“Addressing Soft Skill Needs at Your Business”
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Employers are having a tough time finding qualified people with the background and experience to fill jobs, including locating employees with behavioral or soft skills.
An IBM survey reported by Bloomberg found that along with technical skills, employers are valuing behavioral skills as critical. There is an emphasis on soft skills, “such as the ability to work well on a team, communication, creativity, and empathy are best developed through experience rather than structured learning programs like a webinar.”
Kate Davidson in her Wall Street Journal article, wrote that soft skills “…can make the difference between a standout employee and one who just gets by.”
I like referring to soft skills as employability-success skills because they help someone get a job, but also move up the career ladder. They are not unique to a particular occupation or industry, but are required among all business sizes, utilized by the entry-level worker to executive suite. Across the world of work, people need to be capable communicators, team members, problem solvers and relationship builders.
Thinking about moving the needle on these critical employability-success skill sets at your organization? A few actions for your consideration:
- Conduct a needs analysis of your current workforce to inventory depth of strength of their employability-success skills.
- Ensure your management and supervisory team possess these skills as they are role models for the rest of the organization.
- Utilize behavioral and situational interviewing to hire people with the selected skills.
- Offer employability-skills training with the day to day experience as an opportunity to develop and reinforce these skills.
- Integrate employability-success skills into the performance management process to reward the required behaviors and to develop them where the need is identified.
- Evaluate project team and work group performance not only for meeting deliverables, but also how the overall and individual team members performed on the employability-success skills dimensions.
“Writing Your Product Value Statement”
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In my “What’s Your Story” newsletter I wrote about what it means to be a brand champion and how to introduce a brand champion initiative within your organization. One step suggested was to develop a “Product Value Statement” for your staff to adopt to enable them to offer a cohesive and consistent message on what you do, how you benefit clients and customers, and what makes you unique. This is relevant across organizations, either corporate, educational or non-profit.
The product value statement presents the results that a customer experiences from using your products or services. Some call it the “product opportunity statement” referring to the “opportunity” offered to customers. Consider your experience attending networking or association events and walking away from people you met for the first time and not understanding what they do. People oftentimes can have difficulty talking about themselves or their organization. Establishing a product value statement at your organization can contribute to information being delivered in clear and concise way that is understandable to the listener.
It can have multiple applications serving as the foundation for the typical customer interactions you encounter: whether it be an introductory call, marketing letters, handling inquiries about your services, or making a presentation. Once the message is established, it can be used for copy points on a website home page and in advertising.
I have found group sessions of managers and staff to be very productive exercise in developing and refining the product value statement. Keep in mind who your target is, custom tailor it and the results offered; for example, skill improvement, cost reductions, sales increases, or staffing efficiencies. To get you started, here are the three components in writing your product value statement:
- WHAT( Identifies you and what you do): We are __________ (Name) and we work with __________ (customers/organizations) whose __________ (difficulty/challenge) needs to be __________ (solved, increased, improved).
- BENEFITS: Our __________ (product/service/skill) has benefited them by __________(describe the impact/opportunity for customer).
- UNIQUE: Our _______(unique qualities, abilities) differentiates us from our competition.
Aramini Management is a management and business consulting practice. Since 2005 we have assisted organizations in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas execute management and operational improvements to attain their goals and better engage their customers and staff. Our experience includes One Stop Career Center operations and community college workforce development and training grant programs for corporate clients.
“Aramini Management Celebrates 14th Anniversary & Expands Services”
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We enter our fourteenth year in business with the continued excitement and enthusiasm as when we started in 2005. We want to thank all our clients for their support through those years.
Aramini Management is a management and business consulting company that has assisted organizations in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas execute management and operational practice improvements to attain their goals and to better engage their customers and staff.
We have expanded our services to include Labor & Workforce Development working with Workforce Development Boards and American Job Centers to maximize their customer and business services effectiveness in achieving performance measures of the Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act (WIOA).
We are experienced with One Stop Career Center operations and community college labor and workforce development and training grant programs for corporate clients.
Our solutions are custom-tailored to deal with some of the familiar challenges organizations encounter:
- Meeting expected growth goals
- Clarifying priorities with an accelerated action-centered approach to achieve objectives
- Improving customer retention by instituting customer quality assurance best practices to increase customer engagement
- Gaining management team accountability to improve performance, communication, and working together as a cohesive unit rather than in silos
- Breaking down the barriers among staff and building an esprit de corps among co-workers
- Building a customer-centric culture of superior customer care
“The American Job Center Brand Champion”
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Who is the American Job Center Brand Champion? I suggest that each and every employee plays a role in championing their Workforce Development Board and One -Stop American Job Center brand to the local area. Each customer and stakeholder contact is an opportunity to make a positive impression about your AJC.
What does a Brand Champion look like? Someone who is passionate about the brand. They are a big advocate of the work the AJC performs and help promote its value. They live the brand promise. To a degree they take it personally as to how the AJC performs and is perceived by its core customers, community partners, employers and governmental agencies,
Your brand is defined by the customer experience with your products and services. The promise kept – to deliver what is expected– weighs into their decision in entering and continuing relationship with you. Think about an employer. Their expectations are, that when you present a candidate for an open position, you will have screened them based their job requirements and organizational culture based on an on-site review by the business representative
Equally important are the day to day interactions with AJC staff – scheduling appointments, handling inquires, explaining programs, attending community partner events. Your staff represent you and how they perform becomes part of your brand identity.
Where to start to introduce a Brand Champion concept at your AJC?
- Describe the Brand Champion as someone who is passionate about the brand, advocates & promotes the AJC, and lives the brand promise
- Management needs to embrace their role as Brand Champions; they are the AJC’s role models
- Explain to your staff how critical their role is; that every stakeholder contact and interaction is an opportunity to provide a positive impression about your AJC
- Every employee is involved; behavior for the entire organization at every level
- Clarify your brand identity and be clear on your mission: ensure your people understand who you are – your narrative, your story – “why you exist”
- Develop a Product Value Statement for staff to adopt to enable them to offer a cohesive and consistent message on what you do, how you benefit clients and what makes you unique
Aramini Management is a management and business consulting practice. Since 2005 we have assisted organizations in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas execute management and operational improvements to attain their goals and better engage their customers and staff. Our experience includes One Stop Career Center operations and community college workforce development and training grant programs for corporate clients.
“The One Stop As a Small Business”
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One Stops operations have primarily focused on assessment, career planning, counseling & training of their customers. No one would argue that these practices must continue to be the core competencies of the American Job Center.
I propose that additional core business processes need be to be emphasized with the overall driver and narrative being that the One Stop think of itself as a small business and be run that way. Core processes are the essential functions a business performs to achieve its goals.
Thinking and acting more like a small business would also have incremental positive effects in engaging the business community. Ultimately all this combines to better serve the customer base – adults, dislocated workers, youth, employers – toward attaining established performance measures.
Here is a list of my recommended One Stop “Core Business Processes”. Take a few moments and conduct a self-evaluation of your One Stop’s practices. You may find this to be a valuable tool to generate discussion with your team.
Don’t hesitate to contact me with your thoughts!
Read each and rate how your One Stop is operating based on the following six-point scale: Strongly Agree, Agree, Agree, Neither, Disagree and Strongly Disagree.
- Strategic Management:A plan exists that reflects our One Stop’s mission statement and objectives. All our AJC staff are included discussions about goals, understand their role to achieve them, and employ a cohesive product value message to local market and stakeholders.
- Marketing/Promotion:Tactics are in place to actively promote our AJC to compel customers and the business community to call and consider the AJC a valued resource.
- Sales Planning/Job Development: Job development and placement activities are strategic and integrate sales planning practices targeting labor market identified sectors of growth, demand occupations, employers and linked to customer backgrounds and training attended.
- Business Service Engagement: All our staff confidently represent the One Stop when presenting its scope of services during employer inquiries, job development and placement activities. This includes demonstrating effective customer engagement behaviors resulting in productive business relationships gaining their participation and retention in the workforce system.
- Customer Experience:Our customers experience a participant-centered approach during assessment, counseling and career planning including their guided-active involvement of the management of the career exploration and decision-making process.
- Staff Communications:Our One Stop working environment exhibits open communications, everyone participating, not holding back on their ideas or opinions with management. Staff treat each other with respect and listen to and value all input for consideration.
- Business Intelligence/CRM: We make data driven decisions to when developing strategy and policy. There is management and monitoring of performance results to ensure a proactive response performance trends to attain performance measures.
Aramini Management is a management and business consulting practice. Since 2005 we have assisted organizations in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas execute management and operational improvements to attain their goals and better engage their customers and staff. Our experience includes One Stop Career Center operations and community college workforce development and training grant programs for corporate clients.