Data Show Soft Skills Training Is Important Even for Blue-Collar Jobs
In blue-collar agriculture work, employees with honed technical skills get the job done. Expert laborers raise the bar through amassed knowledge and execution of specific tasks throughout the growing and harvest seasons. Training a newly hired employee in the hard skills a job requires is a must. It has to be done, or the product won’t make it to market.
Often overlooked in these settings, however, is training for the job’s interpersonal tasks such as communication, teamwork and problem-solving—soft skills that may seem less than necessary for success in the field, packing shed or processing plant.
Data show that bypassing soft skills training, even in blue-collar jobs, may also bypass the added productivity that comes from resolved conflicts, better communication and shared solutions.
So important are these skills in today’s workforce, in every industry, that Philip J. Hanlon, President of Dartmouth College, advocates for the term power skills.
Whichever term you choose, this set of skills that encompasses personal attributes and social behaviors is learnable. It can be taught. And if you consider a study that shows providing soft skills training to blue-collar workers yields financial benefits for the employer and individual employees, it’s hard to find a reason not to invest in workforce development.
The 2016 study from MIT Sloan School of Management found that in-factory training in problem-solving, communication and decision-making for factory workers yielded a 250% return on investment in just eight months. The study revealed an overall increase in worker productivity, faster turnaround on complex tasks and improved employee attendance.
The researchers interviewed the factory workers at the end of the study and found that those who’d been trained had marginally larger incomes and better opinions of themselves as workers. They were also more likely to request training in hard skills.
The study’s results are certainly attention grabbing for those seeking an open door to greater productivity and making a wise investment in their own workforce.
How might these power skills make an impact in a farming operation?
Organizations certified by Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) have seen how on-farm soft skills training contributes to continuous improvement and greater productivity. Growers and farmworkers who have participated in the EFI Program regularly report improved communication, greater confidence and morale among employees and more effective collaboration to create solutions for business and safety problems.
Offering training to a few can be enough to reach the whole organization. The MIT Sloan study also found that even employees who did not participate in the training program but were on the same assembly line as those who did showed improvements in workplace productivity.
The EFI Program operates on a similar assumption. Cross-level, cross-functional Leadership Teams with representation from every area of an organization are established as a part of the EFI Program. Representatives receive training in communication, problem-solving and conflict resolution and are then able to act as liaisons to the rest of the workforce.
Vernon Peterson, grower with Homegrown Organic Farms, asserts that the EFI workforce development training helps his team perform their jobs more effectively in the day-to-day operation of his farm and packing shed: “The training and implementation of teamwork that comes with EFI genuinely does help us do our job better and get a better product to the consumer.”
Find out more about how EFI can provide customized workforce development training for your organization by visiting equitablefood.org/efi-services.
