Honing Those Soft Skills.

• Author: Shein, Christie
• Position: THE WORKPLACE

McDonald's workforce preparedness survey seeks to understand American opinion of skills development and workforce preparedness across generations. Soft skills--such as teamwork, customer service, and responsibility--were found to be overwhelmingly important.

"As the workforce gets older, our nation is facing a seismic shift in the workplace, one that will require all business owners to take a fresh look at employee training and development," says Melissa Kersey, McDonald's chief people officer. 'As employers, we should reexamine which skills matter most, especially for the next generation entering the workforce. We should lay that foundation for employees to build the soft skills they need that will serve them throughout their career."

Some of the study findings include: soft skills, such as teamwork, customer service, and responsibility, are seen as more important than hard skills, such as computer programming or accounting, for positioning young employees for success at the beginning of a career; in terms of cultivating soft skills, workplace experience and, in particular, first jobs are seen as being especially important--more so than developing them at school or...