A Study on the Determination of Most Demanding Soft Skills at Workplaces Muhammad

Soft Skills are integral part of all the aspects of life. Soft Skills are the non -technical skills that are required to drive academic, personal & professional life. Soft Skills shape up your overall personality and employability also as with the help of soft skills only the technicalities of the business function run and drive towards organizational success. Soft skills have various benefits in all aspects (Personal. Professional & Academic ectetra ). In this paper we will look on the most demanding and important soft skills at workplaces and how are they interrelated. This study will be helpful for all the soft skill training at college and school level to improvise the fresher recruitment efficiency and reduce training & skill gaps.


INTRODUCTION
Soft skills, also known as power skills, common skills, essential skills, or core skills, are skills applicable to all professions.These include critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking, professional writing, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, professional attitude, work ethic, career management and intercultural fluency.This is in contrast to hard skills, which are specific to individual professions.The word "skill" highlights the practical function.The term alone has a broad meaning, and describes a particular ability to complete tasks ranging from easier ones like learning how to kick a ball to harder ones like learning to be creative.In this specific instance, the word "skill" has to be interpreted as the ability to master hardly controlled actions.Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively.These skills can include social graces, communication abilities, language skills, personal habits, cognitive or emotional empathy, time management, teamwork and leadership traits.A definition based on review literature explains soft skills as an umbrella term for skills under three key functional elements: people skills, social skills, and personal career attributes.The importance of soft skills lies in the fact that they are not restricted to a specific field.These thinking dispositions consist of a group of abilities that can be used in every aspect of people's lives, without any need to readapt them based on the situation.Their ductility helps "people to adapt and behave positively so that they can deal effectively with the challenges of their professional and everyday life".Soft skills make people flexible in a world which keeps changing.Interest in soft skills has increased over the years.The more research that is conducted, the more people understand the relevance of this concept.The huge amount of fund companies and worldwide organizations are investing in the training and development of this field shows this interest.The European Commission launched the program Agenda for new skills and jobs in 2012 in order to train and explain to young adults this new set of skills.In the 21st century, soft skills are a major differentiator, a sine qua non for employability and success in life.The Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman claims that "soft skills predict success in life, that they casually produce that success, and that programs that enhance soft skills have an important place in an effective portfolio of public policies".The significance employers give to the topic is shown by the fact that soft skills are now as important as GPA (once considered the most important factor in making decisions) in hiring a new worker.The high request, and the broadly diffused confusion about the meaning and the training of soft skills represent two elements that can explain the lack of soft skills in the job market.Employers struggle to find leaders and worker able to keep up with the evolving job market.The problem is not limited to young people who are looking for a job, but also for actual employees.A 2019 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that three-quarters of employers have a hard time finding graduates with the soft skills their companies need.

Versus hard skills
"Hard skills include technical or administrative competence".Soft skills are commonly used to "refer to the "emotional side" of human beings in opposition to the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) component related to hard skills".Hard and soft skills are usually defined as similar concepts or complements.This fact demonstrates how these two different types of abilities are strictly related.Hard skills were the only skills necessary for career employment and were generally quantifiable and measurable from an educational background, work experience or through interview.Success at work seemed to be related solely to the technical ability of completing tasks.For this reason, employer and companies used to hire new people based only on their objective competencies.This clarifies why nowadays people with good soft skills are in such shorter supply than workers with good hard skills.The trend has changed in the last years, in part due to more businesses adopting a hybrid work environment.Hard skills still represent a fundamental aspect, but soft skills equaled them for importance.According to the leadership professor Robert Lavasseur, most of the researchers he interviewed in this field "rated soft skills higher than technical skills".Studies by Stanford Research Institute and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation among Fortune 500 CEOs confirm this idea establishing that 75% of long term job success resulted from soft skills and only 25% from technical skills (Sinha, 2008).Another study found that 80% of achievements in career are determined by soft skills and only 20% by hard skills.In employment sectors that have seen rapid growth, employers have stated that newly graduated employees possess a skill gap.This skill gap resides between soft and hard skills, these newly graduated employees possess the hard skills required and expected, but are lacking the soft skills.Research shows the effect of poorer soft skills on life outcomes, and how improving these can fill skills gaps or increase individuals' own life circumstances.

SOFT SKILLS AT WORKPLACE
According to the OECD's Skills Outlook 2019 report, life-long learning or metacognition, is becoming more necessary for employment and for handling a future environment of increased uncertainty.The report states, 'humans are likely to be able to handle uncertainty better than AI,' as an artificial intelligence can complete specific tasks efficiently, but cannot be easily programmed to account for the uncertainty and unexpected complexity encountered in working with humans or for human customers.Put another way, soft skills are very difficult to code.In contrast, humans can respond more readily to uncertainty, volatility, complexity, and ambiguity, through being adaptable learners and being able to readily adopt, develop, and discard their beliefs and their understanding of the world, when given a new context (OECD, 2019).That said, humans sometimes fail to adapt productively, and machines, in many cases, lack those capacities entirely (Laukkonen, Biddell and Gallagher, 2018

NEED OF THE STUDY
To Understand the concept of soft skills and to determine the most important and demanding soft skills that a person / working professional should contain in him or her to sustain the best at workplaces so that all other walks of life are in the best phase for him.As my previous researches have stated or concluded that the it is the quotient of work -career that determines the success in other aspects of life.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
To Determine the most important and demanding soft skills at work places.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES
• To study the inter relation between the soft skill and demographics • To study the work dynamics • To eradicate the skill gap in college and school students by presenting the findings and results to executives of the educational institutions • To improvise the career counselling process at educational institutions by presenting the findings and results to executives of the educational institutions • To improve the training and development process at educational institutions by presenting the findings and results to executives of the educational institutions

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study will obviously will pave a way to build a bridge between the academia and industry so that the non -technical aspects are covered in the best manner at a earlier age itself from schooling stages.This study will also break the stereotypes present in the society and also make soft skills concept a highly important and rated one.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
• The duration of time for the study was limited and sample size was 49

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
• In 2015, Raciti suggested that higher education institutions should place a stronger priority on promoting the growth of students' soft skills through an approach to social and pedagogical reality.
Since soft skills have a direct impact on a person's wellbeing, capacity for social adjustment, and capacity for job scenario adaptation, they must be integrated and discussed at the academic level.
According to Guerra-Baez (2019), college students need to obtain a strong education that incorporates both academic knowledge and practical skills in their chosen field of study.Project activities offer a significant potential for the development of "soft skills," according to Tokaruk et al. (2021).Entrepreneurial company projects offer huge opportunities for the development of "soft skills" because they address not only social and administrative issues but also educational ones.• According to Sultana (2014), in order to enhance group performance and cooperate in the production of new ideas, employees must be adept at resolving conflicts and promoting diversity and inclusion.• Dean and East (2019) explain in their study that the earlier people are trained in soft skills, the better they will be, because people may be more resistant to change in the coming years.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is a systematic way to solve a problem.It is a science of studying how research is to be carried out.Essentially, the procedures by which researchers go about their work of describing, explaining and predicting phenomena are called research methodology.It is also defined as the study of methods by which knowledge is ganed.Its aim is to give the work plan of research concerning an inquiry or a research study constitute a research design.It can be defined as the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine the relevance to the research purpose to the economy procedure.

OBJECTIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE BASED RESEARCH:
The Main Objective of the research is to determine the most demanding soft skills at workplaces.Thus The Research is purely descriptive and objective in nature .

SOURCE OF DATA:
To determine the appropriate data for research mainly only one kind of data was collected namely primary data.

PRIMARY DATA:
Primary data are those, which were collected afresh & for the first time and thus happen to be original in character.However, there are many methods of collecting the primary data; all have not been used for the purpose of this project.The one that have been used is: Questionnaire which contains of Subjective Questions , LIKERT Scales, Yes/No Questions and etc…..

SAMPLE SIZE
A sample size of 49 has been used for the study.

SAMPLING METHOD
Sampling (Simple Random Sampling & Referential Sampling has been used ),where the population is the universe and the sample is working professionals ,they have been selected randomly without any quota or biased sampling .

TOOLS USED FOR ANALYSIS:
1

Null-Hypothesis: There is no significant relationship between Age and Frequency of Depression.
Alternate Hypothesis: There is significant relationship between Age and Frequency of Depression.Null Hypothesis: There is no significant relationship between Designation and utility/containment of general knowledge.
Alternate Hypothesis: There is significant relationship between Designation and utility/containment of general knowledge.job title given to person  3. Negotiating With Clients is widely used on maximum basis for achieving sales targets .4. Majority of Sample are completely aware of their own career development and growth plan but some portion (10-15 %) is not aware of their career growth and development plan. 5. Sometimes People Do get depressed at their workplaces.Yes depression exists at workplaces. 6.Some People were not able to hide their personal problems more than 3 times at their workplaces whereas many were able to hide and work.Thus people knew how to balance personal and professional stuff.7. 90 % Of People have contacts outside of their department 8.People have experienced conflicts more than 3 times in their workplaces, thus conflicts are existing predominantly 9.The Organisations sought the conflicts as soon as possible for the organizational benefit 10.Frequency Of Stress is sometimes on a majority basis, along with other keywords like : Often, very Often thus workplaces create stress.11.Time Management makes the performance better.12. Role based skill gap & Irrelevance of the qualification with the job are the skill gaps majorly existing in freshers 13.The Frequency Of Research Quotient involved with respect to your work and designation moderate signifying that we can't neglect research quotient in the work places and will be key for hiring people 14. Planning Is the most important for organizational development and employee development.

•
According to wats and wats (2009), success in the work environment depends on 85% of soft skills and only 15% on hard skills.Nevertheless, the employers of the 21st-century seek candidates who master both « hard » and « soft » skills abilities because, it has been demonstrated that employees with a mix of technical and soft competencies are often the most valuable, effective, and productive in the organization.Wagner's (2008) research, presented in the Global Achi • Brungardt (2011) noted that nowadays, due to the fluidity of the organizational structure, employees require more autonomy, developed Soft Skills and less repetitive job tasks.• From the perspective, Levant, Coulmont, &Sandu, (2016) Individuals with greater soft skills understand the significance of getting involved in business simulations • Wagner (2008), in The Global Achievement Gap, was an early leader in the promotion of dispositions and attitudes for the 21st century.He has advocated seven survival skills that students need to attain presented in the following list: • Critical thinking and problem solving • Collaboration across networks and learning by influence • Agility and adaptability • Initiative and entrepreneurialism • Effective oral and written communication • Accessing and analyzing information • Curiosity and imagination.

P
value is greater than 0.05 thus we cannot reject the null hypothesis.Crosstab Count What is more used in Making Key Business Decisions and Strategies at your work places: (Rate it from 1 to 5) [General Knowledge]

FINDINGS 1 .
The Mode Of Communication with the clients consists of all the above on a majority basis (Mail, Phone Call, Presentation, Video Call ). 2. The Mode Of Organizational Structure is mainly the Teams on a majority basis.

: The Data Collected was Processed Under the IBM SPSS 25 (STATISTICAL PACKAGE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES).The Calculations were made with the help of SPSS only.
• Email: editor@ijfmr.comIJFMR230611401Volume5, Issue 6, November-December 2023 6

What is your mode of communication with the Clients
• Email: editor@ijfmr.comIJFMR230611401 Volume 5, Issue 6, November-December 2023 8 What

What is the frequency of you getting Stressed at your work place
CHI-

is your Designation at your Organization * What is the frequency of you getting Stressed at your work place Crosstabulation
a. 184 cells (100.0%) have expected count less than 5.The minimum expected count is .08.P value is greater than 0.05 thus we cannot reject the null hypothesis.•Email:editor@ijfmr.comIJFMR230611401Volume5, Issue 6, November-December 2023 24Chi-Square Tests

Value is greater than 0.05 thus we cannot reject the null hypothesis Scale: ALL VARIABLES What is more used in Making Key Business Decisions and Strategies at your work places: (Rate it from 1 to 5) [General Knowledge]
0%) have expected count less than 5.The minimum expected count is .04.There is no significant relationship between Designation and frequency of stress Alternate Hypothesis: There is significant relationship between Designation and frequency of stress.

What is more used in Making Key Business Decisions and Strategies at your work places: (Rate it from 1 to 5) [Historical Data]
Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure.

Value is greater than 0.05 thus, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
Null Hypothesis: No significant relationship between category and frequency of getting depressed Alternate Hypothesis: significant relationship between category and frequency of getting depressed.

Value is greater than 0.05 thus, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
4%) have expected count less than 5.The minimum expected count is .04.Null Hypothesis: No significant relationship between Age and frequency of stress Alternate Hypothesis: significant relationship between Age and frequency of stress

There is no significant difference in means between Age & Variables (GK,GA,R & D ,Industrial & Market Knowledge ,Historical Data ) Alternative Hypothesis: There is significant difference in means between Age & Variables (GK,GA,R & D ,Industrial & Market Knowledge ,Historical Data ) P Value >0.05 ,thus we cannot reject the null hypothesis.
Having Contacts at your workplace is very important for various reasons like : 1. Connectivity 2. Positive Work Environment 3. Business Success 4. Career Growth 5. Improved Social Life Based on the above reasons we signify that having contacts outside of the organization is necessary.Establishing & Having Contacts in professional terminology is known as 'NETWORKING".Thus Networking is necessary.16.Being Socialised with the opposite Gender is important at workplaces because: 1.It improvises your confidence 2. It leads to Gender Equality 3. It helps in understanding the perceptions in the best manner 4. Team Work 5.It helps in understanding the opposite gender 6. Larger Friend Circle is created 7. Personal Development