Why soft skills matter: how honing qualities such as empathy and resilience can boost your success at work

They’re called soft skills – but as anyone who’s tried to master them will tell you, they’re quite hard to get right. There are many reasons why so-called soft skills are tough to get a handle on, including the fact that they’re so difficult to describe, identify and measure, and many of us haven’t been taught how to develop them.

But in recent years business leaders have realised how critical these skills are and they’re increasingly sought-after in the job market.

So what are soft skills exactly? “Soft skills are nontechnical traits and abilities such as emotional intelligence and communication,” says Laura Pycraft, a talent-management specialist based in Johannesburg.