Closing the 'Soft' Skills Gap

Despite persistently high unemployment levels, the skills gap is costing employers millions of dollars annually. It's estimated that 2.4 million positions will go unfilled, at the cost of $2.5 trillion. Recruiting is unable to close the gap as candidates lack the skills needed to fill open jobs, and competition for qualified candidates becomes harder. Both "soft skills" and "hard skills" are in short supply.

It’s no wonder that building critical skills and competencies is among the top priorities for human resources leaders. While organizations are more likely to focus on hard skills training to close the technical skills gap, most agree that "soft skills" are more important for long term-success.  Developing "soft skills" has become even more critical as a result of the pandemic, as leaders struggle with new and unprecedented challenges. Unfortunately, many HR leaders don't know what skills gaps currently exist - and they struggle to create talent development solutions fast enough to meet the evolving needs. As a result, many employees aren't developing the right skills at a pace that meets the needs of the organization. They need a more dynamic and agile approach to close the skills gap - one that is more integrated into the employee workflow.

This webinar will explore how one company is closing the “soft skills”gap with leadership coaching. User Testing, a leading provider of on-demand human insights, has been recognized among Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, the Financial Times Fastest Growing Companies and the Inc. 5000 List. They needed a leadership development solution that was agile, data-driven, and scalable. They introduced leadership coaching as a core component of their talent development strategy. The coaching program was designed to empower senior and emerging leaders with critical skills so that they could lead more effectively in a heavily-matrixed organization experiencing rapid, international growth.

This webinar will address some of key challenges HR leaders face in scaling leadership coaching. It will explore how to gain senior level buy-in for leadership development initiatives. It will detail how User Testing created a measurable improvement in leadership capabilities.