Soft Skills Are More Valuable Than Hard Skills
By Patti P. Phillip, Ph.D., and Jack J. Phillips, Ph.D.
It is becoming clear that executives appreciate soft skills but still don't put them in the same level of value as hard skills. We have some work to do.
Most of you would certainly agree with the title of this column. Unfortunately, not everyone does, including your top executives. But first, a note on definition. We know some people don't like to use the term soft skills, implying that the skills may be inferior. While core skills or power skills may be better, soft skills is the term most people understand and use. The term actually began in the military in the 1950s.
In ROI Institute, we are uniquely positioned to see what types of programs executives want to have evaluated to the impact and ROI levels and the success of those evaluations. Three important data sets suggest executives consider hard skills to be more valuable than soft skills. First, the data we have collected through polling with learning leaders is very telling. We ask if several statements are mostly true or mostly false. One of the statements is: Executives view hard skills as more valuable than soft skills. Over time, 87 percent of learning leaders respond that the statement is mostly true. Learning leaders see it in their conversations with, and reactions to, soft skills.
Second, when we are asked to evaluate learning and development programs in an organization, most of those requests are driven by executives, and about 90 percent of those programs are in the soft skills area, suggesting that executives want to see the impact and ROI of soft skills. We've never had an executive ask for an ROI study for technical training.
Third, when individuals attend our ROI Certification, they are asked to select a program that needs to be evaluated and one that they plan to evaluate all the way to ROI. Out of 17,000 individuals attending certification, leadership development is the number one topic selected for this evaluation level.
It is becoming clear that executives appreciate soft skills but still don't put them in the same level of value as hard skills. We have some work to do. Executives will quickly tell you that what creates the best places to work and the most admired, innovative and sustainable organizations are the soft skills. But they need to know and see the value in terms that they can appreciate and understand. They need to see how a personality-based system, crucial conversations, team-building, leadership development or culture change adds value at the impact and ROI levels.
The challenge is to tackle your most important soft skills program and measure the impact and ROI. We know you have concerns. So let's face the number one barrier: You're concerned that your soft skills program may not deliver a positive ROI.
We understand that. However, if a program fails to deliver a positive ROI, it is not usually the content. It is typically the lack of support in the organization.
To address this concern, start with the end in mind. Connect your soft skills programs to the business impact at the beginning. Make sure it is the right solution and set objectives for the program all the way through the levels, reaction, learning, application and impact. Provide those objectives to the entire team of designers, developers, program owners, participants, managers of participants—everyone involved. Ask them to do their share to ensure this program delivers at the impact level. When you do this, you are almost guaranteed success at the impact level and a very positive ROI.
The key point is that we need to do a better job of showing executives that soft skills add to the bottom line. Soft skills are not "nice to have" when we have the budget. They are critical skills that make a difference in an organization and drive tremendous business value. In our database of ROI studies, the largest in the world, soft skills ROI values are much higher than hard skills. The highest ROI study we've seen in the history of ROI Institute is an ROI of more than 5,000 percent from a leadership program with a police team—and it’s credible, supported by CFOs.
This article was originally published on February 15, 2024, on ChiefLearningOfficer.com