Soft skills may be the answer

I read with interest your special report “People Power” (MW August 5). How refreshing to have an article in a marketing magazine that actually focuses on the people side of the job and the general apathy that faces marketing professionals who want to learn.

It outlined the well-known conundrum – companies won’t invest in people because they think they will leave and take the skills with them, and individuals leave because they feel uninvested in and not part of the long-term future of the company.

However, I believe what was missing from the article was the area that organisations tend to leave to the luck of the draw (or recruiting the right type of personality) – the soft skills that all of us involved in marketing are supposed to have inherently. Or do we?

Surely a significant area of development for anyone involved in marketing is interpersonal and communication skills?

And for agencies, if your client-facing people are not able to develop and manage accounts, who knows what opportunities might be slipping you by?

By investing in these skills, organisations could very soon see the benefits, not only in staff morale, but in customer loyalty.

Marketing agencies implementing customer and employee retention strategies? Now there’s a thought.

Penny Cooper

Marketing manager, UK

AchieveGlobal

(e-mail)