From soft skills to power skills: job skills and how to develop them
Tags: Skills Development, Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Training, Skills

From soft skills to power skills: job skills and how to develop them apprendo.io Apr 25·3 min read

What type of skills are critical in today’s work culture and which resources are vital for companies and professionals to have the needed training to obtain said skills

From soft skills to power skills: job skills and how to develop them | Yolk CoWorking, Unsplash.

When it comes to hiring and training the needed talent for your work teams and company, the debate usually revolves around verifiable abilities and tech specifics regarding the candidate. The first filter is always about hard skills.

But business and education experts have started to highlight that soft skills are gaining more and more relevance.

In fact, World Economic Forum points out that, considering the Fourth Industrial Revolution development, there exists a worldwide challenge to rethink the skills of more than a billion people for 2030, without mentioning that in the next 2 years 42% of the basic job skills required for nowadays jobs will begin to change.

This, naturally, goes beyond technical specifics, it also includes interpersonal skills, as well as those related to sales, human resources and education, all known as soft skills.

With this in mind, these skills are now a new priority for companies and are now considered as power skills.

But, what does it mean and how can companies begin their training considering the new context require a new way to build up these skills?

What are soft skills and why are they now considered power skills?

For Human Resources experts, soft skills are a series of capabilities with which professionals possess that can be accounted as qualities or habits, such as:

Communication

Problem solving

Creativity

Adaptability

Work ethic

In a digital world and an economy that goes through a revolution powered by digitalization, the concept of soft skills is limited and that is why they are now known as power skills.

In fact, according to Lila Ibrahim, current COO (Chief Operating Officer) of DeepMind and member of the director’s board of Gannett Company, understanding soft skills as power skills is an important perspective change to give them the emphasis they deserve inside any team.

More than a single individual characteristic, power skills offer several advantages vital to today’s business world:

They pave the way for leadership. Help collaborators to grow, by expanding their activities and polishing their skills.

Help collaborators to grow, by expanding their activities and polishing their skills. Generate a more unified organization. By fostering communication, cooperation and competitiveness, teams are more harmonious and adaptable.

By fostering communication, cooperation and competitiveness, teams are more harmonious and adaptable. Create new business opportunities. The effects of power skills also imply tangible results good for your business: more sales, more efficient and result-centered ways of working.

How to build these skills: training and personal development

According to consulting firm Accenture, training and learning are a tool for leaders to increase value in their business, like increasing their profit margin, as well as a resource to be more agile, and attract and motivate their talent.

Therefore, creating programs focused on teaching and developing power skills is a powerful asset for any company (regardless of their size of industry).

Apprendo, the all in one learning platform for companies and online communities, simplifies the implementation of these training efforts or power skills certifications.

In one single place completely online you can design, promote and carry out their training programs.

Begin training your teams to build power skills

APPRENDO: the All-in-one Training Platform

Discover all the possibilities that Apprendo offers your company to create talent rich in power skills.