Category: Soft Skills

The Moving Ahead Program of St. Francis House, Boston

Several years ago, I had the privilege of being invited to a special graduation celebration for a half-dozen adults who had successfully completed the Moving Ahead Program offered by the St. Francis House in Boston, Massachusetts.

“MAP”, as it’s known, is a 14-week job- and life-skills training program for individuals who have experienced serious disruption in their personal life: homelessness, addiction, mental illness, incarceration.

MAP offers essential tools, training, and support to those who are accepted into the program:

  • Transitional housing
  • One-on-one job coaching support
  • Internship opportunities
  • Weekly stipend and public transportation pass
  • Clothing and image consultation program
  • Individualized counseling, referrals, and legal support
  • Lifetime access to St. Francis House services through its Alumni Program

MAP “Life Skills” instructors teach:

  • Resume writing
  • Online job searching, filing applications electronically
  • Preparing for interviews
  • Setting goals
  • Developing positive interpersonal relationships
  • Dealing with trauma and negative emotions

The MAP program works!

  • A total of 97 students were served in 2018, with a graduation rate of 70%
  • 82% of graduates were employed at time of graduation
  • Average hourly wage of employed graduates was 42% more than the Massachusetts minimum wage

The MAP program has been recognized!

  • Selected by HUD to serve as a “best practices” model for other HUD-funded programs considering replicating MAP
  • MAP-Topeka (Kansas) and MAP-St. Louis (Missouri) both launched

But for me, the MAP success I’ll never forget was what I experienced at the graduation ceremony:

  • the JOY and GRATITUDE of the graduates!

For more on the Moving Ahead Program at St. Francis House, Boston, see https://stfrancishouse.org/programs/moving-ahead-program/

Four Reasons Why Introverts Make Good Mentors

In the workplace, employees chosen to mentor less experienced staff are generally selected on the basis of their objective work skills. For example, if the mentee is joining the accounting department, then a more senior employee in that department is often chosen as the mentor. Similarly, if the mentee is an apprentice tradesman, the mentor chosen is a colleague more skilled in that trade and in how it’s carried out in the workplace.

But, the subjective (or “soft”) skills of a mentor matter, too. If you’re an introvert and have been chosen to be a mentor because of your technical skills, know that you have even more to offer!

Here are four (more) reasons why introverts can make good mentors:

  1. Introverts prefer to develop fewer, more meaningful professional relationships rather than to engage in relatively superficial relationships with a large network. The benefit to the mentee:  your mentor is more than willing to invest time and energy in your mentor/mentee relationship.
  2. Introverts are good listeners. The benefit to the mentee:  your mentor will be attentive to what you’re saying, enabling her to engage in a relevant two-way conversation and to focus on achieving a mutually satisfying outcome.
  3. Introverts thnk, and think, and think again before speaking up or offering solutions. The benefit to the mentee: your mentor will respond thoughtfully to the issues important to you both, and provide you with her most useful perspectives, informed by her knowledge of the company’s “big picture” goals.
  4. Introverts love ideas, images, thought experiments, and “what ifs” – all things related to their inner world. The benefit to the mentee: your mentor will welcome ideas that to you may seem “out-of-the-box,” perhaps even “out of left field.” But, as a mentor with company goals in mind, she’ll then want to test them and vet them for “do-ability” within your work environment.

For all you introvert mentors (and would-be-mentors): recognize that your preferred work styles facilitate satisfying and productive mentor/mentee relationships.  Your collegial and productive discussions directly benefit the company and can direct you both toward achieving your business and professional goals.

Putting Hard Numbers on Soft Skills

Which of the following skills helps make your company more profitable? Which of these skills is essential to your career progression?

  • Communication skills
  • Team-work skills
  • Decision-making skills
  • Time management skills

Qualitatively, most of us would select at least one of these skills as being important to our company’s financial success as well as to our own. Increasingly, companies are focusing on quantifying the extent to which these soft skills add economic value to their enterprise.

On behalf of McDonald’s Corporation, a major employer in the United Kingdom, the firm Development Economics (https://developmenteconomics.co.uk/) prepared and published a report on “The Value of Soft Skills to the UK Economy.” An important objective of this research was to confirm and quantify the economic benefits of soft skills such as those McDonald’s considers core to its business success and which are included in its well-developed employee assessment tools and training systems.  Results from this research include:

  • The value of the contribution of soft skills to the UK economy is worth approximately US$111 billion annually (close to 7% of the total UK economy as a whole)
  • By 2020, the annual contribution of soft skills is expected to grow to US$137 billion; by 2025, the value is projected to be US$160 billion.
  • By 2020, deficits in employee soft skills are expected to hold back the advancement of as many as 535,000 UK workers (close to 2% of current number employed in UK labor market).
  • In 2020, loss of production due to employee soft skills deficits is estimated to be US$11 billion.

The report prepared by Development Economics is comprehensive, quantitative, and well worth reading. Such attention to quantification of the economic impact of soft skills is timely (perhaps just-in-time!) as concerns increase about the effect of automation and artificial intelligence on employment options in the future, particularly in high tech. “High touch” job opportunities will continue to thrive and grow, especially in those companies whose competitive differentiation depends on excelling in delivering exceptional customer service experiences.

Reference:

https://www.allthingsic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/The-Value-of-Soft-Skills-to-the-UK-Economy.pdf

See also:

https://developmenteconomics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/McDonaldsReport-FINAL-1.pdf

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