回到2003年哈斯克尔,Hawkesand Pereira表明,艰难和软技能与总因素生产力正相关(TFP),英国顶级表演公司与底层表演公司之间的8%的生产率差距是由技能缺口解释的。Since 2003 there has been an ever increasing awareness of the value of soft skills and in 2016 a Gallup report ‘Guide to Customer Centricity: Analytics and Advice for B2B Leaders: how to accelerate business growth by listening to and acting on the voice of your customers’ explains how customer relationships, collaboration and problem handling are key to business success. In recent years employers such as Google, McDonald’s and Tescos have highlighted how soft skills improve productivity and are vital to building great teams and delivering great customer service, which all contribute to business profitability. Google analysed their recruitment data and the factors that led to people being the most successful employees and concluded that, rather than technological skills being what was driving the company forward, it was employees with soft skills.
因此,如果软化技能对业务非常重要,为什么每年花费3500亿美元的全球支出,培训只有约10%在柔和技能发展中所花费的10%?如果在人才短缺调查中发现,在5个雇主中,全球1中的雇主无法填补职位空缺,那么为什么雇主没有提供此培训?也许是因为它是一种误解,可以在工作场所拾取软技能,并提供软技能培训不是必要的培训,因为它们不会影响底线。In an extensive study conducted by higher education institutions ‘Skill discrepancies between research, education, and jobs reveal the critical need to supply soft skills for the data economy’, it was recommended that the workforce should be given time to train in soft skills as these skills don’t develop sufficiently in the workplace without training.