COMMUNICATION/LISTENING

• Effective listening/communication skills is one of the leading soft skills recommended to employees. One survey found that poor listening amounted to $37 billion lost among Fortune 500 companies.
• Poor listening results in lost contacts, inaccurate reporting, obstructed workflow, rework, unhappy customers and reduced productivity.
•  Communication can be verbal, nonverbal, visual and written.
• The number one soft skill demanded of employees is communication.
• Better communication and listening skills can help build a better rapport with customers, leading to increased business performance.
• Communication barriers are estimated to cost businesses $62.4 million on average, each.
• The same survey found that, "companies with leaders who possess effective communication skills produced a 47 percent higher return to shareholders over a five-year period."
•  Similarly, "SIS International Research (NY) reports that 70% of small to mid-size businesses are losing money due to ineffective listening and communication. They estimate that a business with 100 employees, for example, spends an average downtime of 17 hours a week clarifying communication which translates to an annual cost of over $500,000 each year."

PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS

• Bettering problem solving skills makes an employee more efficient — saving them and the company time.
• Problem-solving can help one become an expert in their field, making them invaluable to clients by offering shortcuts and direction.
• Under the problem-solving umbrella are several other soft skills: critical thinking, creativity, initiative, persistence, flexibility and self-discipline.
•  Embracing problem solving is a key employee trait as technology changes the business world. Pushing employees to take risks or move outside their comfort zones will help grow these critical problem solving skills.
•  Utilizing other soft skills, like listening, empathy, critical thinking and others, will help train out fear and be able to approach problems calmly, rationally and logically.
• We couldn't find any specific quantitative evidence on how improving problem solving can increase the bottom line, but the evidence above points to better problem solving employees work faster/more efficiently and bring better expertise to the table. They also offer value-added benefits to the company and clients.