Technical expertise is not everything! Only through soft skills do employees become a real asset for your company. We reveal which five soft skills are especially important in companies — and how employees can best acquire them.
Soft skills in companies, together with hard skills, determine professional success and thus often the success of your entire company. Non-technical skills include:
personal skills such as self-confidence,
social skills such as teamwork,
methodological skills such as self-organization.
Below, we introduce the top 5 soft skills in companies, which are important for truly being successful — and explain what soft skill training for your employees can look like.
These are the top 5 soft skills in companies
As part of the Workplace Learning Report 2019, LinkedIn analyzed data worldwide to find out the most important hard and soft skills in companies. While important hard skills naturally depend heavily on industry and work area, the following five soft skills in companies are important in all areas:
Soft Skill 1: Creativity
Soft Skill 2: Persuasiveness
Soft Skill 3: Analytical thinking
Soft Skill 4: Teamwork
Soft Skill 5: Adaptability
But why are exactly these five soft skills in companies so important, and how can your employees learn or train them?
Soft Skill No. 1: Creativity
As a soft skill, creativity is the ability to develop good and as novel as possible solutions to problems. (soft-skills.com)
Solving problems and finding strategies is the foundation for the development of any company. Whether it’s new products, unique marketing, or innovative sales strategies — creativity as a soft skill is needed in all areas of business!
Creative employees constantly develop new ideas, try out new strategies, and bring creative drive. Provided creativity as a soft skill is not only encouraged but also channeled into productive paths, because without a focus on goals, even the most creative idea will not lead to success.
Learning creativity
To a certain extent, creativity, like all soft skills in companies, is more present in some employees than in others. But employees can also learn and train creative thinking. There are countless tips and guides for this, such as these 7 tricks for more creativity.
As already mentioned, it is especially important for companies to give creativity a framework. For example, it helps to ask the following questions:
What for? – Focus on the purpose of the creative work.
How? – Find different paths and approaches.
Why not? – Break out of habits and old patterns of thought.
You can teach employees such and many other methods in training to strengthen creativity and align the results with company goals. To implement soft skill training creatively right away, you can, for example, use sketchnotes directly!
Soft Skill No. 2: Persuasiveness
Persuasiveness describes the ability to assert oneself through argument in communicative exchanges with others. (soft-skills.com)
The newest idea, the most innovative product, the best service: none of it will bring a company to the top if others are not convinced by it! That is why persuasiveness is an important soft skill in companies — especially in sales or as a manager.
Learning persuasiveness
Persuasiveness as a soft skill is not a single competency, but includes many components:
The mental attitude toward the company, the idea, or even the other person
Basic knowledge, for example of didactics and conversation management
Special techniques of communication and argumentation
Especially the knowledge and techniques that contribute to persuasiveness can be taught in special soft skill trainings. Particularly important here are practical exercises, for example with coaches or other employees. Communication can only ever take place in dialogue!
Soft Skill No. 3: Analytical Thinking
Analytical thinking describes the ability to generally identify and solve problems. (karrierebibel.de)
Analytical skills are especially important when workflows are not very routine and are subject to frequent changes. Flexible working hours, modern work concepts, digitalization: Work 4.0 says hello!
Employees who think analytically approach all situations as systematically and scientifically as possible, categorize all relationships into “the big picture,” and derive logical conclusions from them. This way of thinking makes a major contribution not only to optimizing their own work, but also to contributing to the well-being of the entire company.
Learning analytical thinking
The soft skill analytical thinking has much in common with creativity: employees should above all learn structures and working methods that are aligned with company goals. In the sense of soft skill training, this also includes your employees’ self-learning skills.
Especially for leadership trainings, simulation games are also suitable. This works like the flight simulator in pilot training: situations from the company context are presented, analyzed, and further developed as realistically as possible. This sharpens analytical thinking using a practical example!
Soft skills such as creativity, teamwork, and analytical thinking are important for advancing companies effectively in the world of work 4.0.
Soft Skill No. 4: Teamwork
Teamwork is the umbrella term for the willingness and ability to interact productively and constructively with other people in groups. (soft-skills.com)
Teamwork is probably the soft skill most frequently requested of applicants. No wonder: the globalization of work brings together ever larger, often internationally active teams that work jointly on important company goals.
Employees with strong teamwork skills can fit well into a group, work together to develop constructive solutions, and combine everyone’s strengths for a shared (company) goal.
Learning teamwork
To achieve good teamwork, employees should above all learn and improve the following competencies:
Willingness to compromise: Combine your own ideas with those of the other team members and make the best choice for the goal at hand.
Language skills: Discussion and persuasive skills to bring your own ideas into the team convincingly.
Ability to handle criticism: Communicate criticism constructively and — often forgotten! — accept and implement criticism from others.
These and many other skills significantly improve the productive collaboration of teams. As with all soft skills, your employees learn these skills best with a combination of theoretical knowledge, for example on communication models, and practical exercises and experience.
Soft Skill No. 5: Adaptability
Adaptability describes the individual ability to contribute in often difficult situations in such a way that common goals are achieved faster and better. (kompetenzatlas.fh-wien.ac.at)
Why adaptability is among the top soft skills in companies today becomes clear again in the context of “Work 4.0” and “New Work”: work models are changing, processes are constantly being optimized, and digitalization is opening up new possibilities almost daily that one first has to adapt to.
Employees with high adaptability can easily settle into a new work environment and quickly adapt their way of working to new situations. An asset especially for internationally active or highly digitized companies!
Learning adaptability
Adaptability brings together many other competencies, such as creative problem-solving, analytical thinking, and teamwork. To promote the adaptability of your employees, supportive knowledge also helps:
Different models for project and time planning
Clear communication of company goals
Special training for agile work
These measures help your employees develop their own concepts and deal with new processes. Since such concepts depend heavily on personality, individual coaching is a good addition, especially for (future) managers.
How does modern soft skill training succeed?
As different as the top 5 soft skills in companies are, they do have some things in common when it comes to learning or improving them:
Soft skills are individual!
Soft skills are supported by knowledge!
Soft skills need practical training!
So training soft skills in companies requires continuing education methods that are both individual and convey factual knowledge while also including a practical component.
Especially in the context of Learning & Development, soft skills should not be trained in isolation, but clearly linked to strategic company goals. When competency models, career paths, and training offerings are aligned, individual training measures become a sustainable development program.
The perfect soft skill training with blended learning
Promoting soft skills in companies in a targeted way: what initially sounds terribly time-consuming can be easily implemented with the blended learning method.
In blended learning, different forms of learning are intertwined. In corporate training, online courses are combined with practical training or coaching to make use of the advantages of both training methods.
In the online course, factual knowledge is conveyed independently of location and time. A wide variety of media can be used flexibly: texts, graphics, and videos can also simply convey complex concepts and models.
In the face-to-face part, a trainer or coach supports employees in implementation, answers questions, and leads practical exercises. Through group discussions, situational exercises, and direct feedback, new workflows and behaviors are tried out and consolidated.
You can adapt blended learning freely to the goal of the training: you can use an online course as preparation for the in-person exercises, or use an in-person day as an impulse for long-term online support.
Conclusion
Soft skills become a competitive advantage when they are strategically developed and integrated into personnel development over the long term.
Creativity, persuasiveness, analytical thinking, teamwork, and adaptability are not “nice-to-have” qualities, but central success factors for modern companies. What matters, however, is not only which competencies are promoted, but how systematically and purposefully this happens.
With well-thought-out learning concepts and a clear development strategy, soft skill training becomes a permanent part of a future-oriented Learning & Development culture.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are soft skills so important for companies?
Soft skills influence how well employees collaborate, solve problems, cope with change, and implement ideas. Expertise alone is not enough for this. Especially creativity, persuasiveness, analytical thinking, teamwork, and adaptability help companies respond flexibly and effectively to new demands.
Can soft skills really be trained?
Yes, soft skills can be developed in a targeted way. Some skills are more pronounced in individual employees, but knowledge, methods, and practical exercises can improve them significantly. Training is especially effective when theoretical foundations are combined with realistic situations, feedback, and reflection.
Why is blended learning suitable for soft skill training?
Blended learning combines digital knowledge transfer with practical exercises. In the online course, employees can work through fundamentals, models, and methods flexibly. In in-person phases, coaching, or live sessions, this content is then applied, discussed, and consolidated through feedback.
Which soft skills should companies promote first?
That depends on the company goals. For innovation, creativity and analytical thinking are especially important. For sales, leadership, and collaboration, persuasiveness and teamwork play a major role. In change processes, adaptability is central. It is important not to plan soft skill training in isolation, but to link it to concrete challenges in the company.
Updated on 02/26/2026
