The soft skill crunch

Updated on: Monday, November 22, 2010

Creating and keeping open communication barriers is important for a successful business operation. Why? Because it helps foster good rapport, loyalty and support.

Yet, it was found in a survey, conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and CVoter that about 83 per cent of the respondents acknowledged the need for good written communication as a key skill for performing a job. However, only about 60 per cent felt that their present employees had the desired skill.

The survey that showed that India Inc was facing a severe shortage of skilled manpower, surmised that the undergraduates in the general stream of arts, commerce and science churned out by the country’s educational institutions were not up to the mark.

“The employability quotient of undergraduates in India reveals this unsettling reality that Gen Next falls woefully short on soft skills and vocational training to take on the responsibilities of corporate sector management,” said the survey.

On the employability quotient of undergraduates in India the survey found that only three out of 10 respondents were satisfied with their fresh recruits in the past one year. The fresh undergraduates lacked in many areas including reliability, integrity, self-motivation, self-discipline and empathy for other workers and management.

So, what can institutes do to see that their undergrads and postgrads come out communication savvy? First, they must put in place courses or modules that teach certain important soft skills, says experts. For instance the University of Madras has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Everonn Education Limited to offer soft skills courses to its university departments for the academic year 2010-11. Language and communication in English; spoken and presentation skills; personality enrichment; computing skills and foreign language skills all form part of the course module that focuses on enhancing the employability of the graduates and intends to bridge the gap between the skill requirements of the employer or industry and the competency of the students.

For those who simply want to improve their communication skills and thus make themselves more marketable to prospective employers, the Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad, popularly known by its acronym, MICA offers a Postgraduate Programme in Communications Management (PGPCM) as its flagship programme. SIBM also offers a course in Communications Management as do a lot of other institutes.

In a nutshell therefore, graduates must not underestimate the importance of communication to business efficiency.

The soft skill crunch

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