In addition to professional know-how, soft skills play an increasingly important role in job search and professional life. But how can you improve them? Through the combination of subject-specific, methodological and social challenges, business simulations offer a holistic learning experience in which the participants train both hard and soft skills.
Why are soft skills so important?
While professional qualifications are crucial for getting a certain job, it is often soft skills that decide whether a candidate is hired or a team member is later promoted. Social skills give a competitive advantage: Candidates with comparable degrees and similar expertise stand out from their competitors primarily through teamwork, communication skills and methodological knowledge. Studies have shown that the employability of university graduates increases significantly if they have a combination of relevant hard and soft skills.1
A LinkedIn study also shows how urgently companies are looking for soft skills in new applicants. 57% of the executives surveyed state that soft skills are even more important to them than hard skills.2 A targeted training of social and methodological skills is therefore highly recommended for professional careers.
How can business simulations improve soft skills?
Leadership and communication skills, collaboration and time management – According to Linkedin, these are the TOP 4 soft skills that recruiters are looking for.2 It is precisely these skills that can be trained using business simulations:
- Leadership Skills
In business simulations, participants take on the management role of a business and make relevant management decisions for their company. Assertiveness as well as strategic thinking are required here: Groups independently develop a corporate strategy for their operations and have to adapt them to the external circumstances again and again during the simulation. Teams train how to deal with complex situations and improve their ability to solve problems. They learn to express their own opinions, to communicate with teammates and to prioritize.
- Collaboration
Teamwork is a central part of business simulations. Participants face the challenge of making decisions and finding consensus as quickly as possible. A reasonable allocation of roles and mutual coordination are crucial for the group result. Only if the team members cooperate and pursue the same goals and strategies they will lead their operations to success.
- Communication skills
Communication in the team plays an important role in the process of decision-making. Participants learn with and from each other through the exchange of ideas, team discussions and mutual feedback. They practice working out effective solutions through goal-oriented communication and develop the exchange of work that takes place in real business life.
- Time management
During the simulation-based seminar, self-management, responsibility, flexibility and reliability of the participants are put to the test. In each decision-making period, groups have to analyze their previous performance within a specified period of time, inform themselves about developments in the market and make new management decisions based on this. Through this demanding task, participants learn to act under time pressure and to organize themselves in a group.
Business simulations prepare learners for professional, methodical and interpersonal challenges in the real workplace. You can choose the main goals and learning content of a simulation-based seminar flexibly. With the help of additional tasks, seminar facilitators can focus their learning course on acquiring hard or soft skills, depending on the learning objective.
Would you like to use business simulations in your organization and need more information? We are happy to answer your questions by phone or email to [email protected].
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