Geschreven door Peter van der Reijden | April 03, 2013
Soft skills are often associated with soft tools and arbitrary evaluations: 'interesting, it's saying something, but just a little'. Soft skills training is associated with soft trainers, soft interventions and soft results: 'fun, interesting, but not essential'. Against this background, it should come as no surprise that freeing up money and time for soft skill measurement is often postponed. The call for a change is becoming louder, and we're answering.
Talking to employers, we heard the following: "To know what people are able to do, we want insights in quality. Preferably per competency and with two decimals precision. We know how to do this for knowledge, but not for those 'soft skills'. The usual HR tools (assessment centres, questionnaires, 360, mystery clients) give broad estimations, are time-consuming and therefore costly. We at (HR) management dream of regular and affordable updates (per person, per facility, department) about the necessary (and essential) skills. In short: a dashboard with trustworthy information".
Others told us: "To know whether we're improving on the essential soft skills, we need insight in progress. Not a grade for the trainer's performance or the atmosphere of the classroom, but: where was someone at the start (baseline measurement), what were his/her efforts (time, type of activities) and what is, measured in numbers, the progress and level reached (post measurement)?"
The two notions above were reason for TrainTool to develop our product not only as a practicing tool, but also as an online testing tool. Online training and online skill assessment are powerful in itself and greatly enhances training effect. A belief which is fueled by the spontaneous requests we get from the market. But the combination makes all of it even more interesting:
(a) Measurement is more fun if it is combined with practicing opportunities
(b) Practicing is more fun if you can measure the results
In the cases that are developed on TrainTool, we see modules that combine measurement and practice:
prescan > practice > scan > practice/feedback > scan, practice/feedback > post-measurement
Extremely transparent and fair to those that put in the efforts as a participant, the coach and peers that see the effect of their interventions and the employer that can more easily allocate his trainingsbudget. Soft skills measurement and training is now measured through numbers.
Interested in how this is being implemented? Read our case studies!
