Organizations have tried all types of approaches to fill the soft skills gap. They’ve gone on hiring sprees, brought in consultants and even administered lengthy tests to candidates before hiring — but to little avail, as those gaps remain. What’s the next step? What are these organizations missing? Training. Upskilling current employees is the most effective and cost-efficient way to bridge skill gaps and create an organization that’s ready for the future. But it doesn’t take just any kind of training. Join us for this complimentary Training Industry webinar, sponsored by BizLibrary. Katie Miller will discuss the best training strategies to use when looking to close your employees’ soft skills gaps.

2. Presenting Today
Katie Miller
Marketing Events Strategist
BizLibrary

3. www.bizlibrary.com/demo

5. Poll Question
What method/s have you tried to fill the soft skills gap at
your organization?
A. Hiring sprees
B. Brought in outside help (consultants)
C. Administered pre-hire assessments
D. All (A-C)
E. Other (type in the chat)

6. Poll Question
Were you successful in closing the soft skills gap at your
organization with the method/s you chose?
A. Yes, our soft skill gaps are filled!
B. Somewhat, but we still have work to do.
C. Not at all.

7. During the webinar today, you’ll learn:
• The common mistakes companies make when trying to close
their soft skills gap.
• How to conduct assessments of current soft skills and bring
your whole company on board with training.
• Ways to implement training strategies that will help close
your soft skills gap.

8. The Skills Gap

9. JOBS
>

10. 83%
HR PROFESSIONALS REPORTED HAVING
DIFFICULTY RECRUITING SUITABLE JOB
CANDIDATES IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
75%
HR PROFESSIONALS SAID THERE ARE
SKILLS GAPS IN JOB CANDIDATES
SHRM 2019, The Global Skills Shortage
https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents/SHRM%20Skills%20Gap%202019.pdf

11. What are Soft Skills?
Emotional
Intelligence
Critical
Thinking
Creativity
People Management
Decision
Making
Soft Skills
Soft skills are the competencies that
allow your employees to interact
effectively and productively with
others, no matter the role or the
setting.

12. 12
25% of a person’s long-term career success
was attributed to technical skills.
Soft skills training in five different factories
yielded a 250% ROI in just eight months

13. Common Mistakes Companies are Making
o Blaming Others
o Not Focusing On The Right Skills
o Not Doing A Proper Assessment
o Not Upskilling Fast Enough
o Poor Training Strategies

14. Blaming Others
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15. Not Focusing on the Right Skills
75%of 2,000 full-time workers plan to learn new
skills because they want to advance in their
careers.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/employers-need-to-broaden-strategies-to-close-skills-gap.aspx

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FEEDBACK FREEDOM TO FAIL
• 1:1’s
• Company-wide surveys
• Intranet
• Nobody likes feeling incompetent
• Managers and supervisors are
important in achieving a “Freedom
to Fail” culture

17. Not Doing a Proper Assessment
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• Make it easy to understand, not too long
• Keep it consistent (Scale 1-5)
• Know your audience

18. Plan
Identify important skills
Measure current skills
Analyze the data
Create a plan
The Soft Skills Gap Analysis
Sources: derived from workable.com and peoplemattersglobal.com

19. STEP 1: PLAN
TWO GROUPS YOU CAN CONDUCT THE ANALYSIS ON:
Individual
Scope
Who is in charge of
the process
When to conduct a
soft skills gap analysis
How to respond
to soft skill gaps
Individual level
Team/company
level
Manager
Manager
HR/L&D
Directors/C-suite
- Changes in employee’s duties
- Poor performance review
- Need for new skills for a
promotion or new project
- Problems meeting business goals
- Strategy shifts
- New technologies
- When a team is exceeding their goals
Training
Succession planning
Mentoring initiatives
Hiring
Training programs
Mentoring initiatives
Team/company

20. STEP 2: IDENTIFY IMPORTANT SKILLS
TWO QUESTIONS:
What skills do you value as a company?
What soft skills do our employees need to do their jobs well now and in the future?
Importance
Leadership High Excellent
Skill level required
Low Average
Presenting Moderate Good
Initiative

21. STEP 3: MEASURE CURRENT SKILLS
THREE WAYS TO MEASURE:
Surveys and assessments
Interviews with employees
Feedback
Importance
Creativity High 5
Required level
Moderate 4
Collaboration High 3
Persuasion
4
Actual level
2
3

22. STEP 3: MEASURE CURRENT SKILLS
Skill Type
Functional
Business
Leadership
Skills
Site
Leadership
Middle
Management
Frontline
Supervisor
Health, Safety, & Environment
Six Sigma Competencies
Computer-Aided Design
Functional Specification
Decision Making
Customer Orientation
Adaptability
Time Management
People Management
Effective Communication
Creativity & Innovation
Digital Vision
More improvement required
Improvement required
Less improvement required

23. COMPARE
The established IDEAL state
The analyzed CURRENT state
STEP 4: ANALYZE THE DATA

24. STEP 5: CREATE A PLAN
UPSKILLING YOUR EMPLOYEES HIRING
TWO WAYS TO ACT

25. Training vs. Hiring
More respondents lean toward training than toward hiring
Given the choice between accessing new talent and training existing employees, where are you leaning?
Strongly toward training
Moderately toward training
Moderately toward new talent
Strongly toward new talent
31%
46%
17%
7%
Source: Deloitte‘s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends Report

26. By 2030, as many as 375 million workers – or
roughly 14 percent of the global workforce – may need
to switch occupational categories…
- McKinsey Global Institute

27. Not Upskilling Fast Enough
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1. Show your importance
2. Obtain leadership buy-in by showing them ROI
3. Produce a plan and START!
The time is NOW
L&D professionals must step up!

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How did you convince your boss/executives to
see the benefits of upskilling your employees?
GROUP CHAT QUESTION

29. Poor Training Strategies
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If your training content is boring, presenters are monotone, and the content is not interesting to
the audience – it’s time to rethink your strategy.
Not Engaging
Your company is spending good time and money on employee learning and development all to
forget everything after a few days.
No Reinforcement of Learning
If you’re sending the same content to everyone, the topics are not what your audience are
looking for, or the content is outdated.
Not Relevant
There are so many ways to train your employees, but if you are only offering in-person-
mandatory training, you could be hurting the productivity of your employees and the company.
Not Easily Accessible

30. Training Strategies that Will Help Close Your Soft Skills Gap
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Online Classroom
Coaching
1. Multiple Modalities
3. Interactive
Gamification
Reinforcements
4. Find a
Supportive
Partner
Microlearning Accessibility
Variety Diversity
2. Engaging and
Relevant
Client Success

31. Key Takeaways
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• The common mistakes companies make when trying to close
their soft skills gap.
• How to conduct assessments of current soft skills and bring
your whole company on board with training.
• Ways to implement training strategies that will help close
your soft skills gap.

32. Questions?

33. Thank you for attending!
Katie Miller
Marketing Events Strategist
BizLibrary