human resources: the hard and soft skills

 

In this post

• What are soft skills, and why do they matter? 
• How do I test candidates' soft skills?
• Assessing soft skills with screening tests
• Assessing soft skills during interviews
• List of top soft skills for each industry
• Business Development & Sales
• Creative & Digital Media
• Marketing
•  Customer Service
• Education
• Human Resources
• Medical
• Technology
• Softs skills will always matter in business 

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A list of the top soft skills, per industry, every recruiter should be looking for

Our blog A list of the top soft skills, per industry, every recruiter should be looking for

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Cultivating a strong talent pool is crucial to a company's—and a recruiter's—success. But sometimes a recruiter will make a hire based on the technical skills and achievements of a candidate, only to discover less than 90 days later that the new hire isn't deemed a good fit by the existing team, and they are let go. 

So what went wrong? Often the answer lies with a person's soft skills or (lack thereof). 

What are soft skills, and why do they matter? 

In 2019, LinkedIn's Global Talent Trends reported that 92% of talent acquisition professionals indicated that soft skills are as important to hire for as hard skills. And 89% said that when a new hire doesn't work out, it's because they lacked critical soft skills.

Focusing on a candidate's hard skills— the skills that are quantifiable and relate directly to the job they would be doing—may feel more natural. After all, managers and team members alike will expect that a new hire possesses the capacity to do the job they were hired to do. However, it is just as important to hone in on soft skills. 

Soft skills affect how employees collaborate with their team, and can ultimately influence a hire's reputation at the company. They will eventually play a role in an employee's success because every employee has to work with other people in some capacity, whether it be a manager, a client, or a peer. 

Just as you are diligent when ensuring a candidate has the appropriate hard skills and technical experience for a role, it’s important to apply that same diligence to evaluating a candidate’s set of soft skills. That way, when they come in they are set-up for success. You can find the most talented graphic designer in the city, but if they can't take feedback very well, they are almost useless to the company. 

Mastering this talent acquisition component can save your company thousands of dollars and countless hours of training by reducing employee turnover. 

According to Lattice, the estimation of money lost due to poor hires is astounding. "Consider a 150-person company with an 11% annual turnover rate. If you spend $25k per person on hiring, $10k per person on development, and lose $50k of productivity when refilling a role, your annual cost of turnover would be about $1.57 million. Reducing this by just 20% would immediately yield over $300k in value." 

It is demanding and time-consuming to train a new employee. It interrupts a team's daily operations, productivity, and rhythm. So a bad hire ends up costing more than money, it amounts to lost time, depleted energy, and a resentful team forced to pick up the slack until a replacement comes along. 

Additionally, a high turnover rate could begin to raise some eyebrows around the office, leading to a toxic work environment.

On the other hand, finding candidates with strong soft skills will result in a more brilliant team. Happier employees have been reported to be more productive, more loyal to their employer, and more inspired at work.

How do I test candidates' soft skills?

Once you come to see the importance of soft skills, you may wonder how to hire for them.

Common behavioral questions could include: 

• Tell me a time you had creative differences with a client, and how you handled the situation.
• When was a time you went above and beyond to satisfy a client?
• When was a time you made a grave error in judgment? How did you communicate this to your team and/or manager?
• How do you organize your day? Take me through your morning before work.
• Tell me a time you noticed the quality was being compromised on a project, and how you handled the situation.

With open-ended questions, you're able to learn how they approached the problem, and if they found success. You're able to get insight into their critical thinking skills and interpersonal communication style, and see how self-aware they are as an employee.

Assessing soft skills with screening tests

Another way to assess a candidate’s soft skills is to provide the space for them to demonstrate their skills via screening tests.  Many employers are turning to cognitive ability tests which measure how candidates think and situational judgment tests, which measure how well candidates respond in different situations. 

As an added benefit, screening tests tend to be more objective than interviews, ensuring all candidates were tested across the same parameters and given equal opportunities to showcase their skill set. 

Here are a select group of screening tests best suited for testing soft skills:

• Personality test - A personality test measures an individual’s behavioral characteristics. As the name suggests, personality tests are meant to explore the candidate's personality traits and ensure fit within the team they would be working with and the clients they could potentially service. 
• Situational judgment - These are meant to measure the candidate's situational judgment and how they would make decisions within specific contexts. Situational judgment tests are particularly effective when testing for managerial and leadership requirements.
• Cognitive ability tests are designed to measure mental skills like attention to detail, problem-solving, critical thinking, numerical reasoning, and reading comprehension — many of the same skills ranked as top soft skills across industries. Situational judgment tests measure skills like leadership, time management, and communication.

Assessing soft skills during interviews

The interview process allows recruiters another great opportunity to learn about a candidate's soft skills. A practical and popular option is behavioral interviews. 

Contrary to traditional interview questions, behavioral interviews focus less on what a candidate did in a role. Instead, behavioral interview questions focus on concrete examples and past experiences showcasing the candidate’s communication and working style. 

If you choose to use screening tests as a first step, you can then cross-reference the results and dig deeper with your candidate. 

A great next step could include formulating questions to verify that a candidate does in fact have excellent communication skills as concluded per the screening test. Additionally, this step can allow you to understand the gaps in their time-management or any other soft skills noted from the test.

 HOW TO IMPROVE ONE S HEALTH

DO YOU HAVE A FUNNY MOVIE THAT MADE YOU ROAR WITH LAUGHTER ? 

DO YOU HAVE A  VIDEO THAT SHOWS A COMEDIAN CRACKING GOOD JOKES? 

HOW CAN LAUGHTER IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH? 

Laughter is the Best Medicine

It’s fun to share a good laugh, but did you know it can actually improve your health? Learn how to harness the powerful benefits of laughter and humor.

The benefits of laughter

It’s true: laughter is strong medicine. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body. Laughter strengthens your immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. It also helps you release anger and forgive sooner.

With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health. Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.

As children, we used to laugh hundreds of times a day, but as adults, life tends to be more serious and laughter more infrequent. But by seeking out more opportunities for humor and laughter, you can improve your emotional health, strengthen your relationships, find greater happiness—and even add years to your life.

Laughter is good for your health

Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.

Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Laughter burns calories. Okay, so it’s no replacement for going to the gym, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn approximately 40 calories—which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.

Laughter lightens anger’s heavy load. Nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on from confrontations without holding onto bitterness or resentment.

Laughter may even help you to live longer. A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who don’t laugh as much. The difference was particularly notable for those battling cancer.

 

COVID-19

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT

 

The UN’s Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to the COVID 19 Crisis warns that “The COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a health crisis: it is affecting societies and econ­omies at their core. While the impact of the pandemic will vary from country to country, it will most likely increase poverty and inequalities at a global scale, making achievement of SDGs even more urgent.

Assessing the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on societies, economies and vulnerable groups is fundamental to inform and tailor the responses of governments and partners to recover from the crisis and ensure that no one is left behind in this effort.

Without urgent socio-eco­nomic responses, global suffering will escalate, jeopardizing lives and livelihoods for years to come. Immediate development responses in this crisis must be undertaken with an eye to the future. Development trajectories in the long-term will be affected by the choices coun­tries make now and the support they receive.”

The United Nations has mobilized the full capacity of the UN system through its 131 country teams serving 162 countries and territories, to support national authorities in developing public health preparedness and response plans to the COVID-19 crisis.

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the socio-economic response will be one of one of three critical components of the UN’s COVID-19 response, alongside the health response, led by WHO, and the Global Humanitarian Response Plan.

As the technical lead for the socio-economic response, UNDP and its country offices worldwide are working under the leadership of the UN Resident Coordinators, and in close collaboration with specialized UN agencies, UN Regional Economic Commissions and IFIs, to assess the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on economies and communities. The assessment reports available on this site contain the preliminary findings of regional and country analyses.

Massive production disruptions that started in China have led to a lower supply of goods and services that reduces overall hours worked, leading to lower incomes.

Photo:
UNDP China

Briefs and Reports

 

Brief #2: Putting the UN Framework for Socio-Economic Response to COVID-19 into Action: Insights

Across the globe, the UN is supporting countries in preparing assessments of the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19. What are these assessments saying and what are the key socio-economic issues caused by the pandemic that the UN and its partners are seeing on the ground?

On behalf of the UN, UNDP prepares the monthly briefs Putting the UN Framework for Socio-Economic Response to Covid-19 Into Action exploring latest trends and providing key insights and analysis on the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19 on economies and societies.

IMMIGRATION CRISIS UNDER BIDEN

 THERE is a serious problem at the border. This has been going on for years and neither administration, whether Trump s or Biden s does seem  to be tackling the issue seriously.

Would you like  to read further about this issue? 

We recommend NEWSWEEK S article 

https://www.newsweek.com/biden-contemplates-terrible-immigration-idea-opinion-1644677

You can send us your views to cei@redynet2.com.ar or publish them at FACEBOOKOR INSTAGRAM 

CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS INGLESES  OR INGRESOS EN PROFESORADOS Y TRADUCTORADOS 

 

THIRD WORLD DEBT

 

In the 1960s, many developing countries with low productivity, low income, and low saving rates began to borrow large sums of money from Western banks, in order to industrialise.

 

In many countries, this worked successfully for a few years, but after the huge rise in oil prices in 1973, while the oil-exporting nations were depositing their "petrodollars" in Western  banks, many developing countries needed to borrow more money to pay for their imported oil.

 

After the second oil shock in 1979, and the economic slowdown that followed it, interest rates rose and the prices of the commodities and agricultural goods exported by the debtor countries fell.

 

For these reasons, many of the heavily indebted Third World Countries are now unable to service their debts with Western commercial banks: i.e.: they cannot pay the interest , let alone repay the principal.

 

Consequently they need to rollover or renew the loans, to reschedule or postpone repayments, or to borrow further money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) just to pay the interest on existing loans from commercial banks.

In these circumstances, when rescuing or "bailing out" indebted countries, the IMF insists on "structural adjustment" and "austerity" measures, obliging governments to devalue, to privatise as much as possible, to cut spending on health care, education and transport, to end food subsidies, and to export everything that can be sold, including food.

 

All this obviously makes most of the people in these countries much worse off that they were before their governments began borrowing to finance development.

In the late 1980s, many Western banks and governments (but not the IMF) began to write off or cancel a proportion of the loans made to Third World countries which had defaulted , although the proportion cancelled is generally less than the amount that the countries were repaying anyway.

 

In the 1990s, while much of  the Third World countries was paying billions of dollars of interest to the IMF (but hardly reducing the size of the loans themselves), the commercial banks started to lend billions of dollars to the former "Second World"-the previously communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe.        

 

 

 

 

What is your boss like? HUMAN RESOURCES

 RELATIONSHIPS IN THE WORKPLACE

https://fairygodboss.com/articles/ive-been-a-manager-for-15-years--this-is-how-i-empathize-with-employees-who-need-support-at-work?utm_source=email-transactions&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=community-missed-notification

i capture the castle - summary

 https://www.supersummary.com/i-capture-the-castle/summary

I Capture the Castle is a novel by British author Dodie Smith, written during World War II and first published in 1948. Inspired by the author’s longing for home when she and her husband were living abroad in California, it centers on an eccentric family, the Mortmains, and their life in a run-down castle during the 1930s. It is narrated by Cassandra Mortmain, a sharp teenager who tells her family’s story through journal entries as she changes from girl to woman and goes through many key milestones in a girl’s life. A classic example of the coming-of-age story, I Capture the Castle explores themes of love, faith and religion, creativity, and what each person is willing to do to survive. Considered a classic of British literature, it was adapted by Smith into a two-act play with musical elements in 1954, and has since been adapted to the screen in 2003. A 2015 BBC radio drama was produced, and a full musical adaptation debuted at the Watford Palace Theatre in April 2017.

I Capture the Castle takes place over a six-month period, from April to October in an unidentified year in the 2930s. The Mortmain family is genteel and eccentric, but have fallen into severe poverty. Cassandra introduces the reader to the rest of her family. Her father James is a once-successful author who now suffers from severe writer’s block. He hasn’t published anything since his successful first novel, Jacob Wrestling. Although the challenging modernist novel established him as a writer, he has produced nothing since. Ten years before the events of the novel, on the high of his initial success, he took out a forty-year lease on a beautiful but run-down castle. He hoped it would bring him inspiration, but now his family is forced to sell off its trappings to afford food. James is a widower, and his second wife Topaz is an artist’s model who loves spending time in nature. She will often wander around the grounds nearly naked. His older daughter, Rose, is described as a classic beauty who spends most of her time pining away, wishing for a handsome and rich young man to come and sweep her off her feet. She often tells her sister Cassandra that she wishes to live in a Jane Austen novel. Cassandra, who tells the story in her journal, wishes to be a writer herself. She makes the best of her current situation by developing her writing talent and capturing the world around her in her journal. Younger brother Thomas is quiet and helps around the castle. Stephen, the son of the family’s late maid, still lives with them and is in love with Cassandra. She thinks he’s kind and noble, but finds his affection a bit awkward.

The family’s life is upended when the Cottons, a wealthy family from America, inherit the nearby Scoatney Hall. Scoatney is the owner of the castle, which makes the Cottons the Mortmains’ new landlords. They have two sons, both unmarried, named Simon and Neil, and Cassandra and Rose soon become fascinated by them. Neil, raised in California by his father, is a free-spirited young man who wants to return to America to become a rancher. By contrast, Simon was raised in New England by his mother, and is serious and studious. He loves the English countryside and is glad to be home. Simon, the elder brother, stands to inherit the family fortune and is already well-off. Rose, desperate to escape poverty, decides to try to marry him even though she isn’t attracted to him. At the first meeting, the Cottons find the Mortmains amusing, but Rose’s awkward and obvious flirting uts them off. The brothers plan to avoid interacting with the family, but Cassandra conspires to bring them back and convince them to give Rose a second chance. Initial awkwardness past, the two families become close friends and Rose realizes she really is attracted to Simon. Cassandra and Rose scheme to arrange a proposal, and soon enough Rose and Simon are engaged.

As Rose and Topaz go to London to purchase Rose’s wedding dress, Simon and Cassandra spend the evening together. After an intense conversation, they kiss. Cassandra is filled with guilt over this, but at the same time she finds herself becoming obsessed with him. She realizes that she has to find a way to reject Stephen’s affections for her in a way that she doesn’t hurt him too much. She does this by encouraging him to pursue his dream of becoming a model and actor, which will take him away from the castle. She also joins forces with Thomas to try to force her father out of his writer’s block by trapping him in a small tower within the castle until he creates something. She continues to write everything down in her journal, but she misses another drama going on under her nose. Rose and Neil have formed a connection of their own, and their seemingly acrimonious relationship is only a guise for their secret affair. They eventually elope, leaving Simon heartbroken. However, this gives Cassandra new hope. Simon plans to return to the United States, but he comes to see Cassandra first. Despite her feelings for him, Cassandra changes the subject when she thinks he’s about to propose to her, because she’s not sure if he’s over Rose. Her final journal entry ends with Cassandra reminding herself that Simon promised to return, and that she’ll always love him.
Dodie Smith was a British author and playwright, best known for her popular novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was adapted multiple times by Disney into popular American films. She was the author of nine novels, eleven plays, two screenplays, and a four-volume autobiography. Nine movies have been based off her works.

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POST BREXIT ECONOMY

 

Britain’s Post-Brexit Economy Is Running on Empty

Sydney Nash Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021

Two weeks ago, an altercation broke out at a gas station in London and quickly escalated. One of the men involved drew a knife. The other rammed him with his car. As the driver tried to retreat, the first man kicked at his side mirror, leaving it hanging limply as the car reversed back into the street. 

Fights in a major city like London are not unusual, but the cause of this one was: The two men were arguing over access to gasoline that was suddenly in short supply in many parts of the country. And it was by no means the only fight to break out at a gas station that week. 

This was Britain in October 2021, where fuel shortages resulted in long lines outside hundreds of gas stations, leaving many customers impatient and even desperate. 

Moreover, gasoline is just one of many products in short supply. In recent weeks, McDonald’s ran out of milkshakes, while Nando’s, the peri-peri chicken chain, temporarily closed 10 percent of its restaurants, in part because it was unable to source chicken. The British government has warned of a turkey shortage at Christmas. More immediately, there is a 70 percent shortfall in firework supplies, only weeks before Guy Fawkes Night, an annual festival that is celebrated with large displays across the country. 

This is an extraordinary situation for the world’s fifth-largest economy to be in. The government has tried to blame the shortages on the coronavirus pandemic—something, it has taken pains to emphasize, that no one could have predicted—resulting in a shortage of truck drivers that is afflicting countries across Europe. 

The shortage of truck drivers is real—Poland has a shortfall of approximately 123,000 drivers, France 43,000 and Germany up to 60,000, compared to the U.K.’s shortfall of an estimated 100,000 drivers. 

However, only the U.K. is suffering from acute shortages in consumer goods and the fraying tempers that inevitably result.

Of course, the pandemic is not the only systemic shock that the U.K. has experienced this year. It has also chosen to pursue an economic revolution through the erection of trade barriers with the European Union, its closest and most important economic partner. Brexit, as this revolution is known, is an experiment in reverse liberalization the likes of which no other advanced economy has undertaken. While the U.K.’s decision to carry out such an experiment is unprecedented, the consequences of Brexit were easily predictable. Indeed, they were predicted. 

For decades prior to Brexit, the U.K. economy had relied upon an extensive network of highly efficient supply chains that crisscross the EU. Supported by a deep pool of skilled European labor, from which thousands of truck drivers were recruited, these supply chains delivered everything from food and beverages to chemicals, medicines and components for cars—all on a “just in time” inventory schedule that minimized waste and cost, while keeping shelves full, factories running, and the country fueled and fed. 

The consequences of Brexit were inevitable and predicted, but the government’s failure to properly prepare for it was a choice.

Supporting this logistical miracle was a comprehensive set of rules and standards, complemented by information-sharing between national regulatory authorities, and an agreed framework for redress—in other words, the EU’s single market and customs union. Within this ecosystem, the British economy grew, even as it intertwined itself with those of its European neighbors. When the U.K. voted to leave the EU in 2016, it chose to pull itself out of that ecosystem, sacrificing its place within those supply chains and an increasingly integrated European economy.

Since then, businesses, logistics and customs experts, and specialists in international trade and EU law have set out at length what the consequences of this decision would be. Put simply, they argued that Brexit would inevitably damage the British economy, for multiple reasons. Erecting barriers to trade would make it harder for U.K. firms to do business in the EU. Reinstating customs checks would make it harder to replenish stocks with goods from the EU. And ending free movement of people would make it harder to keep key sectors of the economy, including logistics, operational by recruiting workers from the EU. 

To mitigate against this, the U.K. business sector called on the government to pursue a “soft” Brexit and to allow plenty of time to adjust to the new reality that would result. This would have retained some of the integration between the U.K. and EU economies, and helped minimize the sudden disruption to trade that leaving the EU would cause. However, the British government under Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose to pursue the hardest form of Brexit and to do so as quickly as possible. The results have now become clearly apparent on supermarket shelves and at gasoline pumps around the country.

The British government’s response to this growing crisis has been to relax rules regulating truck driver hours, and to offer short-term visas to drivers from the EU. Neither measure gets to the root of the problem. Moving goods in and out of Britain is now more time-consuming, costly and stressful than it was a year ago because the trade barriers that were the inevitable consequence of the Johnson government’s Brexit have brought to a shuddering halt the free and frictionless movement of goods that the U.K. enjoyed when it was a member of the EU. The way to solve the challenges facing the U.K. is to remove those trade barriers.

The reason the Johnson government won’t do so is because it was and continues to be driven by a singular objective—delivering Brexit. The decision to leave the EU has fundamentally changed the British political landscape. The Conservative Party, once the party of business, is now the party of Brexit. It was reelected with an overwhelming majority under Johnson’s leadership in 2019 to “get Brexit done.” Its MPs are unwavering not only in their support for Brexit, but also in their belief that it will inevitably be a success. 

However, it is this unwavering belief that has led the government first to downplay the scale of the economic challenges that would inevitably result from Brexit, and then to rush the extraction of the U.K. from the European Union, leaving itself—and British businesses—without the time needed to properly prepare for what the U.K. is now experiencing. The consequences of Brexit were inevitable and predicted, but the government’s failure to properly prepare for it was a choice.

So long as these true believers continue to occupy 10 Downing Street and the majority of seats in Parliament, the government will choose to ignore the role that Brexit is playing in weakening the U.K. economy, undermining British businesses, breaking vital supply chains, exacerbating labor shortages and creating the kind of conditions that result in violent exchanges at petrol stations. To do otherwise, they would have to question their own belief in Brexit and acknowledge the flaws in what has become an ideology. This is not an option for them, for the simple reason that the Johnson government is a revolutionary one in which ideology trumps all else, even the economy. 

Sydney Nash is a former civil servant, U.K.-EU negotiator and adviser to the automotive sector on Brexit and international tra