Soft skill training and Functional training, are they
complementary or competing to each other? Mundane, but becomes Pertinent when it is
about time for an MBA second year student to prepare for a job role in the
industry. At this point of time the MBA is at a juncture where he is about to
venture into something he always wanted to be – A JOB.
At this point apart from other things following 2 shall
surely help:
- Training on Personal
attributes that enhance an individual's interactions, social graces,
communication, language, personal habits etc.
- Training on Skill
sets and abilities to perform a certain type of task or activity.
Both the above constitute to form EMPLOYABILITY
TRAINING which is less recognised in many universities today. Above,
former being SOFT SKILLS TRAINING &
latter being FUNCTIONAL TRAINING are hence
complementary to each other and inter woven. Functional Soft skills are a
valuable component and is a distinguishing factor impacting the probability of
student success in the institution and the work. Just as college and career
readiness initiatives span the academic spectrum, Functional soft skills
development programs can be integrated into the MBA curriculum.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to incorporating
Functional soft skills, B- schools seem to find success when they embed the
Functional soft skills materials in the curriculum and integrate those skills
with academic coursework.
Now, let us look at the following 2 illustrations to
understand it simply:
- Illustration 1 has
the student trained on soft skills through conventional methods of
teaching.
- Illustration 2 has
the student to undergo functionally integrated soft skill training.
The above illustrations showcase two experiments with
implementing Functional soft skills across disciplines and in a variety of
contexts. Various B-schools in India adopt and have varied outcomes. The
question here is whether we need to take a re-look at our scheme of things. Let
us not jump on to determine the outcomes of these, but their experiences offer
ideas for reaching students in a unique way to develop those soft skills integrated
functionally deemed most vital to students’ college and career readiness.