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It seems like only yesterday that job applicants with college degrees were impossible to beat. Now, companies are increasingly realising that on-the-job soft skills, including communication, adaptability, and problem-solving, are more important than marks on paper. In fact, two-thirds of employers now see soft skills as a priority for both their recruitment strategies and their external teams.
But if you thought that you could leave soft skills to simmer nicely in the background, you’re wrong. Companies that spend more on soft skill development inevitably perform better, hit higher targets, and generally impress to better standards. The right soft skills tools can ensure you meet these goals, but which tools will help you to go hardest on soft skills this year? Keep on reading to find out.
# 1 – Helix – Best for All-Round Oversight
Soft skills learning often consists of unengaging videos that may or may not meet your teams where they’re at. This can see you spending significant amounts for training that your team simply doesn’t need, and it’s a mistake you can overcome with the help of Helix. This AI skills intelligence platform was created by the team behind 5app, and it’s earned the top spot on this list thanks to benefits including personalised training suggestions, real-time skills measurements, and the easy integration of soft skills into your existing workflow.
Instead of rushing to tell you what you need, Helix takes the time to understand where your team is at and where those soft skills could benefit from a little more attention. Helix works with tools including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, and can even sit in on your meetings to get a feel for employee performance according to a crucial Core 9 framework of skills.
Within an easy-to-use dashboard, Helix then displays data-backed insights to ensure real-time skills measurements, as well as clear, actionable feedback about the learning investments that will actually benefit you. If we’re being picky, we could argue that Helix has the downside of being a little pricey for smaller companies, but large companies looking to understand where they stand when it comes to soft skills could undeniably benefit from signing up for a free trial.
# 2 – TestGorilla – Best for Hiring
While tools like Helix focus on what your existing team can do, TestGorilla prioritizes soft skills assessments at the hiring stage, ensuring that you’re always onboarding candidates who already have a solid hold on what soft skills entail. This science-backed AI tool claims that it will help you to source, screen, and shortlist prospective hires from one place, and 45,000 talent professionals believe it achieves that goal.
By appealing to both businesses and job seekers, TestGorilla becomes a fully integrated, intelligent job-seeking platform on its own, ensuring that you can easily scan pre-assessed candidates based on priorities including job description, location, and experience. But TestGorilla really comes into its own where soft skills are concerned thanks to its inbuilt job role assessments, which include 350+ skills tests, such as the ‘Big 5 Ocean’ personality test, time management tests, and many more.
Automated scoring and candidate behaviour monitoring then ensure that you can always select the strongest soft skills on offer. Again, this tool can be expensive, and its hiring focus means that it’s not always going to provide value for money if your existing staff stick around. However, if you’re looking to expand, or you keep on hiring people who have never heard of a soft skill in their lives, then this tool could be worthwhile for you.
# 3 – ELM – Best for Virtual Learning
In-house soft skills training may have the benefit of allowing you to see firsthand how teams engage, but most employees now prefer virtual soft skills training that they can access when it suits. ELM is a people-first learning platform which provides that benefit. Admittedly, not everything that ELM offers centers around soft skills, but there’s still enough here to make it worthwhile for this purpose.
Employees can choose training that includes instructor-led courses and off-the-shelf solutions, as well as virtual learning that incorporates mobile learning, gamification, and even animation-led training. As well as ensuring a learning style that suits every team member, ELM provides specific soft skills courses, which go beyond the basics to build on skills including collaboration and leadership.
Each soft skills learning program is fully customisable, and includes interactive trainers that encourage hands-on approaches that can maximize learning. Admittedly, ELM does have the downside of not offering as much as other platforms in terms of soft skills measurements, but if you’re looking for intuitive, engaging soft skills education, this platform can undeniably deliver.
# 4 – Disco – Best for Branded Learning
Off-the-shelf soft skills learning has its place, but AI-first tools like Disco can transform soft skills learning with your company’s specific branding, goals, and preferences in mind.
That’s because this tool provides you with the ability to create branded, fully unique soft skills training courses in minutes rather than hours. From quizzes and assessments to complete curriculum programs, Disco has all the tools you need to not only survive soft skills, but to thrive across the board. You can also easily customize these AI-created programs with branded landing pages, external links, and even integrations with your Google Docs if you need to. It’s also possible to track insights across Disco programs, and even clone your branded content if it works.
As if that weren’t beneficial enough, Disco ensures engagement thanks to features including full mobile experiences complete with push notifications, reactions buttons, discussion feeds, and even a learning leaderboard that will give every team member more of a reason to make soft skills their priority. While some users do report a steep learning curve, and limited offline capabilities, it’s fair to say that Disco offers enough benefits to have you dancing in no time.
Takeaway
There’s no denying that soft skills are coming up in the world of business, and employers who are keen to get on top could undeniably benefit from everything these crucial tools have to offer. Whether you try one or all of them, the soft skills within your company are sure to start soaring as a result.
