When setting up or delivering an apprenticeship programme, your priority will, understandably, be to ensure that your apprentices are given the technical and industry specific skills to fulfil their role. This often means that the development of softer skills such as communication, team work, time keeping, planning and decision making are often overlooked. However, doing this will not only come at a cost to your organisation, but to the future careers of your apprentices as they attempt to climb the corporate ladder.
Here’s the thing, hard skills alone are not going to prepare your apprentices to progress through your organisation, soft skills play a much bigger role than the hard skills beyond a certain point in everyone’s career. If you want your apprentices to progress through your organisation (and therefore get a good return on your investment) into positions of leadership, it’s the soft skills that will count. Work ethic, attitude, influencing, leadership, communication skills, and emotional intelligence are the soft skills that are crucial for career success. Take leadership for example, a leader may learn that to get the most out of their employees they need to adopt a certain style or approach so they learn how to do that and get a great result. This is until one day the result isn’t what they expected and they get a different output. That’s because, as opposed to IT skills where there are set procedures and paths, soft skills deal with something far more complex – human nature.
It’s important to recognise the vital role soft skills play within your organisation, they are increasingly becoming the hard skills of today’s work force. It’s not enough to be highly trained in technical skills, without developing the softer, interpersonal and relationship-building skills that help people to communicate and collaborate effectively. Problem solving, delegating, motivating, conflict resolution and team building are all much easier if you have good soft skills. Knowing how to get along with and get the best out of people are crucial for success. They all have a significant impact on the attitude a person brings to interactions with clients, customers, colleagues, managers, and other stakeholders. It’s what fosters great team performance, and leads people to contribute strongly to the organisation’s vision and strategy. These skills are more important than ever as organisations struggle to find meaningful ways to remain competitive.
The reality is that if you employ young people today these gaps will likely be something that you are already aware of and have been witness to. Ironically, apprentices often do not believe there is a problem, while they acknowledge the importance of soft skills, they believe they already have them. Therein lies part of the problem, apprentices need to understand what it takes to help organisations succeed and how they can position themselves to acquire the skills to do so. They need to understand that having these skills can set trajectories for accomplished careers. The good news is that organisations can bridge the soft skills gap, and doing so will give them a huge strategic advantage when it comes to hiring and retaining the best young talent.