Essential Soft Skills for Workplace Success

Employers assess and judge their employees on their knowledge of both technical skills and soft skills. Until the recent past, technical skills were given top priority. However, that perception has changed over time. The knowledge of soft skills is now being considered as important as or more important than technical knowledge. Professional success depends upon a host of parameters such as experience, expertise, skill level, personality traits, work style, communication style, and work-life balance. Soft skills have also become a key parameter of professional success. This paper looks at the factors that have contributed to the acknowledgment of the significance of the soft skills at workplace and also presents the ways in which the knowledge of the soft skills could be enriched to go up the career ladder. It proposes a list of key soft skills such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence, team work, cross-cultural communication and personal accountability, which are expected to be the game changers. It is hoped that the employees’ knowledge about essential soft skills would enable them to become productive and mindful professionals at their workplaces. It is also implied that employees view soft skills as valuable assets rather than extraneous matters in their professional success. The insights presented in the paper, if deployed diligently, could augur well for career growth and enable the employees to remain relevant even if the job and technology scenario keep changing.

Ballerinas as analysts: Former ballet dancers’ transfer of 21st century skills to careers as data analysts

This qualitative study examines 21st century skills used by former ballerinas in their current careers as data analysts. Using the Partnership for 21st Century Learning’s list of 21st century skills as the framework, four unstructured interviews were analyzed. The findings indicate that the former ballerinas (1) articulate a connection between the creativity needed for ballet and data analysis, (2) recognize that their ballet training helped them develop 21st century skills needed to be data analysts, and (3) suggest that being a dancer influences their identity. These findings can contribute to the discussion of developing transferable skills essential to workplace success.

Dual perspectives in autism spectrum disorders and employment: Toward a better fit in the workplace

BACKGROUND: Compared with people with other disabilities, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have the lowest rates of employment and switch jobs at a higher frequency. Thus, understanding how to support workplace success for people with ASD is important. OBJECTIVE: Grounded in an ecological conceptual model, this study explores the dual employment perspectives of adults with ASD and supervisors who worked with individuals with ASD. METHODS: Using participatory research methods, a purposive sample of ten adults with ASD (all verbal with high school diplomas) and ten supervisors participated in semi-structured interviews on employment experiences. Qualitative analyses were used to identify themes. RESULTS: Four major themes emerged from an ecological framework to create a strong person-environment fit in the workplace: 1) building on interest/experiences/strengths/skills, 2) reducing social demands, 3) clear communication and expectations, and 4) ASD awareness for work environment. Comparisons between the two groups of participants showed substantive differences in expectations and accommodations. CONCLUSIONS: Supervisors, although eager to employ individuals with ASD, could benefit by employing an ecological model to successful employment. Results indicate that multiple lenses on the process of employment for those with ASD can lead to better outcomes in the workplace.

Quality of Early Parent Input Predicts Child Vocabulary 3 Years Later

Children greatly vary in the number of words they know when they enter school, a major factor influencing subsequent school and workplace success. This variability is partially explained by the differential quantity of parental speech to preschoolers. However, the contexts in which young learners hear new words are also likely to vary in referential transparency; that is, in how clearly word meaning can be inferred from the immediate extralinguistic contexts, an aspect of input quality. To examine this aspect, we asked 218 adult participants to guess 50 parents’ words from (muted) videos of their interactions with 14- to 18-mo-old children. We found systematic differences in how easily individual parents’ words could by identified purely from this socio-visual context. Differences in this kind of input quality correlated with the size of the children's vocabulary 3 years later, even after controlling for input quantity. Although input quantity differed as a function of socio-economic status, input quality (as here measured) did not, suggesting that the quality of nonverbal cues to word meaning that parents offer to their children is an individual matter, widely distributed across the population of parents.

Identifying Critical 21st-Century Skills for Workplace Success: A Content Analysis of Job Advertisements

This article extends the literature on 21st-century learning skills needed for workplace success by providing an empirical examination of employers’ direct communication to potential employees via job advertisements. Our descriptive analysis of 142,000 job advertisements provides two contributions. First, this is one of the first studies to empirically rank-order skill demand. In doing so, it is clear that oral and written communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills are in high demand by employers, with particular emphasis on the pairing of oral and written communication. Furthermore, it is apparent that many of the skills suggested in the literature as being critical for workplace success are in very low demand by employers, and some were not found to be mentioned at all (e.g., social responsibility). Second, this study explicitly examined whether 21st-century skill demand varied by job characteristics, which was found to be the case, with differences being noted for both education level and degree field requirements. Results were replicated with a sample of roughly 120,000 job advertisements collected 1 year from the initial data collection. Implications for developing educational standards around 21st-century skill development are discussed.

Identifying Critical 21st-Century Skills for Workplace Success: A Content Analysis of Job Advertisements

This article extends the literature on 21st-century learning skills needed for workplace success by providing an empirical examination of employers’ direct communication to potential employees via job advertisements. Our descriptive analysis of 142,000 job advertisements provides two contributions. First, this is one of the first studies to empirically rank-order skill demand. In doing so, it is clear that oral and written communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills are in high demand by employers, with particular emphasis on the pairing of oral and written communication. Furthermore, it is apparent that many of the skills suggested in the literature as being critical for workplace success are in very low demand by employers, and some were not found to be mentioned at all (e.g., social responsibility). Second, this study explicitly examined whether 21st-century skill demand varied by job characteristics, which was found to be the case, with differences being noted for both education level and degree field requirements. Results were replicated with a sample of roughly 120,000 job advertisements collected 1 year from the initial data collection. Implications for developing educational standards around 21st-century skill development are discussed.

Higher Education Teaching and Learning With Augmented Reality

This chapter is based on a review of the literature, initial lab examinations, and experiences teaching university undergraduate pre-service teachers and master degree students in Instructional Design and Technology. The authors analyzed the literature, benefits, drawbacks, experiences, and educational implications of integrating augmented reality in higher education to prepare students for eventual workplace success. Using augmented reality, three-dimensional interactive digital imaging provides an immersive, engaging learning environment to interact with content in new ways not previously possible. The 3D models can impart significant content information by viewing digital objects from any angle, sometimes peeling back the layers, all in real time. In addition, they consider the educational implications for integrating and evaluating augmented reality.