Wanted: Soft Skills and the Training That Builds Them

Chapter 1: the labor market challenge

Soft skills needed | Labor market challenges | Lack of skills costs companies

Which soft skills do employers want most? Cleveland Fed research analyzing 2,300-plus skills across 600-plus occupations reveals that communication, customer service, and leadership top the list—and demand increases with higher wages.

Yet employers report a widening gap: Too many job candidates lack these critical capabilities. From manufacturing to food service, businesses face costly turnover when workers can’t show up on time, communicate effectively, or work collaboratively. In today’s “low-hire, low-fire” labor market, these soft skills matter more than ever.

Discover:

• What the Occupational Mobility Explorer reveals about in-demand skills
• How the lack of soft skills costs companies real money
• Why at least one area manufacturer needs soft skills from day one

6-minute read | April 3, 2026

Chapter 2: skills gap—what’s changed

Generational differences | Technology’s impact | Student perspectives

Is technology to blame for declining soft skills? What about COVID-related isolation? Or are generational differences simply being misunderstood?

College professors, workforce development leaders, and students themselves weigh in on why career readiness challenges have intensified. From reduced face-to-face interaction to changing workplace expectations, this chapter explores multiple perspectives on the postpandemic soft skills landscape.

Read about:

• How COVID-19 affected workers’ social and professional development
• What Gen Z students say about soft skills, including professionalism
• The role of education systems, parents, and employers in developing soft skills 

7-minute read | April 8, 2026

Chapter 3: upskilling solutions that work

Talent development strategies | How the Fed is involved | Practical training approaches

Who’s taking action to close the soft skills gap? From the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Essential Skills Academy to innovative employer training programs, this chapter showcases upskilling strategies aimed at enhancing career readiness and supporting economic growth.

Learn how workforce boards, universities, and businesses are collaborating to provide job training that prepares students and young workers for real-world success. Plus, access free tools like the Occupational Mobility Explorer to identify which skills matter most for your career path.

Explore:

• The Cleveland Fed’s Essential Skills Academy curriculum
• Practical tips for teaching communication and networking
• How employers are teaching soft skills onsite
• Free workforce development resources available in every community
• Why soft skills training connects directly to the Fed’s dual mandate

11-minute read | April 13, 2026

Why the Federal Reserve focuses on soft skills and workforce development

Upskilling programs that boost career readiness connect directly to the Fed’s dual mandate, which includes promoting maximum employment. When workers have the soft skills employers need, businesses grow, communities thrive, and the economy strengthens.

Cleveland Fed community and business contacts report that the gap between the soft skills employers need and what job candidates possess has widened. This workforce development challenge affects

• Economic growth – Businesses cannot expand without qualified workers
• Labor market participation – Workers who lack soft skills face longer job searches
• Community development – Regions with skilled workforces attract investment
• Employers – High turnover due to soft skills deficits costs companies resources

By investing in job training and career readiness programs, the Cleveland Fed supports individuals, businesses, and communities in building stronger economic futures.

Soft skills for young workers: what employers are looking for

Cleveland Fed research identified these soft skills as most in demand across the labor market:

1. Communication – Requested in 34.2 percent of all job ads nationally
2. Customer service – Specified in 26.9 percent of postings
3. Management – Listed in 23 percent of job ads
4. Sales, operations, and leadership – Each appeared in about 15 percent of job ads

The higher the wage, the more critical these capabilities become. Yet many employers report that job training programs focus heavily on technical knowledge while overlooking the soft skills that determine workplace success.

Feaured voices on soft skills

This storytelling features insights from

• Kyle Fee, community development policy advisor, Cleveland Fed; cocreator of the Occupational Mobility Explorer
• Davonta Milbry, Sam Tyler, and Lakisha Higgins, outreach coordinators, Cleveland Fed; soft skills instructors
• Erik Chiarelott, teaching professor, Bowling Green State University; business communication expert who has taught soft skills for 20 years
• Bridget Back, deputy director, Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program; leads regional workforce development across 23 counties
• Michael Gordon Jr., vice president of sales, Tendon Manufacturing Inc.; reports soft skills gaps in job candidates
• Dan Young, board chair, Young’s Jersey Dairy; trains 300-plus young workers annually in soft skills
• College students from Bowling Green State University; provide Gen Z perspectives on career readiness

Related Cleveland Fed resources

• Career Readiness Hub
• Occupational Mobility Explorer
• Community Development Initiatives
• Using the Occupational Mobility Explorer to Understand Which Skills Are Most in Demand
• Gathering Perspectives on Work in the Fourth District
• How to Find Higher Paying Jobs: Try the Occupational Mobility Explorer

Frequently asked questions about soft skills and career readiness

What are soft skills?

Soft skills (also called essential skills) are interpersonal and professional capabilities like communication, teamwork, time management, problem-solving, and professionalism. Unlike technical “hard skills,” these abilities apply across all occupations and industries.

Why do soft skills matter for economic growth?

When workers possess the soft skills employers need, businesses can hire qualified candidates, reduce costly turnover, and expand operations. This workforce development drives economic growth at individual, company, and community levels.

How did COVID-19 affect soft skills development?

The pandemic reduced face-to-face interaction during formative years for many young workers and students. Isolation, remote learning, and virtual work environments limited opportunities to practice in-person communication, teamwork, and other interpersonal skills.

What can job seekers do to improve their soft skills?

Connect with local workforce boards, use free tools like the Occupational Mobility Explorer to identify in-demand skills, participate in upskilling programs, and practice professional behaviors like communication, punctuality, and active listening.

How can employers address soft skills gaps?

Implement in-house training programs, partner with educational institutions, create mentorship opportunities, and focus interview processes on identifying candidates with strong soft skills who can be trained in technical competencies.

What workforce development resources are available?

Every US community is served by a workforce board offering career readiness resources. The Cleveland Fed provides free tools including the Occupational Mobility Explorer. Many universities and community colleges also offer job training programs.

Full text transcript

Chapter 1: “Hiring, We Have a Problem”

In this chapter:
Soft skills needed | Labor market challenges | Lack of skills costs companies

It was in response to community conversations that Kyle Fee sought the answer to a question: Which skills are most in demand by employers?

He didn’t ask employers. He studied the job ads they placed. A community development policy advisor for the Cleveland Fed, Fee tapped data from the online tool he co-created with the Philadelphia Fed. In all, the Occupational Mobility Explorer provided the opportunity to investigate the market demand for over 2,300 skills across more than 600 occupations.

So, the answer?

The skills most in demand were social and soft skills such as communication, customer service, and leadership, and demand for several of those skills ratchets up the higher wages go, Fee says. He found it a bit surprising. “People tend to connect technical skills with higher wages—‘You have to specialize’—when some of these other skills are just as important,” Fee says.

The problem today is too many job candidates lack these in-demand soft skills, say some engaged in today’s labor market. A lack of eye contact, handshakes, and ability to hold impromptu conversations prove more apparent and problematic as more organizations return to in-person office work, says Davonta Milbry, outreach coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland who teaches soft skills and career readiness. Can’t count on having the camera off then, he notes.

Overall, according to Fee’s April 2025 report, the most requested skill was “communication,” which was specified by employers in over a third of all job ads nationally. “Customer service” and “management” were the next most in-demand skills, mentioned in 26.9 and 23.0 percent of job ads, respectively. “Sales,” “operations,” and “leadership” skills were next, with each requested by employers in roughly 15 percent of job ads.

“Employers are reporting more and more that they’re getting a lot of people with great technical knowledge—they know the job—but they don’t know how to work,” says Bridget Back, deputy director with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), the workforce board serving 70 Kentucky counties. “The gap is widening, and employers have a lot of turnover because those skills are lacking. They’ll fire workers because workers can’t show up on time or they’re on their cell phones during work hours. Soft skills become that much more important because employers can’t afford that kind of additional turnover.”

You won’t find in this story series quantitative research that echoes the anecdote that people exhibit fewer of these skills today than they used to. Sources say soft skills are often harder to measure than hard skills, as you can count how many people hold computer science degrees, but it’s harder to know how many have a firm handshake and a positive attitude. David J. Deming, Danoff Dean of Harvard College, writes via email, “I am unaware of any evidence that soft skills are lacking today compared to in the past. I doubt that is true. Rather, I’d guess that employer demand for soft skills has increased greatly over time, which leads to a perception of a skill shortage relative to the past.”

Soft skills needed

It’s a brisk Thursday when Michael Gordon Jr. welcomes visitors to Tendon Manufacturing Inc. There’s a sign here that hangs in four separate spaces.

“10 things that require ZERO talent,” the one above the plant floor reads. It lists:

• Being on time
• Work ethic
• Effort
• Energy
• Body language
• Passion
• Doing extra
• Being prepared
• Being coachable
• Attitude

These are not merely nice-to-have skills; rather, when they’re lacking, they cost the company money, says Gordon, the company’s vice president of sales. He owns the custom sheet metal fabricator with his dad and brother.

A great challenge of late for Tendon in Warrensville Heights, Ohio, has been that one in four new hires “no call, no shows” the company. “It’s negative for the business,” he says. “You just spent so much time and effort onboarding this person, and there are so many costs you don’t calculate that go into onboarding—documentation; going through the handbook with them; in some cases, the uniforms. You lose the labor from paying someone to train them when, days later, they’re gone."

“Everyone I talk to—customers, vendors—everyone needs people,” he adds. “And it’s the same issues: They’re not getting the applicants, or prospects and hires are ‘no call, no showing.’”

In addition to people’s not being on time or showing up, a lack of communication by employees can cost the company, Gordon says. He offers the example of when one shift of workers doesn’t communicate that they processed half of a longer-run order, leading the next shift of workers to run the whole order when it’s unnecessary. “The ability to communicate, that is a dying soft skill,” he says. “It’s so easy to hide behind a cell phone, a computer, a text message. Employees are almost scared to come and talk to managers. We [at Tendon] are proactive with it: We hold employee meetings, we hold manager meetings. We invite feedback. We have these forms throughout our plant called ‘fix-it forms.’”

It’s been the case for some time in manufacturing that skilled workers such as machinists and brake press operators are retiring and not being replaced, he says. Tendon, which makes products such as store displays and medical devices out of metal based on customer specs, trains people both in house and off site, Gordon says.

“A skilled brake press operator isn’t walking through that door,” he says, pointing to the one that separates his office from the corridor into the front lobby. “So, we need to turn them into brake press operators.”

Many high school graduates can’t read blueprints or use calipers, but if someone exhibits the soft skills Tendon needs, it’s a telltale sign they can be trained and succeed. But people don’t always exhibit those skills: Some candidates have come in for job interviews dressed in sweatpants. Some greet company staff almost begrudgingly. A couple have flat out said, “Oh, my parents told me I have to get a job.” The shining examples Gordon cites are those who dress in slacks and button-down shirts, stand and shake his hand in greeting, and “actually have a conversation with us.” That netted more than one candidate a job on the spot, interview skipped, he says.

Trucks rumble and beep constantly outside Gordon’s office (“All day, every day; I’m immune to it now,” he says). Gordon looks behind him at one of those four soft skills signs. “Effort. Energy. If someone is going to put in the time and take pride in their job, that, to me, is huge,” he says. “We want someone who is fun to be around, someone other employees get along with, someone who doesn’t hate coming into work every day. Tendon can’t operate without hard skills—we need welders, we need brake operators, we need machinists—but someone with these soft skills, we can coach them.”

Chapter 2: “Soft Skills with a Side of Cheese Curds”

In this chapter:
What or who is behind the decline of soft skills? | Generational differences

When Erik Chiarelott started teaching at Bowling Green State University in Northwest Ohio, professors still used transparencies and overhead projectors. It was the 2006–2007 school year, and cell phones existed, but they weren’t the handheld computers they are today, and laptops were more cost-prohibitive. “When students came to class, they talked to each other,” he recalls. “They didn’t have anything to distract them. Now students sit down and pull out their phones and laptops. They’re not interacting with their neighbors.”

So yes, Chiarelott understands why people blame technology and social media for what he and others perceive as deterioration of soft skills in workers today. (More on that in Chapter One.) “I’ve seen students change over time,” he begins. “They’re not reading as thoroughly as they should. They’re not paying attention as well as they should. Those are all critical skills to have in the workforce, and my job is to let them make mistakes and have them reflect on those failures.” (All business students at BGSU, plus students of some other academic programs, are required to take Chiarelott’s Effective Business Communication course.)

Davonta Milbry says social media may not be helping the situation. “Some workers want to do stuff that’s hot and trendy, and they think they have the right to be their full authentic self in any circle they walk into,” says the outreach coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland who teaches soft skills and career readiness. “There’s a lack of the ability to adjust and recognize what skill and personality you need in the workplace.” He also worries workers are not hearing enough critical feedback, noting that he grew up “in the age where I got an award for everything.”

Technology today—and its scrolling past whatever doesn’t appeal and its on-demand programming—could be creating an expectation of instant gratification, something that’s not promised on the job or in learning soft skills, says Sam Tyler, an outreach coordinator with the Cleveland Fed. “The idea that every second of work is not fun, that there will be parts of work that are mundane, some people coming into the workforce are less equipped for that reality,” says Tyler, who notes that every time she teaches career readiness, she’s met with asks for more from schools and workplaces. “Learning how to work with people is not something that is instantly gratifying or easy to do. Learning those skills, it takes time and practice.”

In the meantime, a lot of companies expect college graduates to come equipped with these soft skills, says Lakisha Higgins, also an outreach coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “These employers are blaming professors for not preparing these students, but professors need to teach these students the hard skills,” Higgins says.

Post-pandemic skills gap: What changed

As a professor who does teach soft skills, Chiarelott also understands why some attribute the worsening of workers’ soft skills to the pandemic and the isolation it sowed.

Dan Young says he’s seen the effects of COVID on the way people work. “Three years ago, when we were hiring a 16-year-old, pretty much half of their teen years were not spent with anybody else,” says Young, board chair for Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio. “They were very afraid of being in a place with 200 or 300 people.” His family’s creamery has trained new workers and enrolled them in its payroll and other systems, only to weeks later have the workers quit, citing fear of disease and crowds. “‘I don’t know how to talk to people,’” Young says they would say. “‘I only know how to text people.’” Clipped answers to questions and lacking eye contact are two behaviors he observes that wouldn’t be good for business: Seventy-five percent of his sales come from people’s dining there, and those sales hinge on soft skills, he says.

Young’s vantage on new hires’ behaviors has 1960s vintage, as his jersey cow business has hired some 5,000 people since then. But before he risks coming off a certain way talking about workers of today, Young emphasizes that his family farm doesn’t successfully sell its deep-fried cheese curds, one- and two-dip ice creams, and entertainment without young adult workers. “I don’t want to sound like the old guy in the room, saying, ‘These kids,’” says Young, 72. “I really don’t. We wouldn’t exist without them. They do a great job for us and our guests."

“Everything we do here has to do with ‘Hi’ and ‘How can I help you?’” he adds. “My whole business is guest service. It’s not the ice cream. It’s not the goats. The reason people come back and tell others to come is because they had a great time.”

Younger workers’ views on career readiness

Most interviewed about soft skills raised the matter of generational differences. “I’m Gen X, and we were ‘horrible communicators,’” Chiarelott says, finger quotation marks curling in the air. “This is The Breakfast Club. We always say, ‘This generation is horrible.’ I don’t really want to blame anything in particular. Skills change, skills fluctuate.”

A few students in a learning community led by Chiarelott stay late in the bright orange Bowling Green classroom one evening to talk soft skills. Do these first-year college students feel technology and COVID have affected the professionalism and soft skills of today’s workers, including them? (They all have jobs.)

A few say no. The way Pashence DeRamus sees it, older generations believe it is a requirement to show older people respect, whereas her generation feels “respect is a two-way street” and “you don’t automatically get respect because you’re older.” “I think that’s why some people don’t show up” to jobs, because their older managers and trainers come off as uncaring toward them, says DeRamus, majoring in marketing with a minor in public relations.

“I think older people don’t give us enough credit,” adds Dale Brendyn Jacobs, a first-year student studying finance. “I remember having a conversation, and someone said, ‘Kids in your generation, all they want to do is be on their phone.’ My friends have some of the best work ethic I’ve seen.”

Sally Haggard supposes she must work alongside a wholly different group of people than her BGSU peers. “We’ve had many people apply who aren’t intentional and don’t really care about what they’re doing,” says Haggard, a first-year marketing major who works at a used sporting goods store. “They just want a job where they can sit around and be on their phone. I think it’s harder in Gen Z to find people who want to go out and find a job.”

Again, Jacobs chimes in. “A lot of the blame is put on us because we have phones,” he begins. “Part of it has to fall on parents. We mimic our parents, and if we have parents who are constantly on their phones, it’s going to be imprinted on our brains that that’s okay. The blame should be on our education system, too. We spend most of our time in school from the time we’re four ‘til we’re 18, and the fact that I’m 18 years old, and this is the first class I’ve taken that really does teach soft skills—that’s where the blame belongs.”

He’s talking about the university’s Effective Business Communication course and in specific, its focus on “just handshakes.” Jacobs smiles, recalling a recent career expo. “My handshakes were on point,” he assures. “My handshakes were just perfect.”

No matter who or what is to blame, DeRamus urges workplace leaders to count on workers to grow. She’s worked for years for the City of Gahanna, Ohio (fun fact: “Herb Capital of Ohio”), where her manager said, “‘You were the quietest, shyest person ever, but I saw the potential in you,’” she says. DeRamus started in pool concessions, was promoted to guest service lead, and now has her sights set on aquatics coordinator. “Be able to see the potential,” she says. “Know that people can grow.”

Chapter 3: “Something That Needed to Be Done”

In this chapter:
Upskilling | How and why the Federal Reserve is involved | Talent development strategies

Today’s topic is displayed behind Davonta Milbry in all caps.

PROFESSIONALISM. From the front of the classroom, Milbry asks the first-year college students to team up and define the concept. What’s professionalism virtually? What is it in person? Heard around the room are phrases such as “good posture,” “on time is early,” and “dressed right, speaking clearly, camera on.” One student paints the picture of wearing a collared shirt on top but shorts where the camera won’t show. A peer of his suggests dressing appropriately from head to toe—“in case you have to stand up.”

Professor Erik Chiarelott visits their tables, asking questions. He’s invited Milbry here, to Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Northwest Ohio, to deliver the Cleveland Fed’s Essential Skills Academy. Essential skills is another term for soft skills, capabilities Chiarelott, employers, and some workforce development practitioners say are noticeably lacking in too many job seekers today. In an interview before today’s class, he tells a story: A financial company wanted to come meet BGSU students. “They said, ‘We want to meet finance students, but can we also talk to your sales and marketing students?’” Chiarelott says. “I asked, ‘Why do you want to do that?’” Their reply: “We can always teach the financial part of the job, but we can’t as easily teach them the soft skills.”

On the contrary, teaching soft skills is Chiarelott’s bread and butter. Among the courses he teaches is Effective Business Communication. Though there is that in-house offering, his dean and he saw fit to bring in Milbry for the first time late last year.

“Having employers come out and reinforce what I’m saying, it adds credibility,” he explains. And the certificate provided by the Cleveland Fed upon completion is a tangible accomplishment students can add to their resumes, he adds.

Others also have welcomed the upskilling program. Between 2024 and 2025, the Essential Skills Academy of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland expanded heavily, increasing the number of students served from 80 to more than 400. Workforce development and upskilling (for example, teaching workers soft skills) tie directly to the Fed’s dual mandate, which includes the goal of maximum employment. There are findings, too, that have motivated the Bank’s investment in this work, among them

• Community and business contacts report through roundtables and meetings to the Cleveland Fed that the gap is wide between the soft skills employers need and the soft skills job candidates display (more on this challenge in Chapters 1 and 2).
• April 2025 Cleveland Fed research shows, overall, the most in-demand skills are social and soft skills, and that’s even truer for higher-wage work.

After about a half hour, Milbry, an outreach coordinator for the Cleveland Fed, asks the students to share what they’ve come up with. When the final table volunteers its series of answers (“properly address everyone around you, ask relevant questions, and firm handshake”), a man seated in front, facing the students, speaks. He is graduate accounting student Anton Pembroke, and he sat for two job interviews recently with a company. The last question he asked during both was, “What’s your favorite NFL team?” It sparked conversation, he says, and just days ago, he received a full-time offer. “An interview is not just talking your strengths and weaknesses,” Pembroke says. “It’s putting your own personal spin to it. It’s finding a way to connect with the interviewer and stand out.”

Milbry agrees. “You can have some fun discourse, which makes you likable,” he says. “That’s part of operating in corporate America.” Milbry then sums up professionalism. “In layman’s terms, it means you’re putting your best foot forward all the time as you’re collecting your check,” he explains.

What are the consequences of unprofessionalism? he asks.

“You won’t be taken as seriously,” says Akii Salkovick, a first-year BGSU student studying business with eyes on opening a café. “You’re not presenting in a way that makes you respectable to other people.”

Plus, people won’t entrust work to you, hurting your growth individually and with a given company, another student chimes in. So, there’s much at stake.

Tips for teaching soft skills

Sam Tyler remembers asking the room full of West Virginian career counselors if they create opportunities for students to develop soft skills. “We try” and “we have” were their responses, as were concerns about not having the manpower to do it. “Everyone’s doing their best,” says Tyler, also an outreach coordinator with the Cleveland Fed who teaches soft skills and career readiness. “But teachers are tasked with educating, and parents are tasked with parenting, and businesses are tasked with working. We need to work together, but who’s bringing everyone together? Who’s supporting that cross-functionality so people know what they’re doing before they enter the workforce?”

In one example of the Cleveland Fed’s efforts to bridge these gaps, Tyler’s colleague Milbry travels to Bowling Green a total of four times to teach four chapters of the Essential Skills Academy:

• Job mobility and transferable skills
• Networking
• Interviews and professionalism
• Communication

New in 2026, the Cleveland Fed, which has for years directly delivered soft skills training to students, is working to support community stakeholders and entities that seek to infuse soft skills training into their operations. The Bank created the programming a few years ago after Bank staffers participated in mock job interviews with seniors from another university. Lakisha Higgins, also an outreach coordinator for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, recalls the specifics: The students gave no eye contact; limp handshakes; and rambling, off-topic answers. “Some students were 22 and 23, and you would expect for them at that age to have some experience, some knowledge,” says Higgins, who teaches the Bank’s Essential Skills curriculum to college students in southern Ohio and Kentucky. “A light bulb went off, and I said, ‘Wait a minute, I think we can do something here.’”

“This was something that needed to be done,” she continues. “You can be smart as a whip, but if an employer can’t get past the soft skills you lack, they’re not going to see what you can do. You have to master these soft skills so they can see what you’re capable of.”

Muddying the waters is how intangible soft skills are, sources say. If the requirement is that a student or worker is proficient in Excel, it’s readily evident if they are, Chiarelott says. “It’s hard to quantify excellent communication skills,” he adds. “That’s the challenge for my job. It’s not math: ‘Oh, you’ve got the right answer or the wrong answer.’”

For those wanting to teach soft skills, he’s done it for nearly 20 years and shares a few of his go-to approaches:

• Have a group of people write their resumes. Remove names from the resumes (Chiarelott puts in their place dessert names like apple pie), and give the packet of resumes to the group. They’re now, for the purpose of the exercise, the hiring committee. Give them only five minutes to read up to 10 resumes. This helps job seekers see things from a recruiter’s perspective. Upon completing the exercise, Chiarelott says, students have reflected, “Oh, now I see why format is so important.”
• Given the rise of Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings, Chiarelott has students record themselves speaking in two-minute videos. Each student is assigned to watch a couple of peers’ videos and give feedback, and they’re also asked to self-reflect: What did my peers do with their videos that I’d like to emulate? The exercise concludes with the students revising their own videos to improve them. “It’s a way to have them practice oral communication with the technology available,” he says. “Times change. We have to adapt with that change and embrace different technologies and tools and needs that businesses have.”

Chiarelott, Milbry, Higgins, and others have in common teaching soft skills in classrooms. Growing these skills is so needed that Dan Young recently began instructing his employees himself at the very farm where they milk 40 jersey cows and make cheese.

Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in recent years introduced a mentorship program and soft skills training, the latter provided annually to an estimated 300 staffers, most of whom are high school and college students. During last year’s trainings, Young challenged staff members to strategize how they would respond if a customer complained or if a coworker acted sad or unwell. Other takeaways he makes sure to reinforce are how to work as a team and the importance of showing up to work.

These newer yearly trainings will continue, as his staff is largely seasonal and he suspects anyone of school or college age during COVID missed years of socialization at a formative time. This, he’s confident, means the need for soft skills training is likely to persist (more on why soft skills are lacking in Chapter 2).

Economic growth depends on this

Recent Cleveland Fed research found that soft skills are the skills most sought overall by employers. “Prioritizing the development of these skills in curricula and training programs could provide individuals with a set of transferable skills that are applicable to a wide swath of job opportunities,” author Kyle Fee concluded.

Bridget Back and her organization have been doing just that: The Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP) introduced this past year an online training program focused on maximizing participants’ employability. Offered in partnership with the University of the Cumberlands’ Appalachian Institute for Workforce Development, the program focuses on building soft skills including communication, time management and organizational skills, and networking. Hundreds of people have taken it.

“Workforce is at the center of our communities,” says Back, deputy director of EKCEP, the workforce board serving 70 Kentucky counties. “If you don’t have a workforce, your employers can’t grow, and if your employers aren’t growing, your tax base isn’t. Soft skills are at the heart of workforce. You can have all of the knowledge of how to do a job, but if you can’t function in that environment, if you can’t show up on time and you can’t work with other people, you’re not going to be successful.”

Also new in recent years is EKCEP’s in-school internship program, which places high school students in jobs related to occupations they might like to pursue and teaches them through experience how to show up on time, be a team player, and dress for work.

“I’ll be honest with you,” begins Back, also a member of the Cleveland Fed’s Community Advisory Council. “My daughter, she’s in high school, and she’s participating. She has never liked school at all. She doesn’t care if she’s on time; if it’s a tardy, it’s a tardy. But she loves work and has really gained that drive for it. She doesn’t want to be late. She doesn’t want to miss. She’s learned more soft skills through working than she did going to school, even though her mom’s a workforce development professional.”

She turns a question on the interviewer now. “Did anybody actually say, ‘Michelle, when you go to work, you have to be on time, you take 30 minutes for break, you can’t be playing games or on your phone, and your friends can’t stop by?’” she asks. “The parenting piece is extremely important, but I don’t feel you can necessarily 100 percent shoulder it there. Kids are not always going to want to learn from parents. Hearing it from somebody else often drives it home. It has to be the whole village.”

Ready to leverage that village to improve your or someone else’s communication, time management, and other soft skills? Start with your local workforce board, Back suggests. Every community in the country is served by one. Also, use the Occupational Mobility Explorer (OME) that Fee co-created to explore which skills are most sought after for your current or “destination” occupation. Use that information, Fee says, to inform a personal training curriculum.

The OME is a free online tool, so Fee and his colleagues don’t always know who’s using it and for what until someone tells them. For example, Cleveland-area workforce development practitioners shared last fall they’re using the Explorer to inform the development of pathways into mental health and behavioral health professions, which they say need more workers.

How does it make Fee feel to know the tool is being used?

“To be able to help folks think about skill development and career choices,” he begins, his arms up behind his head, “is extremely gratifying. For one, a lot of my own career exploration was just trial and error, figuring out what I liked and didn’t like and what I was good at.” (Fee’s “winding road” involved cutting grass at a golf course, cooking from the catering grill across from Chicago’s Wrigley Field, and a scholarship to study physics at an Ohio university.) “For two,” he says, “I like to see our work being used to improve outcomes for communities, individuals, and businesses.”

“The Times We Learned Soft Skills the Hard Way”

From talking too fast to train new hires to laughing at the wrong moment with an angry parent, our sources share the cringeworthy moments that taught them to slow down, show up on time, and always—always—read the room.

"For seven years, I lived and worked in central Kentucky for a manufacturer. We hired a new girl, and I was training her. One day, she called off sick, and when she came back, she admitted she took the day off because I talked so fast and spewed so much information that her brain needed a break. I learned to slow down when speaking with people, especially when it’s my job to convey information." — Bridget Back, deputy director, Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program

"I had sent my resume and credentials to BG, and I get a phone call while I’m at Target. I answer. It’s Bowling Green State University, and they ask if it’s a good time. I say it is. “Do you have a pen and paper?” they ask because they need to give me some important information. I’m scrambling to find the aisle, rip open a pen, and start writing the information on my hand. I tell my students: You might want to let some calls go to voicemail. And when you go to return important calls, be prepared with something to say to avoid a garbled mess coming out." — Erik Chiarelott, teaching professor, Bowling Green State University

"I wasn’t on time for middle-school basketball practice, and Coach made me run the whole one-hour practice. I wasn’t late for practice ever again." — Kyle Fee, community development policy advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

"In college, as a reporter for the student newspaper, I covered the university administration and thus called upon senior vice presidents for interviews. One SVP returned my phone call and, before we commenced any interview, he expressed frustration: He’d had to listen to the voicemail I’d left a half dozen times to get down the phone number I’d provided. I’d spoken it too fast. To this day, I speak my phone number with pauses to give people ample opportunity to capture it, and I repeat it always." — Michelle Park Lazette, marketing strategist, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

"It was my first year as a senior resident assistant in college, and I wanted to present as a leader. At the end of night-duty shifts, we were to write reports, detailing how many lockouts we responded to and anything that stood out to us, such as suspicious activity. One report I wrote at midnight was not my best work, and the area coordinator reminded me that people do read our reports and told me mine didn’t set the tone well. She recommended when I write to read my sentences aloud so I can hear how someone may absorb my information. Any time I write something, I still read it aloud so I catch my own mistakes before someone else does." — Davonta Milbry, outreach coordinator, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

"During my second year of teaching, I was encountering poor behavior from my third-graders and started to give out a crown to the student who was best behaved that day. A parent came into my classroom, mad that her daughter did not receive the crown, and I laughed because I thought she was joking. She was not, in fact, joking. The lesson I learned is don’t assume. Ask questions first. Be mindful of other people’s emotions when you’re having difficult conversations. Read the room." — Sam Tyler, outreach coordinator, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

"In 2002, our farm’s milk was linked to a foodborne illness, making us the lead news across several local stations and front pages in Dayton and Springfield. A channel sent a chopper. I needed to communicate with the FDA, the CDC, the state and local health departments. One of the best things I did was create an email list of bankers, suppliers, and friends, and nearly every day for two or three months, I would send them an email; I knew otherwise the facts could get muddied. These emails helped me maintain trust and communicate that we were addressing the issues and setting up systems to prevent it. The experience made me a better listener, and it inspires me to walk through 106 different scenarios when approaching potentially awkward, confrontational-type things. I think about how I’m going to deal with something and how others might deal with it so that rarely something is a surprise." — Dan Young, board chair, Young’s Jersey Dairy