Soft or hard skills? Power Skills have the future!

Lotte is an online marketer at company X and has aspirations to become a marketing manager. She wonders: what do I need to do to land this promotion? Devour all the books, TEDTalks and webinars on marketing? Follow an MBA? In short: become the very best marketer in the entire company? No. What Lotte needs are Power Skills.

Power skills as a basis for success

The term Power Skills may not mean much to you (yet). Usually you hear about the familiar terms hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are function-related skills. Programming, designing a customer journey or extinguishing a fire. Soft skills are about communicating, collaborating and team building. The “people skills,” so to speak. But mastering soft and hard skills at the right level is where employees are in their prime.

Focusing on both hard and soft skills is what takes a professional progress in his or her career. ‘Soft’ skills are not soft at all. You need them badly. Take Lotte, for example. What does Lotte need to be able to do as a marketing manager? Responding empathetically to a team member who is being disruptive and at the same time including him or her in her strategy. Leverage with the MT and know how to influence stakeholders in a results-oriented way. She must be able to shift gears and change course if a pandemic breaks out. She needs drive, optimism and curiosity.

These are not soft skills or hard skills, but Power Skills. And most you don’t learn during your bachelor’s degree.

Through soft and hard skills, power skills you develop employees and organizations

Take inclusion and diversity. These are important themes for many CEOs. Organizations that are more inclusive perform better. How do you train people to look at the possibilities and talents of candidates, without being influenced by origin, gender or physical limitations?

Or another theme: data-driven work. Many organizations have bet on big data. Entire deserts are full of data centers. But how do you interpret that information? What will you (not) do based on that data? Employees need the important Power Skills to turn data into actions.

Developing soft and hard skills starts with Lepaya and Smartenup

As of November 24, 2020, Smartenup has been officially acquired by Lepaya. Lepaya specializes in offering blended Power Skills training. Smartenup is a training company that supports professionals to work more data-driven.

By combining analytical skills with soft skills, Lepaya strengthens its position in the training market. By merging the expertise with Lepaya’s proven soft skills method, together we will offer the full spectrum of skills from 2021 onwards. In other words, all the important Power Skills!

Is your organization ready for the future?

By investing in Power Skills, you prepare employees, teams and organizations for the future. Because if 2020 has taught us anything it’s this: the world can look completely different tomorrow.

With the merger of Smartenup and Lepaya, we have all the power in house to make 2021 a great year.

And Lotte? She’ll get there!