Unit VI Speech

Unit Vl Speech

Author Name

[Institutional Affiliation(s)]

Author Note

Soft Skills Are More Important Than Hard Skills

In contemporary times when everything is evolving rapidly in various technical, management and commerce avenues, the individuals need to learn life skills as these skills are essential in keeping up with changing times. Moreover, life skills also impact the quality of education and keep the workplace balanced. These skills are categorized into two main skills; hard skills and soft skills.

Hard skills add up to a person's academic qualification and technical skills such as computer skills or accounting expertise. They are a prerequisite for starting a career as an employee. In contrast, soft skills define a person's personality traits, character, and interpersonal skills for instance discipline, communication and time management abilities. In the contemporary age, the importance of both the skills cannot be denied as both the skills establish a person as a successful employee. However, soft skills surpass hard skills when it comes to work ethic because without learning these two significant soft skills, effective communication skills and emotional intelligence, an employee cannot succeed in his desired career.

Communication skills set the foundation for maintaining good client relationships because it is much harder to retain clients than getting them in the first place. Likewise, when a person cannot retain clients, it results in a soft skill gap. It is a common saying that a good speaker is a good listener and communication is a two-way process. If a person does not take into account the concerns and requirements of the client or employer, it might affect his performance and personal growth in the workplace environment. Non-verbal communication is as important as verbal communication, for instance, a person's rude tone and his stern facial expressions can affect his verbal communication. The importance of solving a problem, resolving conflict and teamwork, cannot be accomplished without listening and reflecting first because a manager can better lead his team only through effective communication skills (Hes,2017).

Emotional Intelligence is also considered a significant soft skill; it is a skill that distinguishes between different emotions and tells a person how his emotions can affect the people around him. An emotionally intelligent person is self-aware, self-regulated, motivated, empathetic and maintains good social relations with his coworkers at a workplace. When a person knows his weaknesses and strengths, he can channelize his emotions better and think optimistically. The qualities of honesty and integrity to the team's collective goal and the organization results in goal-oriented performance and even higher work efficiency. Highly motivated people are energetic and this behavior influences other people too at the workplace. Moreover, empathy is the ability to walk in other people's shoes, listen to them and show care for their odd behavior due to stress or workload. An emotionally intelligent person is a socialite as he believes in teamwork and helps his coworkers or team on their way to success. Furthermore, such a person also possesses leadership abilities because he has all the required leadership qualities and personality traits under his belt.

In the present era, word of mouth advertising has also evolved and it has now become a modern word of mouth advertising where people can openly express their opinions about a company or a product through social media. According to a study, soft skills will take over the importance of hard skills in workplaces globally after 2030 (Hes,2017). In modern times, the workplace is interpersonal and only that person can sustain who masters the essential soft skills of effective communication and emotional intelligence.

References

D Hes. (2017, May 29). 5 Reasons Why Soft Skills Are More Important than Ever - Oxbridge Academy Blog. Accessed November 3, 2019. https://www.oxbridgeacademy.edu.za/blog/5-reasons-soft-skills- important-ever/.