New Maryland Company Releases White Paper on Soft Skills at Work

BALTIMORE - July 24, 2017 - PRLog -- Serious Soft Skills LLC, a new Towson, Md.-based company, has released a white paper, Using Soft Skills in the Workplace, which offers important new insights about the role of soft skills in organizations.

The white paper compiles nearly 500 survey responses from people at all organizational levels, ranging from people seeking jobs and those without management responsibilities, to mid-level managers and leaders.

Among the key findings:

·       Workers at all levels and people looking for work value the role of soft skills in their professional lives.
·       Interest in soft skills spans all ages, genders and work experience levels.
·       Communication and critical-thinking skills are perceived as the most important soft skills.
·       An employee's level within an organization influences the emphasis placed on different types of soft skills.

"We believe that this survey reinforces how important soft skills are within today's organizations," said Bob Graham, who co-founded Serious Soft Skills LLC with Dr. Tobin Porterfield. "Soft skills are increasingly becoming the glue that holds organizations together in the midst of unprecedented change."

Porterfield added, "A worker's portfolio of soft skills not only improves his or her career success, but it also can give a company a huge advantage. Yet we continue to overlook or undervalue these critically important tools."

The white paper can be accessed at http://serioussoftskills.com/wppr

Porterfield and Graham, who each teach college at Baltimore area universities, have conducted three published studies on soft skills and they continue to research the role of soft skills in organizations.

The white paper is the first phase in the company's launch. Graham and Porterfield will release a book on soft skills in the workplace by fall and a new podcast, Serious Soft Skills, will be available in early August. Video previews of the first episodes of the podcast are available at http://serioussoftskills.com/prvideo

Porterfield and Graham have been studying soft skills for the last four years, with three academic studies being published. Both men work with students in their classrooms to develop soft skills, and they have each seen the value of good soft skills in their professional careers. The new company is their means for helping people better understand, evaluate and employ soft skills in their careers and their workplaces.

Serious Soft Skills, as the name implies, is dedicated to improving people's understanding of the role of these soft skills, how they can be enhanced and what you can achieve with them. More information is available at SeriousSoftSkills.com.