Technical and soft skills in business - Novembre 1999

I think that today there is too much enphasis on technical skills in most companies. However, the so called "soft skills", like team work, leadership, negotiation, and communication skills, for example, are very important as well.

If we agree that knowledge management is becoming crucial for any company, then all workers will need to develop this kind of "soft skill".

Team work and good communication, for example, are essential to the process of sharing knowledge in the work environment.

The 1999 ASTD State of the Industry Report, just released with the january edition of the ASTD Training & Development Magazine, states (page 10) some statistics about course types as percentage of trainning expenditures that might interest you.

From all the training expenditures of the companies on the survey:

• 2 % was expended in basic skills courses;

• 4% in executive development;

• 5 % in quality and business practices;

• 6 % in interpersonal communication;

• 6 % in sales courses;

• 7 % in customer service courses;

• 8 % in new employee orientation;

• 8 % in occupational safety courses;

• 12 % in professional skills;

• 12 % in computer courses;

• 12 % in management or supervisor courses and

• 17 % in job-specific technical skills.