Soft skills needed in workforce

SANDUSKY — There have always been certain skills sure to make a resumé stick out from the rest for today's employers.Matt Wilson — the Erie County assistant human resource director and Bay Area HR Association president — said soft skills, also called interpersonal skills, include communication, listening, teamwork, attitude and critical thinking."Soft skills are vital in all types of employment," Wilson said. "These skills are attributes that machines and automation can't replace."The skills are becoming even more vital for employees as Forrester — a research group on the impact of technology — found 10 percent of jobs in 2019 will be lost to automation. But Foundry College, which specializes in teaching soft skills, sees this as an opportunity."This sounds daunting but at the same time, almost 2 million new jobs — non-routine jobs — are being added each year," said Melanie Vuynovich, Foundry's head of student experience and administration. "Non-routine jobs require soft skills ... which are hard to automate and can help individuals secure a path toward long-term job stability."Many times, soft skills are more important for potential hires than the actual technical skills they need for the job because soft skills help determine how successful a person will be as an employee."An employer should hire for soft skills, and train for the technical skills," Wilson said. "It sometimes happens that employees hired for their technical skills are fired for their behavior."Wilson said when hiring for the county they look for the soft skills. They can sometimes be hard to see in the interview process, but when they do they know it.Is there a shortage of soft skills?Soft skills have always been important, but there's an increased emphasis on those skills now as employers say new members to the workforce haven't had them emphasized.A lot of the blame is placed on technology like social media and texting, which has become the dominant form of communication for many.Another possible cause is the emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) studies over the humanities — English, philosophy, history etc. — which foster soft skills.Foundry College believes too many programs focus on a specific technical skill and neglect interpersonal skills."We're facing a shortage of college programs that foreground soft skills development in students," Vuynovich said. "The current trend toward tech boot camps and other job-specific certificate programs is one example of prioritizing deep but narrow learning at the expense of broadly useful knowledge that can be adapted across industries."An internal study by Google found the most innovative teams that were comprised of employees with soft skills taught through humanities programs and not the ones comprised solely of people with STEM expertise.But not everyone agrees. Chris Spence, president of New Growth Group, said he doubts overemphasis on STEM crowded out soft skills.Spence — along with Hrishue Mahalaha of Innovation Economy Partners — were hired as consultants to the Firelands Forward project which hopes to find solutions to the workforce gap in the area.He wasn't aware of any research on the cause for the soft skill gap but said his theory would be it has to do with the reduction in living wages."The entry level wages and minimum wage have fallen so far behind a living wage that people working in entry-level jobs are plagued by poverty issues, which get conflated with soft skill gaps," Spence said.Mahalaha said the data shows unemployment in Erie County is at record lows, but the poverty rate is slowly rising, which means people who have stable backgrounds and work experience can easily find employment."In the remaining unemployed pool, you'll have a greater portion of individuals who face a combination of personal or social challenges," Mahalaha said. "We can make a logical conclusion that those who are left in the unemployed pool may require greater personal or soft skill development support."Possible solutionsSchools play a large part in developing soft skills in people, according to the Erie County Economic Development Corp."There's been a lot of literature about soft skills and how they're promoted in schools through positive behavior intervention," corporation executive director Abbey Bemis said.The Erie County Business Advisory Council — a group consisting of local educators and business leaders — have sought to bring this to the forefront of educators attention through the Ohio Means Jobs Readiness Seal, which is placed on the diplomas of students ready for the workforce.The U.S. Department of Labor offers a youth program called "Soft Skills to Pay the Bills" to teach vital interpersonal skills people need for employment.For adults, Bemis said the best way to develop soft skills would be through programs or by joining networking organizations like the North Coast Young Professionals and the chamber of commerce. People can also look into online schools like Foundry College.Foundry — which was founded by the former Harvard Dean of Social Science in 2018 — offers a two-year program designed to teach adults soft skills through a combination of lectures and learning exercises."Rather than assuming soft skills will be learned as part of a college's general education courses, Foundry College teaches these skills explicitly," Vuynovich said.Reach reporter Michael Harrington at michaelharrington@sanduskyregister.com, follow the Register at Facebook.com/SanduskyRegisterFirst-grade teacher Heather Hardy, left, works with sixth grade teacher Dustin Kastor during Huron City Schools' professional development on June 20, 2019.