RUNNING HEAD: Soft-skills will improve work-quality 1 Developing Effective Soft Skills will Improve the Work-Quality of Fresh Graduates Dicky Ramadan 1428743 IRKHS Madam Zaharah Bt. Zainal Abidin Section 48 International Islamic University of Malaysia Soft-skills will improve work-quality 2 Work-quality of fresh graduates In this modern era, employee’s ability to socialize or communicate in real work-setting has taken the company’s concern despite focusing only on their hard skills. The benefit of having soft skill with an excellent mixture of hard skill will be sought when fresh graduates apply to work in real-setting (Majid, Liming, Tong & Raihana, 2012) . The interest towards the importance of soft skill was seen due to the fact that the employer has set a higher expectation among fresh graduates’ ability in which includes communication, problem-solving, selfmotivation, decision-making and time management skills. Soft skills is considered as a median to be used by future employees in order to be adept in social interaction and to improvise their career advancement (Williams, 2015; Majid et al, 2012). The consequence of possessing these abilities will leverage individual social skills to be more positive by improving the standard of soft skills for the future employee. Soft skill is needed by individuals to flourish in career and to socialize in day to day basis. For example, fresh graduates usually encounter problems when working in a team or solving a problem. Thus, it is believed that fresh graduates need to take consideration in improving their soft skills ability before entering real work-setting. Being able to work in a real work-setting is the ambition for most of the fresh graduates nowadays. Yet, the complexity of business environment enforces company to develop a higher requirement of recruitment criteria. Researchers found that graduated students encountered issues regarding soft skill, especially communication skill, during their first job (Patacsil & Tablatin, 2017). Soft skill is the most relevant factor for individual ability to survive or adapt to the real-work setting environment. Soft-skills will improve work-quality 3 As a result, the fresh graduate should be aware of the importance of developing appropriate soft skill during university in which it offers advance benefit for their future. Another purpose of the development of appropriate soft-skill for the student is to establish a dedicated and loyal individual, to meet the requirement of attractive potential employee and to have a proper blend of hard and soft skills. The main purpose of this research is to give an insight for the fresh graduate on the opportunity and importance of developing soft skills. In addition, this research aim is to reduce the probability of unemployment due to lack of soft skill. Work well with colleagues and produces a positive work attitude Soft-skill serves individuals to work well with colleagues and produce a positive work attitude. These aspects are expected to boost the productivity of employees and maintain the harmonious atmosphere in the workplace. Communication skill is considered to be important when employees wanted to deliver a perspicuous explanation towards colleague to avoid any miscommunication. The importance of soft skills ability ought to be the concern of fresh graduates as it helps them to communicate effectively with other people, especially during a discussion, conversation or in a meeting. In recent time, employers expect to generate fine and effective staff in their team (Majid, et al, 2012). The major factor being expected for employees is to constitute effective speaking skills and the ability to communicate appropriately in both orally and written; team works also has a high contribution in team situations. Thus, it should be noted that most organization have set communication skills highly standardized as for their recruitment criterion. Soft-skills will improve work-quality 4 It is strongly believed that the organization has expected their goals and objectives to be implemented not only by professional and technical skills only; whereby communication skills is included to be a major factor. Other than that, employees will be expected to get involved in leadership, decision-making activities and conflict management. As defined by Sailah (2008), Each of individual constitute a unique characteristic regarding soft skills. This is due to diversities in cognitive, speaking, acting and taking certain attitude in different settings. All these factors can be enhanced as the individual adapt and adjust in adversities circumstances and perceive it as character(pg. 119). Human is a unique creature with different kinds of characteristic. In this case, fresh graduates who have the willingness to learn and practice their soft skills can develop their ability and characteristic. As the author mentioned ‘these characteristics can improve’ to emphasize that every endeavour action with the intention to improve will receive the result in the future. Thus, this can be useful when employees want to deliver a message to a fellow worker and avoid miscommunication. To illustrate, in the meeting, employees with good soft skills who wants to convey ideas during the brainstorming session regarding the marketing strategy are usually able to organize in a systematic manner to ease the audience understanding about the content although the content is complex. In addition, when there is a critic of the idea, a professional employee recognize the way how to solve and response to a fellow worker in an appropriate way. Soft-skills will improve work-quality 5 Meet the requirement of attractive potential employee The consequences of fresh graduates to possess these career traits are to meet the requirement of attractive potential employee and be more committed, dedicated and productive employees. It is believed that human resources hold an important role in organizational performance as their key assets. As claimed by Wats and Wats (2009), this leads the company to put trust on human resources to be able to hire, retain and promote employees who are dependable, resourceful, ethical, having effective communication, self-directed, willing to work and learn and having a positive attitude. Employers recruit new employees on the basis of competencies in technical and nontechnical or soft skills. However, potential employees lack the required composite soft skills relevant to the particular work setting. Fresh graduates are expected to possess proper soft skills before entering work. Past study has shown that soft skill is highly demanded because employers tend to produce desired bounding competencies within the employee. Employees with a high level of soft skills have a discipline-based knowledge and skills, adequate levels of soft skills are considered desirable for moving forward in the career. As claimed by Mithcell, Skinner and White (2010) soft skill will provide the fresh graduate with the ability to be able to meet the criteria required by employers. This, it can be seen that human resources will respond with the performance of the employees. Employees also have a tendency to communicate with company, clients or even other stakeholders. In this case, the example that can be attained is the ability of employees to decide the appropriate request or suggestion and understand when to stop an argument during the Soft-skills will improve work-quality 6 negotiation or conversation. Information regarding the quality of employee dealing in certain circumstances will be collected by talent management for further evaluation. However, it turned out to be a fact that employers appreciated the value of soft skills and the endeavour on how it can be attained. It is believed that well-trained employees can meet the expectation of organization and develop Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). By any means, this shows that employees assessment of OCB will be determined by the performance and contribution towards the organization. As a fact, the assessment will assist human resources to create a decision regarding promotion, bonus, training and development of their employees. Apart from that, employees who constitute OCB benefit the organization through the enhancement of productivity, efficiency, customer happiness, decrease costs and turnover and absenteeism (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff & Blume, 2009). Therefore, categorization will be made by talent management during the selection process in the extent to be able to hire an attractive employee. A proper blend of hard and soft skills Besides hard skills, due to globalization’s impact on workforces, employers are looking for a proper blend of hard and soft skills. The studies have shown that fresh graduates often deal Soft-skills will improve work-quality 7 with a barrier of communication skills with colleagues and clients. It shows that hard-skill is not the only important aspect for professional growth alone. According to Dewiyani (2015), Soft skills is derived from the sociology terms called EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) of a person, in which it consists of social life, communication, verbal expression, habit, friendliness, and optimization. Meanwhile, hard skills can be defined as IQ (Intelligence Quotient) that can be categorized as science mastering, technology and technical skills. As claimed by Litecky, Arnett, & Prabhakar (2004) “Hard skills can be gained by the means of training and education or conditioned depending on the desired job and specified to each work setting” (p. 69). Therefore, it can be perceived that hard skill is a fundamental basis for the development of educational curriculum, future profiling of jobs and the technical functions that the industry desire most. In fact, hard skill is the main factor that is required to be developed at first and followed by soft skills. For example, the Information Technology (IT) department emphasize that hard skill is more important than soft skills as the companies specified their criteria based on the ability of hard skills. The term soft skills used interchangeably with nontechnical skill is defined as the interpersonal, human, people or behavioural skills needed to apply technical skills and knowledge in the workplace (Weber, Finely, Crawford, & Rivera, 2009,. p.2 cited in Ooi & Ting, 2015). From the above citation, it can be understood that the idea of a proper blend of hard and soft skills can produce a harmonious integrity of an individual who will enter the workforce. The mixture of hard and soft skill is increasingly important (Radermacher, Walia & Knudson, 2014). It can be perceived as soft skills and hard skills have a different function. In addition, a qualified employee can be defined as an individual who possesses and masters to not only in technical skills but also develops a sense of humanities. The study conducted by Williams (2015) Soft-skills will improve work-quality 8 indicated that improvement soft skills are required to have a high quality of future employees who will enter workforce. Employers recognize soft skills as applicable employability skills.. In fact, all fields of work require the balance of hard skills and soft skills. Past study found out that students in Singapore has the awareness on the impact of advance soft skills for their future career and employment although there are many students assumed their soft skills has not considerably meet the standard of job requirement (Majid et al., 2012). It indicates that the awareness on the importance of soft skills has taken into consideration without further action among fresh graduates. The dynamics in the world of business enforce fresh graduates to be well prepared concerning soft skills, as a guideline, in creating opportunities in job finding (Skinner, Mithcell & White, 2010). Employers also provide opportunities for fresh graduates to develop their soft skills during the work and evaluate the endeavor to create decision on the advancement of their performance. In a nutshell, the idea of developing soft skills such as communication skills, time management, problem solving and decision making in the early stage is to prevent deflation of unemployment among fresh graduates. In comparison, selection methods for employees have evolved from the previous time. It can be seen through the development of job analysis that consists of job description and specification. Employers tend to set soft skills as a high value in order to maintain the equilibrium of their staff member. In Islam soft skills are perceived as a gift that has been given by Allah to humans to communicate the thoughts, feelings and ideas uniquely. It also creates a two-way communication from the sender and receiver through the senses that leads to learn and interact with others. Based on Hadith by Sunan Abi Dawud (“Rulings on As-salam (Islamic Greeting)”, 2013): Soft-skills will improve work-quality 9 A man came to the Prophet and said: Peace be upon you! He responded to his salutation. He then sat down. The Prophet said: Ten [rewards]. Another man came and said: Peace and Allah’s mercy be upon you! He responded to his salutation when he sat down. He said: Twenty. Another man came and said: Peace and Allah’s mercy and blessings be upon you! He responded to him and said when he sat down: and blessings be upon you! He responded to him and said when he sat down: Thirty. According to the hadith, it can understood that greeting in Islam such as saying ‘Assalaamu alaykum’ (peace be upon you) is being recommended as it spreads love among human in order to maintain harmony in society. Besides, the development of soft skills can be attained by practicing the Islamic teachings in daily basis. The idea of implementing Islamic teaching is to improve the individual’s confidence before entering the workforce. An individual should be well-mannered in delivering a message to others and understand the current situation. Yet, starting from a greeting and simple-communication training, the benefit of soft skills that can be used in life is to communicate and be aware of individual’s differences. References Ooi, K.B. & Ting, S.H. (2015). Employers’ Emphasis on Technical Skills and Soft Skills in Job Advertisements. The English Teacher, XLIV(1), 1-12. Retrieved from https://journals.melta.org.my/index.php/tet/article/viewFile/214/115. Dewiyani, M. S. (2015). Improving Students Soft Skills Using Thinking Process Profile Based On Personality Types. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 4(3), 118. doi:10.11591/ijere.v4i3.4502 Nabulsi, M. R. (2013, March 20). Rulings on As-salam (Islamic Greeting). Retrieved from Soft-skills will improve work-quality 10 http://www.muhammad-pbuh.com/en/?p=411 Hodges, D., & Burchell, N. (2003). Business graduate competencies: Employers' views on importance and performance. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 4(2), 1622. Litecky, C. R., Arnett, K. P., & Prabhakar, B. (2004). The paradox of soft skills versus technical skills in is hiring. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 45(1), 6976. Retrieved from EBSCOhost Business Source Complete (Accession No: 16997615) Majid S., Liming Z., Tong S. & Raihana S. (2012). Important of Soft Skills for Education and Career Success. International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE), Special Issue Volume 2 Issue 2, 2012 Mitchell, G. W., Skinner, L. B., & White, B. J. (2010). Essential soft skills for success in the twenty- first century workforce as perceived by business educators. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 52(1), 43-53. Patacsil, F., & Tablatin, C. L. (2017). Exploring the importance of soft and hard skills as perceived by IT internship students and industry: A gap analysis. Journal of Technology and Science Education,7(3), 347. doi:10.3926/jotse.271 Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Paine, J. B., & Bachrach, D. G. (2000). Organizational citizenship behaviors: A critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research. Journal of Management, 26(3), 513-563. doi: 10.1177/014920630002600307 Radermacher, A., Walia, G., & Knudson, D. (2014). Investigating the skill gap between Soft-skills will improve work-quality 11 graduating students and industry expectations. In Companion Proceedings of the 36th international conference on software engineering (pp. 291-300). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2591062.2591159. Sailah (2008). “Soft Skills Development of Higher Education”, Jakarta: Working Team Soft Skills Development, Directorate General of Higher Education, 2008. Weber, M. R., Finely, D. A., Crawford, A., & Rivera, D. J. (2009). An exploratory study identifying soft skill competencies in entry-level managers. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(4), 353-361. Williams A.C. (2015). Soft Skills Perceived by Students and Employers as Relevant Employability Skills. Walden University. Retrieved October 13, 2018, from http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=2426&context=dissertations