HR managers these days have many decisions to make about the corporate communication tools they use to connect themselves to their workers and ensure that their workers can openly communicate with each other.
Corporate communication tools help employees stay connected, both to each other and to management. They also help employees make the right decisions for themselves about benefits enrollment and more. Video has come along in recent years to replace traditional communication tools with great effect.
But more companies are complaining of a so-called “soft skills gap” between their employees. Soft skills are abilities that workers and business owners need to build relationships with others. In many industries, these relationships can be the difference between success and failure. These skills include workplace communication, salesmanship, interpersonal communication, problem solving, team building, and more.
The Soft Skills Gap and How You Can Close It
As a manager or executive, you can close the soft skills gap in several ways depending on your workers. Some people are simply never going to be as positive or friendly as others. The best thing you can do to help foster relationship-building skills is to expose more of your workers to situations that require them to communicate and share with others. Easier said than done, especially if you head a tech company that employs many developers or IT personnel. You can encourage teamwork by grouping workers together in work groups to accomplish tasks, and you can facilitate easy, fast communication with advanced corporate communication tools.
Instant messaging, livestream videos, video communication, and other tools can open up your employees to each other by making it easier to communicate and share with one another. You don’t necessarily need everyone to be a salesperson or an incredibly effective team builder, but the more all of your workers develop the soft skills that facilitate productive relationships with clients and other workers, the better your organization will be overall.
Corporate Communication Tools Aren’t a Panacea
All the highly-advanced corporate communication tools in the world can’t make up for an attitude or corporate culture that devalues soft skills or doesn’t emphasize their development. Working with others and helping your employees build their own personal networks fosters the development of soft skills better than any livestream video or postcard. These advanced communication tools certainly help by giving employees better access to each other, but, they aren’t a cure-all.
Combining corporate communication tools with a corporate commitment to developing relationships is the key to bridging the “soft skills gap” in workplaces today. Like any communication strategy, it takes many moving parts working together to be effective.
