Want to succeed in the modern workplace? The following important skills must be mastered

Today, the average "life" of each technical skill is about 18 months.

There is no doubt that so-called "soft skills" -- those difficult to measure objectively, such as mind, adaptability and the ability to negotiate ideas -- need a new name. "' Soft 'sounds weak, or to some extent, seems less important than' hard 'skills -- technical skills. That's completely wrong." Said Heide Abelli, Senior Vice President, Product Development, Skillsoft. Skillsoft designs and delivers training programs to more than 140 million people in 160 countries. "We call these skills' competency skills' because without them, people's technical skills are like castles in the air and have no foundation."

"I personally call it 'enduring skills.'" Jeremy Auger, co-founder and chief strategy officer of training firm D2L. Its clients include Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Fidelity and American Express. Jeremy points out that the average life span of a technical skill is now about 18 months. By contrast, lasting skills such as creativity, resilience and time management never go out of style. "These skills are always with you, both inside and outside the company."

Ability skills, persistence skills, people skills, communication skills, emotional intelligence... Whatever you call these skills, there's no denying that they're in great demand right now. But as employers scramble to hire emotionally intelligent people, including recent graduates, and try to instill "competence skills" in their workforce, a question arises: can these skills be learned?

This is very important. Companies need to grapple with digitalization, automation and a changing environment. Creating a culture in which people can communicate their ideas is therefore crucial to a company's competitiveness. Collaboration and creative thinking are equally important.

At the same time, "durable skills" are becoming a kind of "career insurance" for employees as more and more tasks are replaced by algorithms. Research shows that not only do those with technical expertise and strong "people skills" now have a choice of jobs, they also earn much higher wages.

But it's hard to say whether training in human skills helps people change their personalities -- for example, their resistance to new things, or their tone-deaf social skills. Currently, no one has proposed a standard method for assessing skill changes before and after training.

Instead, measures of skill change are mostly subjective. For example, after executives complete a Skillsoft course on "providing effective feedback in a timely manner," their immediate reports are asked if/how much their boss has improved. Of course, there is a significant downside to this approach: feedback from subordinates who have bad/good relationships with their bosses tends to skew the results.

Even so, these methods are better than most ordinary employees. Heide Abelli says training companies and their clients "need to do a lot more peer evaluation." "We need to collect and analyze this data," he says.

Companies are often on the back foot when it comes to measuring the personnel skills of potential future employees. "For the most part, employers can only rely on the information they gather during interviews," Auger notes. Although decades of research have shown that there is little correlation between how people perform in interviews and how they perform later on in the job."

But that does not mean that people cannot change their behaviour -- even if "old habits do not change" and reliable quantitative indicators do not yet exist. Abelli says the biggest impact comes from "competency-based" training, which has three components: learning, introspection, and doing. Skillsoft's courses are all online and include videos that teach people how to interact in a real business environment. According to Abelli, Skillsoft's course content will inspire introspection and practice that will lead to real change.

"For example, when you were a child you didn't like to share toys with others, and when you grew up you didn't like to share toys with others." She said. "Maybe it's just part of your personality, but it's also where introspection is crucial. You need to reflect and ask yourself why did you let this personality get in the way of your work? Then, make a conscious effort to improve your ability to cooperate and practice, practice, practice."

If that sounds like a lot of work, she adds, it is, "but learning anything new takes work."

Auger likens improving people skills to learning to play chess. "You can read books about the rules of chess, memorize various strategies, and so on." "But the real and only way to learn to play chess is to play it over and over again, preferably against people who play it better than you." For this reason, the D2L "lasting Skills" approach places a premium on coaching and mentoring from supervisors and colleagues, who can tell in real time whether or not the training is progressing.

One caveat: For all that effort to pay off, employees need to know what Auger calls "psychological safety." Change isn't easy, and people tend to fall back into old ways of behaving (especially under stress) until they actually develop new habits. There's still room for error during the practice phase, Auger says. "Make sure the practice of learning and development is completely separated from the performance evaluation." For someone who makes an effort to try a new behavior -- especially a learned one -- if a misstep costs him or her a raise or promotion, he or she will never try, let alone change.

But what if these changes do not affect personality quirks? For example, a manager who received "empathy" training didn't seem to change at all. "It takes more training, introspection and practice," Abelli says.

"Anyone can learn 'competence skills' regardless of personality." She said. "It's true that some people may never be able to master certain skills, but they can learn a little bit about them and use them to their advantage. At least that way, they're not doing damage to the organization, the company."