire the talents joining them should have appropriate soft skills so that the job failures are to be minimised and the success rates to be enhanced. Therefore a better rate of achievement will be possible and simultaneously the job holder will also enjoy the job. This is possible if the candidate is having both the skills such as the core skills and the soft skills being complement to each other. Therefore the intensive developments of soft skills are a must. There has to be planned intervention process rather than an experience driven approach to improve soft skills. Soft skills that can possibly improve the success rate of several occupations. Therefore learning interventions play a major role in soft skills development.

Reference