Let me propose you a challenge!

Choose 10 managers in your company and ask them to list the 10 main factors they would use to determine whether the employees in their team are suitable or not for their particular roles.

Whatever the result of the brainstorming is, you will notice that all items suggested are easily allocated under one of the following categories:

Attitude: close related to motivational aspects and whether the employee’s role entirely fulfills their expectation.

Hard Skills: employee’s knowledge of technical requirements to properly perform the role.

Soft Skills: behavioral patterns and personal attributes which influence how well employees can work or interact with their environment.

Now, let me guess:

1. Around 15% of the inputs will refer to motivational features and whether the job matches the employee’s expectations (Attitude).

1. Another 15% will refer to topics like business know-how, expertise on technical requirements, or language skills (Hard Skills).

1. Around 70% of the responses will have to do with concepts like team management, problem-solving, analysis and communication abilities, change management, teamwork, task accuracy, listening skills, customer orientation, or self-confidence (Soft Skills).

The figures above may slightly, but it’s definitely safe to say that most of the items would be allocated under the third category (Soft Skills).

Therefore, it would seem logical that HR professionals in the logistics business accurately assessed soft skills to strengthen the decision-making process on whether a given candidate/employee is a good fit for a particular role or not.

However, studies show that this is rarely true. A professional assessment of soft skills does not take place in many companies and assessments within the logistics business. So, two obvious questions arise:

1. How such critical elements for the future performance of candidates and employees are not evaluated properly during the recruiting assessment first and performance review process later on?
2. Are business leaders in Logistics and HR managers aware of the dramatic effect that an incomplete assessment of soft skills ultimately has on their companies’ business profit and loss statement?

The above should definitely give cause for reflection and draw some conclusions before reviewing the strategy on the assessment of soft skills:

• A lack of accuracy in assessing soft skills and behavioral patterns of future employees has a tremendously adverse effect on staff performance and financial profit of your departments.

• A clear commitment towards the professionalization of candidates/employee’s assessment brings a huge advantage in other areas than Talent Acquisition, like Employee Retention/Satisfaction, Employer Branding, Internal Mobility, Talent Management, and Workforce Planning.

• Deep knowledge of employees’ soft skills and behavioral patterns is the key to choosing the future leaders in the Company and building up a successful succession plan to ensure its future.