Skills To Pay the Bills (2024)

There is an “old” saying “skills to pay the bills.” It basically means that you have the skills to help you through situations you are encountering.There are many articles and studies that note the importance of learning and using skills on the job. Soft Skills, I term I do not like at all, have gotten a lot of attention lately as the skills that will help you be successful in your working and personal life.

I prefer the term interpersonal skills or foundational skills to explain their importance. So what skills am I referring to here?

The ability to think critically, communicate orally, as well as in written form, collaborate, solve problems, and adapt to a changing (business) environment.

When your company adopts the latest software package, you provide training to upskill your employees. They get to go back to their work area and utilize that new software. The same thing needs to happen when they attend interpersonal skills training.

So managers…..what are you doing to help your employees learn and practice these skills? Below are three questions to consider and a resource to help:

• Are you encouraging them to attend training? 5 Ways to Motivate Employees to Learn
• When they complete the training, are you discussing what they learned and how you can provide opportunities to apply what they learned? Help Employees Apply the Skills From Training—Following the Training
• Are you creating stretch assignments for them to practice what they learned? Stretch Assignments: The Soft Promotion

Allowing time to attend training is only one part of the solution. Discussing what they learn and giving them an opportunity to practice and use these skills will increase the chances that they will retain what the learn until they use the skills to pay the bills daily.

Mike