SEAC, Thailand’s most innovative and dedicated Lifelong Learning Center with unique learning experiences and world-class training courses under the vision of ‘Empower Lives through Learning’ to empower all Thai people to live a better life, organised an online seminar THE SKILLSVERSE: 2022’S HOTTEST HUMAN SOFT SKILLS to unveil the most important ‘Human Soft Skills in 2022’ for corporate people to enhance the capability of leaders, personnel professionals and working professionals at all levels to get ready to adapt to new changes in the age of disruption and keep up with the future world.
This event led the audience to explore the universe of skills for the new world of work with help of thought leaders in human resource and organisational development Arinya Talerngsri, Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director of SEAC, and Boonchai Pongrungsap, Product Director, SEAC, with perspectives and insights from two new-generation organisations – Career Visa Thailand, a platform for leadership, work and lifestyle for the next generation working people; and Sea (Thailand), a leading global provider of Internet platforms such as Garena, a leading online game developer and service provider, Shopee, an e-commerce platform, and SeaMoney, a digital payment and finance provider.
In the opening remarks, Arinya pointed out how important human soft skills are to organisations today and in the future, “As labour markets evolve, the same disruptive forces that will make some roles redundant will also create a strong demand for new jobs and new industries. To ensure the available workforce can meet that demand, workers will need to understand the skills they need to be relevant and successful in their future work. They will need to develop into a dynamic pool of talent that works in harmony with technological change, fit for the rapidly shifting world of work. In the current rapidly changing world of work, investing in talent development will be a key driver for long-term business growth.”
“Pearson Research shows that companies often end up with higher levels of production if they have focused their hiring strategy on soft skills rather than hard skills. The development of “Power Skills” in a modern organisation tends to move towards soft skills, which is beneficial to the organisation in many aspects, including quality standards and customer experience, innovative effectiveness, as well as the cost of managing people. Moreover, soft skills provide even technical people with career durability. Given these facts, a key differentiator among performing and non-performing organisations in this constantly changing world would depend on how much they invest in assessing, developing and measuring these soft skills,” added Arinya.
During the panel discussion on the topic of ‘The Urgent Needs for Talent Development in 2022’, Ploy Wasuthorn Harnnapachewin, Chief Knowledge Officer and Co-founder from CareerVisa Thailand commented that, “We are entering the era where technology has taken over many human jobs. Many organisations have excessively focused on recruiting technical talents and may not realise that they also need employees with soft skills, which are essential to maximising the potential of adopting tools and technology and making humans irreplaceable by automation. Many employees recruited based on their soft skills have proved more successful at work and stay with the organisation longer. That’s because soft skills can help people enhance other hard skills, including technical skills.”
“Soft skills in thinking or creativity will enable employees to improve their working quality and sharpen their skills to keep up with the changing business climate. Emotional intelligence is an essential skill that helps employees get along with their colleagues, and withstand pressure, while initiative skills can enhance employees with strong technical skills to create even better outcomes for the organisation. Investing in developing essential soft skills is considered a life skill enhancement that will pay off forever and can be adapted to both personal and professional life,” added Wasuthorn.
According to Nitipatr Hantrakanpong, Head of People Team, Sea Thailand, “The fact that organisations tend to focus solely on technical skill development can cause a hiccup, since there are still many types of tasks that AI cannot do or that imitate humans, such as jobs that rely on human soft skills, which arise from long-time learning and experience. Soft skills may vary from person to person. It’s important that you find a unique strength from a particular set of your soft skills and make it stand out and support your career advancement, just as people with hard skills do. Companies highly oriented to the hard-skilled workforce may find that many of their employees lack understanding of the organisation’s objectives, aren’t open to new things and aren’t willing to learn which later makes the organisation lose time and money in solving personnel problems.”
Nithipatr added that, “In many countries, next-gen fast-growing organisations such as startups tend to look for candidates who show a combination of hard skills and soft skills, like compassion, empathy, communication, emotional intelligence and self-control. This allows all personnel to comprehend their roles and duties, understand the organisation, as well as bring out their highest potential in working, enabling the company to create truly strong teamwork.”
Finally, Boonchai Pongrungsap, Product Director, SEAC discussed the way to enhance employees with Human Soft Skills based on three key elements: blended learning between traditional learning, digital learning, and coaching; continuous practice to avoid regression; and maintaining sustainable skill development with regular briefs and flexible learning sessions.
Based on a survey of Thailand’s business context, SEAC recommends 5 Hot Soft Skills, essential skill sets needed now that HR should develop and strengthen to create an organisational landscape that is ready to face challenges and keep up with the world going forward, as follows:
1.Thinking Skills – to create new ideas to drive success in life and work, with six interconnected skill sets comprising critical thinking, mental flexibility, decision making, problem-solving, adaptability and flexibility (agile), and planning and ways of working.
2.Innovation Skills – to enhance innovation, consisting of communication, storytelling, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
3.Virtual Work Skills – to enhance the outcomes of working remotely, increase working performance in the organisation of those who do not sit next to each other or meet face to face, consisting of leading in hybrid organisations and process and project improvement.
4.Self-Leadership Skills – to improve and develop work processes to be better and more advanced to enhance productivity and individual work, including self-awareness and self-management, accountability, self-development, and stress management.
5.Interpersonal and Team Skills – to enhance working efficiency, consisting of developing relationships, effective teamwork, collaboration, influencing emotional intelligence and leadership.
SEAC aims to empower business leaders, executives and personnel professionals at all levels with proven tools, innovations, unique learning experiences and solutions to help develop essential skill sets to empower people in the organisation to achieve ever better results.
For more details about SEAC, visit https://zfrmz.com/jU3Pd0mwKMTB8QwbhmJu