Category Archives: Rethinking Skills Discourse: A new narrative

Understanding skills is not helped by false binary distinctions

English is a rich language, with many synonyms (words with similar meaning), new words being added and other words fading in usage. When it comes to the language of skills, there are multiple words used to define and distinguish. These words help to clarify what we’re talking about and how skills differ from each other.

Categories can be problematic

Problems can arise, however, when we define and distinguish. Take, as an example, how we distinguish generations, commonly referred to as Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials, to name some of them. These generations are defined as social groups of people born within a defined time period and who share similar traits, values and preferences. While it can be useful to understand the age of a person and how this may impact their thinking and behaviour, these generational labels are fraught if taken too literally and exclusive of other information.

Framing a person only by their generational category needs to take into account some potential problems. Generational labels:

  • foster stereotypes and character judgement: you are a Baby Boomer therefore you are inflexible and slow to learn new skills.
  • are blurred at the edges: If you’re born in 1965 are you really a Gen X or could you be a Baby Boomer?
  • focus on differences between age groups and downplay similarities.
  • ignore the wide variation within each age group.

Another example is the distinction between higher education and vocational education. A NSW review of VET, In the Same Sentence: Bringing higher and vocational education together, by Gonski and Shergold, 2021, identified the impact of this outdated distinction and the need for a new type of tertiary institution. Their proposed Institute of Applied Technology (IAT) model will, as the website explains: “deliver fully integrated theoretical and practical employability skills, provided through a number of constituent colleges, with curriculums designed in collaboration with industry and focused on the state’s emerging labour market needs.” The NSW government has accepted all five recommendations Gonski and Shergold made.

Limitations of binary distinctions

Categorising, by its very nature, is separating things to distinguish them. One way of categorising a subject is to use a binary, two labels which are seen as mutually exclusive: up/down, black/white, male/female.

Binary distinctions can work well in informing regulation and policies. What may have worked when established may no longer be accurate or relevant. We see this in employment law, which, as Kieran Pender has pointed out in The Saturday Paper, “has operated on a binary distinction between employees and independent contractors”, a system that has favoured employees while leaving independent contractors largely unprotected by minimum workplace standards. This model has been challenged by the rise of the gig economy and use of contractor arrangements in employment-like situations.

Professor Megan Davis, in her Quarterly Essay Voice of Reason, writing about Recognition and renewal, explains some of the history of the term ‘reconciliation’. She points out that John Howard divided reconciliation into the practical and the symbolic, a false binary that endures to this day. (p.  40) Davis writes: “The practical and the symbolic are two sides of the one coin.” By drawing this distinction, Howard was able to select what fitted his policy of Indigenous-specific services. Those issues he deemed ‘symbolic’, were in fact non-symbolic matters, like land rights and constitutional recognition. (p. 41)

Binary distinctions are commonly used in skills language: specific/generic, technical/non-technical, cognitive/non-cognitive, and worst of all, ‘hard’/’soft’. Each of these terms refers to a category or group of skills, which are seen as distinct from its opposite. While these terms may be useful in helping people understand the range of skills needed in the workplace, we need to keep in mind that they have serious limitations.

Binaries ignore the complexity of skills: Binaries perpetuate a false idea of separateness and unequal value. Yet skills use, even in the most high-tech jobs, is based on using multiple skills simultaneously in situations ranging from the straightforward to the highly complex. Take communication as an example of a ‘soft’ skills category. This is an umbrella term that encompasses many sophisticated skills and for which there are training courses and degrees specialising in specific communication-related professions. It would be a rare find to identify a job that doesn’t involve using specific verbal and/or writing skills, including negotiating, influencing, collaborating, cooperating, teamwork, supervision and customer service.

Binaries ignore the interrelatedness of skills: People use their communication skills in tandem with other skills, such as problem-solving, judgement, cultural awareness, and ethical nous, and draw on knowledge, such as relevant law, safety requirements, and mechanical details to conduct their work tasks. The ‘soft’/’hard’ binary may seem like handy conceptual shorthand, but they reduce complexity and sever more nuanced analysis of how skills are interrelated and equally valuable.

Some technical skills are generic to many jobs, such as an ability to use parts of the Microsoft suite. The boundary between what are technical and non-technical skills is not clear-cut. While a fitness instructor may draw on ‘technical’ knowledge to prepare a fitness class, (such as knowledge of a range of exercises that cater for different levels of fitness and different parts of the body, safety issues, how to use equipment), if they can’t model the exercises accurately, explain them clearly, and correct others’ performance, then their ability to fulfil the role will be significantly diminished.

A solution to this issue is to rethink skills categories and distinctions, to drop using unhelpful distinctions, and to start recognising the complexities and relatedness of skills.

For additional reading on Rethinking Skills Discourse:

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

 

Why people skills should be at the top of the skills tree

People skills should be at the pinnacle of any skills tree because they are ubiquitous (encountered every day in many situations), highly demanding, critical to many jobs, and essential for our survival.

To illustrate:

Watch Inside Sydney Airport, SBS

SBS’s series Inside Sydney Airport gives insight into what it takes to operate a major airport. We see how people respond to daily occurrences, based on procedures, technology, risk assessment, context knowledge, and critically, people skills. By people skills I mean those skills we use when relating to people, whether they be work colleagues, bosses, customers, or people who work for other organisations.

Some of the main people skills are communication, interpersonal skills, teamwork, supervision, and customer service. Each of these can be subdivided into more specific skills that encompass many behaviours. When Sydney airport staff face a situation, such as passenger illness, bad weather, suspicious luggage, how they deal with the people involved is critical. What we see are highly skilled people demonstrating many people skills. Here are 16 of them:

  • Requesting
  • Asking
  • Informing
  • Explaining
  • Empathising
  • Encouraging
  • Consoling
  • Supporting
  • Confirming
  • Briefing
  • Advising
  • Persuading
  • Rapport-building
  • Representing
  • Sympathising
  • Listening

Concurrent with these behaviours, are thinking or cognitive behaviours, such as: assessing, judging, and analysing. While we don’t all work in a complex environment like Sydney Airport, the series does show how critical people skills are to ensuring we travel safely.

The vital importance of connections

A 2023 Canadian report Exploring Change in Social Connection, produced by Policy Horizons Canada, explores changes to relationships and social connections. The report points out that societies around the world face two major issues: widespread feelings of loneliness, and a decline in feelings of trust in others and in institutions. Given relationships and social connections are important to our identity, health, and ability to live and work together, understanding the changing nature of social connection may, as the report points out, “hold the keys to ensuring the long-term wellbeing of an aging population, and to safeguarding the health and integrity of the democratic institutions that form the backbone of our society.” (p. 5)

In explaining social connections, “the interpersonal ties that arise between people”, the report refers to the social capital benefits, including personal support, feelings of belonging, and fostering a sense of trust, which in turn builds societal resilience.

The report then summarises four areas of change that impact social connection: artificial emotional intelligence; real connection in virtual worlds; social surveillance; and remote work. Pluses and minuses of these changes are suggested. Artificial emotional intelligence could result in social skills atrophy.

“By outsourcing the recognition of emotions and social cues in ourselves and others, social skills could decline across society… Generations that grow up using these tools could fail to develop certain social skills at all.”  (p. 15)

Remote work could result in a need for employers to provide support for social connection. “The widespread shift to remote work has already disrupted some important social experiences linked to in-person working. .. As time goes on, knowledge of the value of workplace relationships and rituals could seep away, and new approaches to workplace connections better suited to a remote environment could take their place.”  (p. 28)

Changing how we define and classify skills

While people skills, as a category, covers a range of skills, communication is common to all of them. Communicating with people is much more than just the simplistic notion ‘transfer of information’. Dr Jeri Thompson reviews the literature on communicating as a success skill for students, showing that this skill category is multi-faceted and fluid, meaning that the various elements are not stand-alone, separate from each other. And this insight points to another flaw with skill classifications: skills are complementary, and at times interdependent. An airport wouldn’t function well if staff were unable to both monitor technology and communicate with others.

Skills can be graded from basic to advanced (or similar terms). As people move into more senior roles, their work can include greater demands for people skills. One writer who explores the intertwining of social and technical skills is Asaf Darr. Having investigated the work of a technical salesperson, Darr points to the problems of continuing to maintain the distinction between the two sets of skills.

Sharon Bolton, in her chapter ‘Conceptual Confusions: Emotion Work as Skilled Work’ explores the social construction of emotion work. Emotion work is seen as intangible, an individualised innate quality, a ‘non-skill’, that contributes to inequalities based on class and gender. What is needed is a rethink based on a multi-dimensional classification of skill.

Our future depends on people skills

A National Health and Climate Strategy, will have “the overarching purpose of protecting the health and wellbeing of Australians from the impacts of climate change”. The proposed strategy lists two enablers, Communication and engagement, and Collaboration. Surviving the impacts of climate change will in part depend on how well we use our people skills. It will also depend on how we define those skills.

Users of skills language need to acknowledge its inherent biases and make changes so that people skills are recognised as critical to many jobs, vital to our health and wellbeing, and essential for all citizens to master.

For additional reading on Rethinking Skills Discourse:

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

You think skill terms don’t matter? Think again!

How language frames topics, including the classification systems of science, is a powerful process. By selecting some aspects of a topic, we make them more salient, promoting a particular perspective, diagnosis, solution, interpretation. As marketers and politicians well know, this process is highly effective in persuading us to a way of thinking and acting.

Robert Entman, in his 1993 article on framing, identifies that frames have at least four locations in the communication process ( pp. 52-53):

  • The communicator: by “making conscious or unconscious framing judgements in deciding what to say, guided by frames.”
  • The text: frames are “manifested by the presence or absence of key words, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgements.”
  • The receiver’s thinking: is guided by frames, and conclusions reached “may or may not reflect the frames in the text and the framing intention of the communicator”.
  • The culture: which is “the stock of commonly invoked frames”.

After illustrating how language choices make a difference, I argue that some skills terms do matter, because they are seriously flawed, particularly the ‘soft’/’hard’ binary. This distinction is embedded in our “stock of commonly invoked frames”, but needs to be removed from circulation by communicators, particularly policy workers, academics, researchers, consultants, and think tanks.

The power of framing

How professions define and classify is a form of framing – a language choice that identifies, distinguishes, and provides a certain way of seeing. Forestry and ecology provide examples.

German forester Peter Wohlleben writes in his book The Heartbeat of Trees: “Ranking the natural world and scoring species according to their importance or their superiority seemed to me outdated. It distorts our view of nature and makes all the other species around us seem more primitive and somehow unfinished. For some time now, I have not been comfortable with viewing humans as the crown of creation, separating animals into higher and lower life-forms, and treating plants as something on the side, definitively banished to a lower level.”  (p. 98)

Referring to Emanuele Coccia’s thinking expressed in his book (as published in English) The Life of Plants, Wohlleben explains Coccia’s view that our biological classifications are not grounded in science. “They are strongly influenced by theology and are dominated by two ideas: the supremacy of the human race and the world as a place humans must bend to their will. And then there is our centuries-old compulsion to categorize everything. When you combine these concepts, you get a ranking system that puts humankind at the top, animals in the middle, and plants way down at the bottom.” (pp 98-99)  Wohlleben’s preference is for science to categorise species one beside the other. “That would still allow an order, a system of sorting, without imposing any kind of a hierarchy.” (p. 99)

The language of a discipline or profession can influence how a topic is thought about and discussed. Wholleben explores how this influence works in forestry. Foresters call the intervention of cutting down huge trees as harmless-sounding ‘thinning’. (p. 107) Foresters believe that trees fight each other for resources, yet Wholleben spends much of his writing explaining how trees live together. According to Coccia, “nature is not a war zone. On the contrary, it is characterized by solidarity.” (p. 110)

Wholleben describes how forestry colleagues are outraged when he compares foresters with butchers. “But,” he writes, “what is felling a tree if not slaughter? The only difference is that a tree is killed, not an animal. If we know from the latest research that beeches and oaks are also capable of feeling pain, then it makes sense to use the same terms we use for animals.” (p. 116) “What we need, therefore, are not new words but simply more honesty.” (p. 117)

One of the most insightful and profound articles on the impact of how we name things is that of George Monbiot, who wrote an article titled Natural Language, published in the Guardian, 9 August 2017. His focus is on the language we use to describe the living world. “We should,” he says, “stop using constipated terms to describe our relationship to it.” To make his point, Monbiot provides this analogy: “If Moses had promised the Israelites a land flowing with mammary secretions and insect vomit, would they have followed him into Canaan? Though this means milk and honey, I doubt it.So why do we use such language to describe the natural wonders of the world?”

UK examples illustrate this point: reserve, environment, and describing animals and plants as ‘resources’ or ‘stocks’. Monbiot makes the further point that: “Our assaults on life and beauty are also sanitised and disguised by the words we use,” such as ecologists referring to ‘improved pasture’ when meaning land covered only with plants suitable for grazing, or ‘natural capital’ for nature. This is a similar point to that made by Wohlleben about foresters’ language.

Monbiot links his comments to the framing power of language, including shaping our perceptions, encoding values, reinforcing a worldview. He wonders why those seeking to protect the living planet “so woefully fail to capture these values in the way they name the world?” And here’s the crux of the matter: “Those who name it own it.” Here Monbiot is mainly talking about scientists, but he could be talking about consultants, policy makers, politicians.

Monbiot suggests “professional ecologists should recruit poets and cognitive linguists and amateur nature lovers to help them find the words for what they cherish.” As an example, he suggests that we “… abandon the term climate change and start saying ‘climate breakdown’. Instead of extinction, let’s adopt the word promoted by the lawyer Polly Higgins: ecocide.”

Paul Warde et al in their book, The Environment, A history of the idea, sets out, beginning in 1948, how the idea of the environment came to be and its consequences. Their work explains how a new term can create a new space for contestation, creativity, and debate.

The authors conclude from this story that the issue is about who is telling the story, from where and about whom. (p. 179) They write: “The whole history of the environment that we have presented in this book indicates that the history of a concept is indeed closely related to the development of expertise, of institutional power and dominant imaginaries, and political influence.” (p. 169)

These writers provide four valuable ideas that apply to skills discourse – how skills are distinguished, categorised, prioritised, discussed. These are:

  • Rather than specifying or implying a hierarchy, skills could be categorised “one beside the other”, that is, as equally important and interrelated. (Wholleben)
  • More honesty would be useful in acknowledging the inherent biases in skills discourse. (Wholleben)
  • That “those who name it” (i.e skills) own these biases and acknowledge the flaws in skills discourse. (Monbiot)
  • That more work is done to reveal  “who is telling the story, from where and about whom” when it comes to the language of skills. (Paul Warde et al)
What are some of the flaws in our skills discourse?

A popular form of framing is to use a binary: good/bad, up/down, east/west. Binary distinctions give the illusion of clear-cut differences that explain some aspect of life. Something falls into one or the other of the two options. They are black-and-white, no room for grey, no room for seeing the similarities or the gradations and overlaps.

Binary distinctions dominate skills discourse. The most common ones are ‘soft’/’hard’; technical/non-technical; specialised/generic.

The ‘soft’/’hard’ distinction is the most unhelpful, misleading, and erroneous binary in skills discourse. Its flaws are many, but the main ones are:

Imprecise: There is no agreed definition of what ‘soft’ skills are. What skills are categorised as ‘soft’ is a moveable feast, covering a diverse mix of important skills, attitudes and behaviours. While many consultants, academics, researchers and individuals unhelpfully use the terms ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills, often unquestioningly, this is not a sound reason for its continued use.

Inaccurate: Typically, ‘soft’ is used to refer to communication and interpersonal skills, implying these skills are light-weight. Describing them as ‘non-technical’ or ‘intangible’ further implies, inaccurately, that they require little effort and no special knowledge. Further, so-called ‘soft’ skills are falsely contrasted with equally inaccurate ‘hard’ skills on the basis that the latter are observable, learnable and measurable, qualities claimed, inaccurately, as not shared by ‘soft’ skills.

Gender-biased: Career decision-making is a highly complex interaction of ideas and influences from multiple sources. Research confirms that children form gender-based ideas about careers early in life, and that the media feeds ideas about what work is suitable/unsuitable for women and men. So-called ‘soft’ skills are not the preserve of girls and women. They are not female or feminine skills, nor are they less demanding than other skills. Everyone needs to build communication and interpersonal skills, regardless of career choice.

Confused with personality traits: ‘Soft’ skills may also be equated with personality traits which is confusing and inaccurate, with an implied privileging of ‘hard’ technical skills.

Employers don’t ask for ‘soft’ skills: Summaries of skills sought by employers may claim that they value ‘soft’ skills, but any scan of job advertisements shows that employers don’t actually seek ‘soft’ skills. They specify the skills they seek, such as customer service and problem-solving skills. Collectively calling these skills ‘soft’ is a framing imposed on this information by the writer and/or researcher.

Ignores complexity of skills: Binaries perpetuate a false idea of separateness and unequal value. Yet skills use, even in the most high’ tech jobs, is based on using multiple skills simultaneously in situations ranging from the straightforward to the highly complex. Take communication as an example of a ‘soft’ skills category. This is an umbrella term that encompasses many sophisticated skills and for which there are training courses and degrees specialising in specific communication-related professions. It would be a rare find to identify a job that doesn’t involve using specific verbal and/or writing skills, including negotiating, influencing, collaborating, cooperating, teamwork, supervision and customer service.

Ignores interrelatedness of skills: People use their communication skills in tandem with other skills, such as problem-solving, judgement, cultural awareness, and ethical nous, and draw on knowledge, such as relevant law, safety requirements, and mechanical details to conduct their work tasks. The ‘soft’/’hard’ binary may seem like handy conceptual shorthand, but they reduce complexity and sever more nuanced analysis of how skills are interrelated and equally valuable.

The words we choose to define and distinguish make a big difference to what we perceive, how we think and talk about a subject, and what action is taken. It can be contentious to query taken-for-granted practice. Much is made of the need for 21 century skills, yet apart from specific technological changes, most of the skills needed today are not specific to this century. They may involve tools, knowledge and applications that are different from the past, but in essence, are not literally new.

How to remove the flawed ‘soft’/’hard’ binary from circulation

By continuing to use seriously flawed language like the ‘soft’/’hard’ binary, we do everyone a disservice. Without accurate skills language, people struggle to identify their skills and how they might apply in the workplace. Workforce challenges, like skills shortages, will continue so long as some skills are privileged over others.

We need to take the ‘soft’/’hard’ skills binary out of circulation. There are alternatives to using ‘soft’ skills, including:

  • When discussing specific skills, use specific skill words, like communication skills, problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills.
  • When grouping skills that relate to working with people, use social or interpersonal skills and use this term consistently.
  • When discussing or referencing other reports and research on skills, avoid adopting or repeating any use of ‘soft’ skills. Even saying “so-called ‘soft’ skills” keeps the term in circulation.

Read more articles about Rethinking Skills Discourse: A new narrative.

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

 

 

Submissions inviting the Australian government to drop ‘soft’ skills

In late 2019 the Australian Government invited the public to write submissions on:

  • Co-designing the National Skills Commission
  • Co-designing the National Careers Institute
  • Senior Secondary Pathways into Work, Further Education and Training

My three submissions each made a case for dropping the use of ‘soft’ skills when it comes to skills terminology. Specifically material was provided about:

  • The contested nature of skills discourse.
  • The problematic nature of skills discourse and in particular the inaccurate and unhelpful nature of the technical/non-technical, and ‘soft’/’hard’ distinctions.
  • The need for national leadership in using accurate, current, unbiased skills language.
  • The problematic nature of pathways language and its negative influence on VET.

You can read these submissions via these links:

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

Be wary of reports and tools about ‘soft’ skills

You don’t have to look far to find a business or consultancy branding themselves in the marketplace with reports and tools that promote ‘soft’ skills. While ‘soft’ skills is shorthand for a collection of skills, when you look closer you can see all the reasons why this term should be banned from use.

Let’s take three examples:

These documents are given an aura of credibility. Adecco’s document is a White Paper. You can find research to back  validity and references to others’ related work.

Yet caution is needed in accepting this material at face-value.

Compare what each claims to be ‘soft’ skills. While there is some overlap, the lists vary:

Adecco: To express empathy, communicate persuasively, and seek common ground in a manner that allows groups to agree on an action plan and, more important, to feel collectively invested in its success.

Deloitte: communication, teamwork, and problem solving, as well as emotional judgement, professional ethics and global citizenship, time management.

Employment Readiness Scale: Self-Efficacy, or one’s confidence in one’s ability to manage one’s life effectively. Social Supports, or the development of a support network. Job Maintenance, or the ability to keep work, once found, particularly the ability to work effectively with others. Work History, especially the ability to identify transferable skills. Outcome Expectancy, or one’s optimism about one’s chances of success.

How do you decide if material is credible? Some details to assess if a report or tool is using credible skill terms are:

  • Is ‘soft’ skills used in inverted commas or is the expression ‘so-called’ used?
  • Is the material backed with reference to peer-reviewed material, or does the material reference the authors’ own research or primarily others who also use ‘soft’ skills?
  • Are other sources referred to who don’t use ‘soft’ skills but have had their work redefined as being about ‘soft’ skills?
  • Do the authors acknowledge that the term ‘soft’ skills is used inconsistently, and/or that there is no agreement as to what it means, yet still use the term?

Using inverted commas or ‘so-called’ are ambiguous signals. Does it mean ‘soft’ is being used in a peculiar manner, is slang, is someone else’s term? Does ‘so-called’ mean that ‘soft’ is commonly used, unsuitable, or falsely applied? None of these options add credibility to the term ‘soft’. It is ironic that users try to present a credible justification for using ‘soft’ yet undermine that credibility by using inverted commas and/or ‘so-called’.

If a resource is going to have credible value, it needs to be backed with a range of career development profession-based material, preferably peer-reviewed, that uses consistent, accurate terminology. There is growing research that points to the inadequacies of a range of skill terminology, such as skill gaps and skill mismatches, and questions the assumption that skills are generic, and can be readily transferred from one context to another. Simplistic adoption of ‘soft’ skills does not progress a more nuanced discussion of skills nor help clients identify their skills.

An illusion of wider usage is created when other writers’ work is rebadged, and misrepresented, as being about ‘soft’ skills when in fact this term is not used by them.

Users of ‘soft’ skills commonly acknowledge that this term is not used consistently, yet still opt to use the term. This is a curious choice given it undermines rather than enhances credibility.

So what can you do as a career development professional?

If your clients are to understand what skills are in demand, career practitioners, teachers, researchers, and parents need to use accurate, consistent, professional skill terms. This means dropping the use of ‘soft’, as well as ‘hard’, skills.

How to replace ‘soft’:

  • When discussing reports, tools, and research on skills, avoid adopting or repeating any use of ‘soft’ skills. Even saying “so-called ‘soft’ skills” keeps the term in circulation.
  • When discussing specific skills, use specific skill words, like communication skills, problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, so clients learn accurate skill vocabulary.
  • When grouping skills that relate to communication and interpersonal skills, use social  skills.

The words we use send invisible signals about what’s valid and legitimate, stigmatised or unimportant. The skills grouped under ‘soft’ skills are vital life skills, not to be diminished by grouping them as ‘soft’. To prepare people to effectively take part in working life, we need to drop this term and use consistent, accurate terminology that supports our clients and profession.

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

 

National Careers Week: Why we should stop using ‘soft’ skills

I wrote this article on Why we should stop using ‘soft’ skills for the Careers Council of Australia’s (CICA) 2019 National Careers Week.

Why we should stop using ‘soft’ skills

Knowing what skills you have now, and may need in the future, is an important part of managing your career. In a rapidly changing world, people of all ages need to understand what skills will enable them to adapt and succeed in whatever context the future brings.

There is a wealth of information available to help gain this knowledge, but care is needed in how these skills are described and grouped. Skill terms used include employability, 21st century, transferable, STEM, technical/non-technical, and soft/hard. With such a confusing range of terms it is not surprising that people have difficulty working out what skills they have and may need.

Two words are particularly unhelpful: ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. Their use is widespread as any Internet search shows. While ‘soft’ skills may be seem like a convenient shorthand, the term is out-of-date, confusing, inaccurate, and gender-biased. It’s time for career development practitioners, researchers, teachers, trainers, educators, employers and parents to stop using this incorrect and misleading term.

The term ‘soft’ skills is out-of-date and confusing

What skills are categorised as ‘soft’ is a moveable, confusing feast, covering a diverse mix of important skills. Likely adopted in the 20th century, the term is used unquestioningly. Research identifying critical skills for the 21st century points to increasing complexity from digital technology and automation. This complexity will likely place greater demands on people to work together in new ways to solve complex social problems. Such demands warrant skill terms that are current, clear, and respect their significance. ‘Soft’ skills does not fit this bill.

The term ‘soft’ skills is inaccurate

Typically, ‘soft’ is used to refer to communication and interpersonal skills. This usage implies these skills are light-weight. Yet communication covers a wide range of demanding abilities that aid working together. These abilities include building rapport, questioning to build understanding, influencing, negotiating, networking, persuading, coaching, educating and mediating, all heavy-weight skills that have a huge impact in the workplace.

‘Soft’ skills are often labelled as non-technical. Technical skills are described as specialised, practical, requiring specific training. Suggesting communication and interpersonal skills are non-technical implies, inaccurately, that they require little effort and no special knowledge. However, many occupations are based substantially on the use of sophisticated interpersonal skills: nursing, teaching, pharmacy, training, aged care, to name a few. Demonstrating these skills takes dedicated training and years of practice, backed by knowledge and research. There is nothing soft about this!

So-called ‘soft’ skills are falsely contrasted with equally inaccurate ‘hard’ skills on the basis that the latter are observable, learnable and measurable, qualities claimed, inaccurately, as not shared by ‘soft’ skills. The boundaries between jobs and industries are blurring. For example, many work situations need the application of both STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and interpersonal skills. Success in a science career often requires developing fruitful collaborations, cultivating friendships with colleagues, mentoring students, and effectively communicating work at conferences and seminars. We do people a major disservice by using the flawed, ‘hard’/’soft’ skills distinction.

The term ‘soft’ skills is gender-biased

 Career decision-making is a highly complex interaction of ideas and influences from multiple sources. Research confirms that children form gender-based ideas about careers early in life, and that the media feeds ideas about what work is suitable/unsuitable for women and men. So-called ‘soft’ skills are not the preserve of girls and women. They are not female or feminine skills. Nor are they ‘touchy-feely’, less demanding than other skills. Everyone needs to build communication and interpersonal skills, regardless of career choice.

Alternatives to using ‘soft’ skills

If job seekers are to understand what skills are in demand, career development practitioners, researchers, teachers, trainers, educators, employers and parents need to stop using ‘soft’, as well as ‘hard’ skills.

Alternatives are:

  • When discussing specific skills, use specific skill words, like communication skills, problem solving skills.
  • When grouping skills that relate to communication and interpersonal skills, use social skills.
  • When grouping several specific, career-critical skills, use employability or transferable skills.

Please rethink what skill terms you are using and stop using ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ when talking about skills.

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

Why ‘soft’ skills should be excluded from skills discourse

Most days we read a new report or commentary on the state of work skills in the 21st century. Discussing what skills workers needs is not a new topic. Yet over the decades the discourse has become a confusing jumble of terminology. Multiple professions, business, industry, researchers and academics, and governments, use different terms to refer to the same skill sets, categorise groups of skills under various headings, and try to simplify discussions by using popular terms.

One of these popular terms is ‘soft’, a single syllable, easy-to-say term that is used to refer primarily to communication and interpersonal skills, as well as a whole range of other skills that are generally regarded as ‘non-technical’. While using ‘soft’ skills in reports and media commentary may be easier to express and digest, any use of ‘soft’ skills should be excluded from the skills discourse because it does more harm than good.

Why should ‘soft’ skills be excluded? Because:

  • the terms ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ are not precise, agreed, technical terms when applied to skills; and
  • the use of the term ‘soft’ skills when referring particularly to communication and interpersonal skills is unhelpful to achieving wide understanding of the value and future importance of these skills.

Multiple reports point to the increasing importance of social skills for future work roles. To help people understand what social skills mean, writers of all backgrounds need to adopt alternatives to the use of ‘soft’ skills. This revised practice includes:

  • avoiding substituting ‘soft’ skills for established skill terms, such as employability skills;
  • where an umbrella term is needed for communication and interpersonal skills [both of which cover a range of specific skills], options are social skills or people skills;
  • where other skills are referred to that are deemed to be ‘non-hard skills’ or ‘non-technical’, these skills should be listed without categorising them as ‘soft’ skills.

Changing practice to remove the use of ‘soft’ skills will:

  • remove an unhelpful expression from skills literature, an expression that is unclear, inconsistently used, ambiguous.
  • increase consistency in referencing communication and interpersonal skills.
  • increase acceptance of the value of social skills and the need for all people to develop them, regardless of their work preferences.

Let’s look at the case for excluding ‘soft’ skills in more detail.

1. The importance of consistent professional terminology

Terminology is part of the special knowledge of a professional. Carefully defined terminology standardises the means of communication, enables people in a profession to communicate clearly, reducing ambiguity and increasing clarity.

The quality of professional terminology will affect knowledge representation and transfer, impacting research, policy, marketing, training, education, products and services.

A term like ‘soft’ skills, that has no precise, agreed, unambiguous meaning, is unhelpful to any profession.

2. The Career Development Profession recognises the importance of communication and interpersonal skills.

The Career Development Profession recognises the importance of communication and interpersonal skills in both its Professional Standards and in career management competencies, outlined in the Australian Blueprint for Career Development [ABCD].

These documents refer to specific skills and recognise the importance of communication and interpersonal skills across the lifespan. Nowhere are these skills referred to as ‘soft’ skills.

3. Research identifies the growing importance of communication and interpersonal skills for future work

Both international and Australian research points to the continuing importance of communication skills, and the increasing need for higher-order interpersonal skills. Plus, these social skills are the ones more likely to resist automation.

Examples of this research are:

The Foundation for Young Australians’ report The New Work Smarts suggests that future workers will spend less time on routine tasks and more time with people and getting value from technology.

A report to Queensland TAFE explored what skills the national economy will need in the future. The findings are ‘consistent with other research which suggests that interaction and social skills will have growing importance in future work.’ [p. 20]

Everyone, across the lifespan, needs to value communication and interpersonal skills, see their relevance regardless of work choices, and expend effort in building these skills. Clear, unambiguous terms will aid this understanding.

4. Skills discourse is problematic

There is a confusing range of terms used in skills discourse and social skills [shorthand for communication and interpersonal skills] has a problematic positioning within this discourse due to the use of terms like ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills.

The use of the term ‘soft’ skills in professional literature, research and government reports is problematic for several reasons.

  • It is used unquestioningly, without considering its appropriateness, accuracy, validity or clarity.
  • There is no agreement about what it means beyond anything that is not ‘technical’.
  • Its use with inverted commas [i.e. ‘soft’ skills] is ambiguous as to whether this term is used in a special way, is questionable, is a short cut, or is being used colloquially.
  • It is falsely contrasted with ‘hard skills’ on the basis that these are observable, learnable and measurable, qualities claimed [inaccurately] as not shared by ‘soft’ skills.
  • ‘Soft’ skills are not the preserve of girls and women: they are not female or feminine skills. Perpetuating this association reduces the perceived value and relevance of these skills to boys and men.
  • ‘Soft’ skills are incorrectly perceived as being ‘touchy-feely’, less demanding than other skills and knowledge. Many occupations are based substantially on the use of sophisticated social skills: nursing, teaching, pharmacy, law, training, retail, aged care, to name a few. Demonstrating social skills takes dedicated training and years of practice, backed by knowledge and research.
  • Research shows employers request communication skills above all other skills. Employers rarely use the term ‘soft’ skills [but may when researchers put words in their mouths], and it is rarely used in job advertisements. If job seekers are to understand what skills are needed, consistent use of terminology is needed, without muddying the discourse with unhelpful terms like ‘soft’ and ‘hard’.
  • The use of ‘hard’ skills as a label for technical and STEM skills is also unhelpful, again due to its ambiguity and lack of precision. Many work situations need the application of both technical and interpersonal skills. Apprentices learning a skilled trade need to be able to work in a team and communicate with co-workers, bosses, customers, which may include aspects of persuading, negotiating, presenting, explaining, to name but a few of the many elements of communicating.
  • On a wider scale, people need to understand that communicating is much more than flicking a text message or email to someone. As writer Hugh Mackay has pointed out in several of his books, we are social creatures. Yet recent developments are undermining our ability to live well with each other. In his most recent book Australia Reimagined, Mackay says: ‘We are more socially fragmented, more anxious, more depressed, more overweight, more medicated, deeper in debt and increasingly addicted – whether to our digital devices, drugs, pornography or ‘stuff’.’ For all our sakes, it’s time to dump using ‘soft’ skills.
Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.

Soft/Hard Skills: A false dichotomy

A popular distinction in the jobs/career literature is hard/soft skills.

In general usage, soft skills refer to interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, communication skills, emotions, and characteristics such as friendliness, empathy, social graces.

Hard skills refer to a person’s knowledge and occupational skills.

For example, according to this distinction, a doctor’s bedside manner comes under soft skills and their ability to diagnose illness and know what medicine to give are considered hard skills.

While the literature often refers to these skills as complementing each other, no one questions their continuing use. Here are six reasons to stop using this distinction.

1. False connotations of difficult/easy

The hard/soft distinction carries connotations of difficult/easy due to the ambiguity of the terms. There is nothing easy about dealing with people. Most managers, no matter how technically skilled and knowledgeable they are, will spend most of their time on demanding people issues. If their interpersonal skills are poor, life will be unbearable.

2. False connotations of serious/frivolous

The hard/soft distinction carries connotations of hard skills being serious and soft skills being somewhat frivolous, easily dismissed as not warranting the same attention. This built-in derogatory flavour does nothing to encourage people to take these skills seriously.

3. Employers want staff with interpersonal skills

Any list of most-wanted skills includes teamwork, communication and customer service. Some businesses choose to take people with ‘the right attitude’ and train them on the job, in technical, hard skills, in order to find quality staff. While qualifications are essential, they are useless without the ability to get along with people.

The Core Skills for Work Developmental Framework has ‘Interact with others’ as one of the three skill clusters. The Framework points out that while Skill Areas within each cluster are related to each other, ‘there is also interaction across clusters’. In other words, you can’t get work done if you can’t get along with people.

4. The skills are inseparable

There is no point having qualifications and extensive technical knowledge if you don’t also have interpersonal skills. Even on projects with huge demand for a range of technical skills, such as building a dam, if people in different trades and professions can’t talk to each other and cooperate to solve problems, the project won’t be completed.

5. Disadvantages women

Soft skills are traditionally associated with women. Women are seen as better at interpersonal matters, use language more effectively, have the emotional basis for doing soft skills better than men.

While there is some basis for this generalisation, it is neither true that all women are good at people skills, nor that all men are hopeless in this area. Women are disadvantaged by being seen as best suited to people-rich roles, which are often those that are poorly paid, offer mainly part-time work, and have few promotional opportunities.

The soft skills/women link means that men may not be considered for such female roles and can potentially get away with poor communication skills because, well, they’re men.

6. False belief soft skills can’t be learnt

Some of the literature implies, even states, that interpersonal skills are part of a person’s personality, and therefore are not subject to learning and improvement. You either have them or you don’t.

This too is a false belief. People can increase their self-awareness about how they communicate and interact and identify behaviours to incorporate into their repertoire so that they are more skilled. Yes, it takes practice, as does any behaviour that needs to become habitual. But it is learnable.

What’s the alternative?

First, stop using the hard/soft language.

Second, focus on talking about core skills, employability skills, transferable skills.

Third, treat interpersonal skills as equal in value to technical skills. I’d go so far as to say that in many cases interpersonal skills are more important than technical skills once a certain level of competence has been achieved.

Fourth, make sure the inter-relatedness of interpersonal and technical skills is explained to staff.

Fifth, be consciously aware of how soft skill talk can disadvantage women and save men from building these skills, and take action to prevent these discriminatory practices.

Sixth, Check assumptions that these skills are gender-linked. Notice messages that show women as the skilled people person and men as the people klutz. Voice objections.

Dr Ann Villiers, career coach, writer and author, is Australia’s only Mental Nutritionist specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people.