Year after year, reports highlight the importance of non-technical skills like critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability. The World Economic Forum’s most recent Future of Jobs report ranks analytical thinking as the most sought-after “core” skill followed by other skills like creative thinking and flexibility and agility. Despite their importance, these skills are often called soft skills. There is even a National Soft Skills Association dedicated to disseminating research and best practices related to the teaching and assessment of soft skills. It is time to move away from the term soft skills. This blog post builds on existing discussions by explaining why we need a new term that better reflects the value of soft skills.
Why Do We Call Them Soft Skills
The term soft skills was introduced by the United States Army at some point during the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. One source suggests that soft skills were meant to identify those skills not related to the use of machinery and technology (hard skills), which is similar to how we use the term today. This distinction was not meant to suggest that soft skills were not important. On the contrary, another source highlights how the term soft skills “centered on the human element—the social aptitude required to command groups, inspire troops, and ultimately emerge victorious in battle.”
The soft skills/hard skills distinction was helpful for the Army given the role soft skills play in leadership. The distinction prevented too much of a focus on new technology and a neglect of developing leaders who were capable of leading people to use new technology. The soft skills/hard skills distinction was also helpful for the business sector given the importance of leadership and interpersonal interactions. The soft skills/hard skills distinction developed by the Army has been widely adopted and has been helpful to focus education and workforce development efforts. Yet it is time to adopt a new term as even the Army has moved away from it.
Why We Should Adopt a New Term
The Army no longer uses the term soft skills. The Army’s Leadership Requirements Model in Developing Leaders distinguishes between attributes and competencies with traditional soft skills included in both categories. Interpersonal tact, mental agility, and judgment are designated attributes, and communication, developing others, and giving feedback are designated as competencies. This is a helpful shift from soft skills .
Calling skills soft implies a lack of importance or that it is easy to develop them compared to developing hard skills. Soft skills are essential for leadership, teamwork, and effective communication across different contexts. They are also fundamental to understanding and connecting with others. Soft skills are consistently identified as important for work today and the future of work, and many employers note a gap in terms of the level of soft skills needed by members of their organizations and the levels possessed by new and current employees. In addition to the World Economic Forum report noted above, there are many others, some of which I highlighted in my last Futures Empowered blog post, Bridging the Gap, that demonstrate employer dissatisfaction with the performance of many recent college graduates. Much of this dissatisfaction relates to team members not meeting expectations related to soft skills.
Soft skills are also challenging to develop and assess in ways that not technical or hard skills are not. Being able to communicate effectively or think critically is not something that you can learn in a short course. Years of education provide the foundation upon which employers build through workforce development programs. Even then, judgment and adaptability are necessary to be able to communicate or think critically in a specific context.
Remaining Soft Skills
We must rename soft skills in a way that reflects their importance and how they are used. Below are some, although there are certainly other terms that would be better than soft skills.
Durable skills highlights the enduring value of soft skills across different industries and over time. Caitlin MacGregor offers a durable skills/perishable skills distinction that offers a new name for hard skills that reflects that they soon become outdated and that contrasts them with soft skills.
Human skills is a way to highlight that soft skills are uniquely human. This term reflects that humans possess these skills and distinguishes them from skills needed to use technology. It also demonstrates that these skills involve relating to other humans rather than employing technology. One argument for making the switch from soft skills to human skills is from INSIDEHR.
Power Skills demonstrates the importance of soft skills and the impact they have for organizations. While technology is important, organizations rely on soft skills to develop and implement visions and strategies and inspire and organize teams to achieve them. Rachel Wells makes the case that power skills is a much better way to describe them than soft skills.
Core Skills is another approach that reflects the fundamental importance of soft skills for work and life. Viewing soft skills as core skills suggests that they are required for everyone, they are the starting point upon which to build, and that hard skills are acquired to perform specific tasks. Dan Roberts suggests that because soft skills cannot be seen as optional, so they should be called core skills.
Transferable skills emphasizes the versatility of soft skills in that they can be applied in various contexts. While hard skills typically imply the use of a specific technology for specific circumstances, transferable skills shows that soft skills like communication and critical thinking can be learned and applied in different contexts. Jeff Weber explains why transferable skills is a more accurate description than soft skills.
Employability skills is another approach that highlights the value of soft skills for employment. Some conceptions of employability include technical skills and soft skills, which makes it a broader term that makes clear the importance of soft skills. This University of Sydney webpage proposes that employability skills and soft skills are the same thing, while others include non-soft skills like AI literacy as an employability skill, which would make it broader than soft skills.
The Way Ahead
I have been an advocate for shifting from soft skills to human skills for a while, but Michael Horn’s recent article made me reconsider. He asked readers to consider what if humans do not outperform AI in human skills given that AI can perform many human skills at least at a low level. But the term human skills is still an improvement over soft skills. Employability skills seems too broad of a term because it can include non-soft skills and because these skills are helpful outside of work, but the narrow conception of employability skills could make it a possibility.
With so many alternatives, settling on a single term will not be easy. However, what is clear is that soft skills fails to capture the true value and complexity of these essential abilities. What term best reflects the value of soft skills? Because there is not one authority who can mandate the change, how do we go about adopting a new term?
The views in this article are those of the author and not the views of the United States Military Academy, United States Army, or United States Department of Defense.