The 11 most in-demand soft skills

Sometimes an employee's ability to communicate efficiently with team members or their natural organizational skills are just as — if not more — important than the technical aspects of their job. 

Forty-eight percent of companies are looking to expand on existing skill sets within their workforce, according to name generation platform Business Name Generator's recent survey. In order to do that, 84% of employees and managers believe new employees must possess soft skills when entering the workforce, and to make it easy on both parties, the platform listed those most in-demand. 

"The introduction of new technologies like AI has catalyzed the shift in demand for specific skills, requiring employees to deepen their existing skill sets or acquire new ones," Katrina Haggarty, a spokesperson from Business Name Generator, said in a release. "Many of these will be soft skills — the personal attributes and non-technical skills that describe how people work and interact with others." 

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Seventy-one percent of employees believe soft skills will be more or just as important in the future, according to the survey. Communication, problem solving and time management were ranked by respondents as the most important soft skills for employees to possess.

"Growing companies are looking to recruit staff with in-demand skills to ensure they address their changing business needs," Haggarty said. "Even though there is talk of AI and automation taking over jobs, the study goes to show that human skills are still invaluable in the eyes of employers."

See what other soft skills made it onto Business Name Generator's list: