Soft skills vs hard skills
The majority of our students within our program lack soft skills and work place behaviors do to their backgrounds and life situations. Students that come in lack in these areas have a hard time transitioning during their training in the program resulting in being absent constantly, leaving early, or being tardy. In the end, after every positive effort coming from the instructor, the student will be great appreciative of all the hard work we put in with these students.
Hi Denise,
I encounter the same student behaviors and lack of soft skills as they enter the program. My goal is to model the soft skills and work behaviors necessary to get and maintain a job in the field. I find that I have greatly improved my soft skills and work place behaviors because I have to really focus and follow all the "rules" of soft skills and work place behaviors so I can be a great role model. There are some days when I have a "teaching moment" when my soft skills or work place behaviors are less than perfect. I explain that this would be an inappropriate soft skill or work place behavior and then demonstrate the better way to handle the situation. I still need work on generating emotions, or changing negative emotions into positive ones.
Soft skills are certainly a problem for most of my students also. In order to help them, I have developed an EQ lesson for my career success class which my students take in their 1st term. I also follow up in my 4th term Professional Development class. I also encourage my students to find a mentor indide or outside of school who possesses excellent soft skills and follow their lead. Another thing I do is to share with my students the type of questions an employer may ask me when a former student has used me as a reference. Typically, their first five questions relate to soft skills rather than the technical skills needed for the job. This is a powerful strategy to leverage so that my students see the value in attaining an excellent soft skill set.
