WHY THAI WORKERS NEED TO DEVELOP SOFT SKILLS TO BE COMPETENT IN THE LOCAL AND REGIONAL WORKPLACE. The purpose of this qualitative thematic study is to identify the importance of soft skills in the Thai work environment that influence employee performance, as well as their rewards and career development. The research result of this case study is derived from five respondents who hold leadership positions, vary by department and are involved in performance evaluations of subordinates to see the use of soft skills apart from the common key performance indicators in specific roles.
The main findings of this case study study portray soft skills, still not usually determining the professional performance levels of employees, however influence when there is career advancement decision making by their line managers. One of the reasons I believe is that they contain more soft skills than local workers. There are several international studies that support this idea, such as "Leading to New Horizons with Soft Skills" by University of Oklahoma students and "Effect of Soft Skills and Training Methodology on Employee Performance" by University of Malaya. but I instinctively believe that the set of important soft skills required varies in different countries and regions.
In order to see the importance of soft skills among Thai employees, it is necessary to conduct this qualitative research, which focuses on the attitudes of employers that contain decisions about subordinate rewards and career advancement. The research objective of this study is to explore and explore the managerial aspects of incorporating soft skills in employee career progression. Do employers/middle managers see the importance of soft skills in the workplace and look for them in their peers and subordinates?
Research Scope
LITERATURE REVIEW
- The Definition of Soft Skills
- The Definition of Soft Skills
- The Layer of Soft Skills
- Role of Soft Skills in International Working Environments
- The Undercurrent of Losing Competencies in Thai Workforce Labors
- Conceptual Framework
- Awareness of Soft Skills
- Observation of Subordinates’ Soft Skills
- Usage of Soft Skills in Performance Evaluations
- Soft Skills Involvement in Decision Making towards Employee Success
To clearly distinguish both types of skills, hard skills are abilities that can be learned in classes, books or experiences on the job. Employers could see those skills through employees' resumes, such as linguistic certification, design-related computer skills, typing speed, and so on (Doyle, Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What's the Difference?, 2019). Employers or colleagues are expected to communicate or get to know a person in time to identify the possession of interpersonal skills to qualify the person (Doyle, The Hard Skills Employers Seek, 2019).
Obvious and well-known examples of soft skills that we would like to see from middle managers and senior positions are not only problem solving and crisis resolution, but also communication with team players, work ethic and courtesy (Robles, 2012). According to an academic research by a student of the University of Bologna, Soft skills can also be categorized into two main angles, personal and social skills. Therefore, soft skills are very important for Emotional Intelligence, where people can understand their professionalism in workplaces.
To summarize, hard skills are easier to learn these days and expertise from various online educational sources. However, soft skills such as problem solving and critical thinking are much more difficult to acquire and need experiences to contain. For the last element in the chapter of Literature Review, from previous information, this study's conceptual framework was developed to identify the importance of soft skills for career development in Thai business associations.
The research outcome is expected to more clearly recognize that soft skills are becoming as important as specific skills in workforce in Thailand, especially Bangkok. Before considering soft skills as essential in job performance, it is necessary to identify the existence of this intangible skill set among employers and human resource team attitudes to step forward in other research variables in the hypothetical framework. The interview sessions are to identify that employers, or managers, use the soft skill as one of the employee performance measurements related to given rewards, incentives and positional promotions.
Since soft skills are quite subtle and intangible, making them difficult to identify for employee performance, more companies are conducting the HR and leadership participation to create documented and quantitative evaluation approach when it comes to employee evaluations for incentives and other benefits (Feffer, 2016). One of the objectives of this study is to validate and search for evidence of leveraging soft skills in the decisions to provide each employee with career growth or additional benefits, which are linked to element 2.4.3.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research Design
- Sampling
- Data Collection
- Research Instrument
- Data Analysis
- Reliability and Validity
Data collection will be collected during each interview period in order to discover soft skills awareness, understanding, observation of subordinates, involvement and decision making regarding employee performance. The collection method will be a semi-structured interview, which will include a way of talking to each interviewee. However, the researcher will include question guidelines to break down the interviews within the elements of the conceptual framework to find the most accurate and valuable insights related to the research objective.
A set of questions will be prepared before the collection period to guide the conversation and probing discussion. Due to privacy concerns, an audio recording will be used during the interview when taking notes on data collection, but no interviewee may refuse to do so. The research instrument is a semi-structured interview, which contains a set of questions that will cover all the conceptual framework elements to validate the success in career development with soft skills involvement, as well as to imply that employees should develop soft skills as one of the competencies in their career developments.
Interviewees are asked to provide answers to these related questions, as well as to elaborate on their reasoning regarding the topics related to soft skills. Do you also discuss with the HR team/decide to offer rewards and incentives based on specific KPIs and soft skills competency. Once the data collection is done, qualitative data analysis will be conducted in a simple and appropriate manner by applying the 'Thematic Analysis' method.
However, the method of thematic analysis will be slightly modified to be suitable for this case study research and data to effectively answer the research questions and discover important findings. First, the interview data will be reviewed and submitted to the online spreadsheet for better analysis to find similarities and patterns among the interviewees' data. After combining all the data in the spreadsheet tables, the similar response will be scored and summed to discover important information and patterns to find a relationship between managerial considerations of subordinates' soft skills and their career progress (Analysis of Qualitative Data, n.d.).
Furthermore, the list of soft skills will be derived from this thematic analysis with a spreadsheet to identify the types of soft skills sought by management levels. Finally, the findings will be concluded to answer this case study's research objective on the importance of soft skills in Thailand (BHATIA, 2018).
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Research Results
Furthermore, focusing on the use of soft skills in performance appraisals, 4 out of 5 interviewees (80%) agreed that such skills are included in performance appraisal discussions with subordinates. Only one respondent (20%) contained traceable documentation of the list of soft skills to effectively cascade to her teammates. You normally look for soft skills in different ways in relation to the roles and seniority of your teammates, such as youth and managerial level.
For example, if there are 2 employees scoring the same standard, soft skills will be the key to making decisions. The performance will be based on tangible elements and soft skills will not be included to reward tangible incentives. He constantly observes the soft skills of both team leaders and subordinates to properly cascade projects or clients.
For interpersonal or client work, soft communication skills are monitored and emphasized for better results.
Key Findings
Normally, whenever possible, he discusses soft skills with specific subordinates, especially after the meeting, to improve those competencies based on the roles. Every employer values employees who demonstrate soft skills competencies in their work performance, and there is a high tendency to get emotional rewards and job promotion when opportunities are available to them. Unfortunately, there is limited evidence that these skills lead to higher tangible rewards, such as pay increases.
Surprisingly, according to the author's thematic analysis of the raw data, there are several discoveries to point out. First, there is hardly any evidence on traceable records or documentation on required soft skills lists in the majority of departments, only the operational team contains tangible records and measurement of those competencies. In addition, such competencies in employees are unpopularly not considered in performance scoring processes, as they are not objectively involved in the delivery of company tasks, which are considered more important and directly linked to the organization's business milestones.
Second, as a result of the data analysis, there are non-popular soft skills that can have a big impact on specific roles. Also, Time Management and Empathy appear unexpectedly on the computer engineering team that works behind the spotlight and contains relatively less required communication situations. In addition, the last set of potential soft skills are Public Speaking, Problem Solving and Adaptability.
Problem solving and flexibility play a key role when there is a conflict of interest between stakeholders or when there is a sudden change in project direction.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Hentet fra SHRM: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr- magazine/0416/pages/hrs-hard-challenge-when-employees-lack-soft-. Hentet fra Michael Page: https://www.michaelpage.co.th/advice/career- advice/career-progression/soft-skills-thailand-s-employment-market-needs.
APPRENDICES
