We know that soft skills are hard to measure. We may instinctively know if someone is empathetic, a great communicator or a sharp decision maker, but how can we prove that?
And what if we don’t necessarily recognise someone’s soft skills at first glance, owing to things like unconscious bias, sharing an office with some colleagues and not others or simply overlooking the skills of quieter, more introverted employees?
Soft skills measurement, until now, has been based on gut feeling and guesswork – but that doesn’t cut it anymore. Instead, it’s time to acknowledge that while it’s harder, it’s far from impossible to measure those all-important soft skills (which, by the way, are becoming increasingly important in a tech-first world).
In our digital world, L&D needs a better way to tackle soft skills measurement. So, what’s the plan?
Soft skills have never been more valuable. Every single day, we’re being told that AI is coming for our jobs, and technology is changing the way things happen both in and outside the workplace. From supermarket self-checkouts to robo-surgery, it can feel a bit like humans are being written out of the picture (probably by ChatGPT).
But that’s exactly why soft skills are so powerful. As good as AI is at so many things, it can’t replace the human connection we get from… well, humans. Even if we use AI solutions for the most human challenges, like therapy, we still know there’s not a real person on the other side of the screen.
That’s why people – real people – who can master soft skills will be at an advantage. AI can take care of the mundane, repetitive tasks to make us more efficient, but it can never be human – so it’s crucial that we take care of those inherently human traits ourselves.
The good news: we’re all displaying our soft skills all day, every day.
The challenge: how on earth do we prove it?!
Soft skills measurement is notoriously difficult. You can’t just take an elearning module on empathy, then get 100% in the post-learning quiz and say, “Great! I’m empathetic now!”. It takes real-world observation over an extended period to prove that it’s a skill someone is constantly using (and improving) over time.
But that’s not easy. Managers simply don’t have time to observe every employee closely enough to track their soft skills, and even if that miraculously changed, they’d still have to contend with their own unconscious bias in the hope of a fair analysis.
So, how do we overcome the lack of time, the worry of bias and the absence of practical measurement tools to ensure our soft skills measurement is working – and, indeed, happening in the first place?
L&D talks a lot about learning in the flow of work – so why not measure skills in the flow of work?
Much like how we’ve acknowledged that most people prefer to learn what they need, when they need it, rather than sitting through a day-long workshop once a year, why do we shoehorn skills measurement into a single assessment or quiz? L&D knows it doesn’t work well, and learners certainly don’t enjoy it – so why don’t we change that?
Let’s take blood sugar as an example. Instead of basing all medical decisions on a single annual blood test, many patients with diabetes now wear continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to track trends throughout the days, weeks and months. This data always existed, but it’s only with the widespread use of CGMs that we’ve been able to truly access and understand this data in a meaningful way. The patient doesn’t have to do anything – the CGM just sits on their body and quietly captures data all day, every day, giving doctors a rich source of data and a full understanding of how to better manage the patient’s condition.
Now imagine a similar solution for measuring skills at work. No, there’s no wearable technology (yet!), but with AI, we might just have the next best thing. Instead of taking one-off snapshots of skills, and basing our entire performance reviews, upon which we base salary increases and promotion opportunities, what if we could use AI for soft skill measurement in the flow of work, with absolutely no extra manual effort?
Where soft skills measurement is concerned, AI is actually one of the most effective ways to measure this ‘hard data’!
That’s because while a human manager probably won’t want to spend their time eavesdropping on their employees to monitor for active listening skills, an AI tool can do it brilliantly. AI tools can also be trained to minimise bias much more efficiently than humans can, helping to solve the issues of time and bias.
So what about the actual tools?
Well, we might just have the answer…
Our brand-new AI-powered skills management solution is coming this summer, and we want you to be the first to see it in action!
We gave our very first sneak peek in our recent webinar, but there’s plenty more where that came from!
We’ll be sharing exclusive updates with everyone who signs up below. Whether it’s sneaky screenshots (don’t tell the CEO!), behind-the-scenes insights into how it’s all coming along or opportunities to help shape our new product, we’d hate for you to miss out, so sign up below to stay in the loop!