Employees appreciate the development of “smooth competence” in addition to technological skills

Although technical skills remain popular for people looking to improve their career perspectives, their ability to communicate and relate to others is also important, and perhaps even a growing area of ​​need given the way the work has evolved in the past five years.

Based on the comparative analysis data for companies that offer business training programs and workers' courses, people are naturally interested in increasing emerging technology. But they are also in the pursuit of skills such as assistance, management of incidents and leadership, according to Coursera and Talentlms.

“One of the most exciting side effects of the (generative) revolution of the AI ​​and the digital transformation is that there is this double on the things that make us human,” said Trena Minudri, head of learning in Racera, said Nowsweek. “It goes to things like empathy, resilience, self -awareness, listening skills, for everyone – not just managers and leaders.”

In a November 2025 survey among American employees by Talentlms, 68% said that interpersonal skills will be significant in 2025. When considering the training priorities of employees by generation, the study of talentlms revealed that general skills and “leadership and management” were the first three priorities for the four generations (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers).

“Almost all functional leaders or each leader are now a kind of HR leader,” said Nikhil Arora, CEO of Epignosis Learning Technologies, a mother of Talentlms, said Nowsweek. “If, as a leader, you don't know how to manage people, how to feed people, how to build your talented strength by yourself, whatever the HR service, I think your chances of success will be reduced.”

The term “general skills” becomes Obsolete Given the increased importance of communication, collaboration and navigation of difficult conversations. Others prefer the term “power skills” or interpersonal skills, emphasizing collaboration, communication and being a better leader. Learning and development functions (L&D) in a variety of industries adapt new models to create these capacities within their organization.

Racera calls them “human skills” and stresses that they represent three of the ten subjects that increase the fastest among business users, based on A December report. The affirmation was fourth, the communications of the seventh stakeholders and commercial communication was the fastest ninth competence.

“Human skills are essential, because 84% of managers Believe that new employees must own and demonstrate the ability to communicate professionally and articulate their ideas. Gen Z is late on employees and job seekers here, with 71% of workers in generation Z Find it difficult to speak and contribute to meetings, “then CAUCRARA Jeff Maggioncalda wrote In an article in December (he retired at the start of this year).

Technological skills are also in great demand, with a particular interest around Genai. Racera said that registration in Genai courses had increased from 866% from 2025 to 2025, and that more than half of these learners are in India, Mexico or Colombia. Additional courses linked to AI in computer vision, the Pytorch and automatic learning doubled in the previous year and also was among the 10 fastest materials on Racera.

The Talentlms and Coursera data also underlined the emerging interest in adjacent HR and HR skills, in particular workplace technology, stakeholder communications, labor development and human capital. Other commercial skills whose courses increase quickly Microsoft PowerPoint, project management and risk attenuation.

To be a human, at work

Minudri explained that at this time when emerging technology can replace certain tasks or process at work, and Maybe even whole jobsEmployees try to understand: “What are the things that I only bring to the table?”

In an increasingly automated world, people provide the possibility of transmitting information to others, as well as influencing and motivating their peers, direct reports or even their own managers thanks to upward comments. In an increasingly distant and hybrid world, collaboration and new communication styles are increasingly important to work with colleagues and customers – these are things that the generative tools of AI and the agency are not yet able to master (again).

“If you look at the job lists, you will find that some of the most technical IA jobs are those that have all these human skills included there,” noted Minudri, adding that the experiences of the difficult time suite also contribute to the importance of these skills.

“The pandemic was a difficult period, then the post-pandemic was a difficult period,” she added. “Now, all these companies are really trying to strengthen their productivity, and they try to maintain commitment. … So, as a manager or a leader, to look at these human skills has never been so important.”

Arora, former executive of Godaddy, WeWork, Intuit and ADP, expressed an accent similar to the leaders on the ability to cope with difficult times. He added that multigenic workforce, expansion of remote work and hybrid and continuous evolution of automatic learning and AI technologies disrupt business at a rapid rate.

“Resilience, flexibility and agility will be three major attributes so that all leader succeeds, because at the rate everything changes, that will create many more challenges and insecurity that you will never have seen, because you know less than you thought because of these changes,” he explained.

The reason to continue power skills also applies to individual leaders and contributors, but Managers in particular were very tense In recent yearsdealing with locking, remote work, great resignation and economic slowdown, alongside a myriad of socio -political events that swirl. Falsification 2023 search notes that confidence in corporate leadership is declined and that more recent studies indicate Decrendy commitment of employees.

“People continue to be dissatisfied with their managers and their leaders,” said Minudri. “The requirements for them are stronger than they have never been, both in terms of technology, the rate of change, the productivity that must occur, then their link with the human side of the company, the workforce and all the gray areas.”

While business leaders make a skill gap among the youngest members of the workforce, Gen Z, they have responsibility for the future to remedy it, rather than blaming young people.

“During the pandemic, there was less interaction face to face,” said Minudri. “Thus, interpersonal communication was limited by virtual technology, then we also have a lot of distributed labor that started because of the pandemic, and a large part of it has remained.

Minudri, an IBM L&D veteran that led the global company's digital learning programs before joining Racera, suggests treating human skills with the same return on investment potential as technical skills, in particular with young employees who have received a lot of communication around the value of STEM majors and skills.

“People ‘skills are a catalyst, not only for your career, but for your own productivity, so that they understand its value. I think there is a general false idea that it is natural, it comes easy,” she said. “So I think there is a lot of work that must be done there to bring them into the fold.”