Like many organizations, your company has likely realized that soft skills are as valuable as job-specific abilities. Soft skills are important for leadership, employee well-being and for positive team dynamics.
However, developing effective soft skills employee training can still be challenging. There are several reasons why . Most notably, many organizations struggle with soft skills benchmarking. It is impossible to know which topics to cover during training without a sound benchmarking strategy. Training program creators must make educated guesses and simply hope that their content hits its mark.
Don’t get too discouraged, as there are ways to create effective employee training soft skills programs that work.
Why Invest in Soft Skills Training?
Employees with a good balance of technical talents and soft skills will be invaluable assets to your organization. However, finding such employees in the available talent pool can be difficult. Many prospective candidates will likely be deficient in at least one soft skill, if not more. If you do not invest in soft skills training, these employees may never develop these desirable abilities and talents.
In short, investing in soft skills will help your company’s employee morale and business results. Employees with high emotional intelligence, the ability to communicate, interpersonal skills, and strong verbal reasoning will be able to fulfill their professional responsibilities more effectively.
Additionally, investing in employee skills training will make your staff feel valued and appreciated. Approximately 59% of millennial workers place a high value on development opportunities.
Soft skills training will lead to higher employee morale. In turn, this will help you keep turnover rates to a minimum. Less turnover will reduce hiring costs and increase organizational productivity. Ultimately, that will increase revenue and profitability.
How to Improve Employee Skills with Training
If you want to craft a winning employee training soft skills program, you must first find a way to benchmark your team’s current ability levels. To accomplish this, you should incorporate skills tests into your training program.
Skills tests are highly effective screening tools that provide quantifiable data on an individual’s skills and abilities. You can use this data to guide training efforts and create content relevant to your team’s needs.
Without skills tests, you will struggle to develop an effective training program. If you present your staff with content not relevant to their specific deficiencies, they will likely disconnect during training sessions. Low engagement levels will reduce information retention and training success.
When Should Skills Tests Be Used?
If you want to improve employee skills with training, you should use skills tests at multiple points in your program. Soft skills tests are very helpful in identifying candidates with the skills to succeed on their first day.
Many companies also administer skills tests before customizing training content. This approach is a highly effective tactic, as it allows organizations to identify each employee’s most significant areas of need.
However, the most effective soft skills employee training programs include post-training tests, offering a means of verifying training program efficacy.
If most participants made measurable improvements, the program can be considered effective. Conversely, a widespread lack of improvement indicates that the program did not effectively relay course content.
After each training course, program creators should carefully review pre-test and post-test data. This analysis will help them identify ways to improve the program.
What Soft Skills Tests Should I Use?
Before selecting skills tests, your training staff should determine which abilities and attributes it values most. You can choose the skills tests that best align with your organization’s needs and values.
There are many soft skills tests available. One of the most popular is eSkill’s Emotional Intelligence skills test. This skills test covers several key topics, such as using emotions productively, understanding emotions, and showing empathy. In total, this skills test contains 40 questions in various formats.
Another very useful skills test is Verbal Reasoning. This skills test covers thinking logically, drawing conclusions, problem-solving, and deducing written information. It is a great way to gauge a participant’s problem-solving abilities.
When measuring the soft abilities of leaders, many companies like to administer the Leadership skills test. It covers leadership styles, communication, motivation, and teamwork.
These are just a few examples of soft skills tests that you can use to create more effective training content.
Lay the Foundation for Effective Training with eSkill
As you can see, skills tests set the stage for a great training program. However, the efficacy of this program hinges on the quality of skills tests that you use. With that in mind, you must partner with a reputable testing solutions provider like eSkill.
Do you want to see how you can improve employee skills with training? Contact us to request a demo.