Re-invigorating Business Education curriculum for enhanced service delivery: The place of soft skills

摘要

Without doubt, individuals, organizations and governments acknowledge the invaluable contributions of training to human capital development, which, by extension, reflect in improved service delivery and turn-over. It is no surprise, therefore, that every year, many of these organizations commit substantial parts of their appropriations to, not only training but also retraining of their staff. The Human Resource and Public Relations departments which take charge of recruitment and orientation of new staff, and manage the organisation's relationship with its publics respectively, usually feature prominently in in-house programmes to 'brush- up' staff in the fine art of relating and dealing with both colleagues and clients. However, a cursory observation will confirm that much of existing Business curriculum generally appears to focus on concepts, theories and procedures to the neglect of those fine-grain soft skills which help create a warm work-place atmosphere and enhance retention of quality clientele. The concern, then, is: should soft skills not be given respectable coverage in a Business education curriculum? For this reason, therefore, this paper examines the nature of soft skills and their potential contributions to improved service delivery and company patronage. The paper also urges that, as a matter of necessity, business curricula should not only make ample provision for soft skills, especially in response to rapidly-changing business environment, but also, business organisations should promote such by recognizing and rewarding staff who demonstrate the skills in their day-to-day work schedules, whether dealing with co-workers or customers.