Beyond the Business Communication Course: A ...

Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates Catherine MacDermott* and Lorelei Ortiz** The paper outlines the recent history of business graduates' job readiness from the perspective of relevant research in the areas of workplace soft skills, training, employer perceptions, and the role of colleges and universities (beyond the business communication course) in preparing business students to enter the workforce. Also discussed are demographic trends affecting the US job market as baby boomers steadily head towards retirement and employers look to millennials to fill employment gaps? In order to provide the perspective of recent business graduates, the paper includes findings of a survey study of 108 new hires in the US regarding their perception of the most important soft skills necessary for job effectiveness and those skills most utilized in their jobs. Oral and written communication, in addition to other related soft skills, are identified by new hires as essential to job effectiveness. From this paper, readers can fortify their historical understanding of ‘job readiness’ from both the employer and graduate standpoint, identify current soft skills trending as desired employability skills for business graduates, and ascertain where and how students can gain the necessary soft skills to be successful upon entry into the workplace.

Introduction We have heard the discussions for decades. Scholarly research articles, noted business publications, and well-respected business executives have been talking about the ongoing challenge of finding employees—and in particular, new graduates—who possess job readiness skills. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, fueled the emphasis on the importance of a skilled workforce. A look back at the literature during those years shows that we were quickly moving to a global world where money, goods, and services knew no borders and employee *

Professor, Business Communication, St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas, US. E-mail: [email protected]

**

Professor, Business Communication, Chair, Department of Management, St. Edward's University, Austin, Texas, US; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

© 2017 IUP. All RightsCommunication Reserved. Beyond the Business Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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skill sets needed to adapt to the demands of a global workforce (Reich, 1987 and 1992). The emphasis on a well-trained labor force proved to be the key to the success of an information-driven, global and competitive economy (Reich, 1987). Where employee creativity was once discouraged, it is now needed for competitiveness in today’s workplace. The recent increase in service jobs requires a new set of employability skills, also known as readiness skills, that encompass problemsolving, decision making, communication, flexibility, self-confidence, social skills, team skills, professionalism, and self-management (Carnevale, 1991; Peddle, 2000; Robinson, 2000; Doria et al., 2003; Apparaju, 2016; Lim et al., 2016; Sake, 2016; Tewari and Sharma, 2016). Two significant questions reiterated in books and articles since the 1990s have dealt with: (1) How employers find good workers with desirable employability skills; and (2) What training is necessary for those lacking the required skills (Hofstrand, 1996; Taylor, 1998; Tanyel et al., 1999; and Robinson, 2000). A larger question raised today impacts colleges and universities around the world: what role do colleges and universities play in providing graduates the requisite soft skills demanded in today’s workforce? In the US, this question has never been more relevant given the growing and well documented disconnect between perceptions of job readiness—where students claim readiness while employers disagree (Jaschik, 2015)—and the 72% increase in the number of international students in American universities since 2000 (Haynie, 2014). The paper provides an examination of decades of employers’ pleas for skilled workers, a look at the training historically provided to newly minted employees by organizations as well as the decline of training offered, and the demographic trends impacting hiring. The paper also provides the new employee perspective through the findings of a 2014 survey of 108 recent US graduates about their workplace preparedness and which soft skills are most important in the early months and years of their careers. The goal of the literature and the survey findings that follow is to bridge gaps in our understanding of job readiness for business graduates and to reveal opportunities for colleges and universities to more intentionally incorporate soft skills development in the business communication curriculum and beyond.

Literature Review Workplace Skills Demand As early as 1960, Kerr et al. argued that technology determines skill requirements. This belief continues today as post-secondary institutions try to find a balance between the workplace demands of knowledge and the skill sets essential to meeting current technological demands (Renuga and Ezhilan, 2014). Between 1960 and 1985 the changing work-related and business structure of the economy demanded less in motor skills and more in critical thinking and interpersonal skills among its employees as technology began to dictate skills most needed in the workplace (Lerman and Schmidt, 1999; and Jackson, 2007). Cappelli (1993) found that manufacturing occupations considerably upgraded skill requirements between 1978 and 1986. The most valued job2

The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, Vol. XI, No. 2, 2017

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entry skills in the late 1980s were communication skills, specifically, oral communication, listening, and written communication (Morreale et al., 2000). By the early 1990s, we began to see more demand for strong oral and written communication skills and interpersonal skills as the workplace arena shifted to team-driven, crossfunctional teams that required interactions with a diverse customer base (Davison and Davison, 1993; and Raymond et al., 1993). At the end of that decade, the ability to communicate ranked first among the personal qualities of college graduates sought by employers (Wah, 1998). As we entered the 21st century, employers began lamenting the fact that new hires, in addition to lacking well-developed communication skills, also lacked problem-solving skills, motivation, persuasion, and critical thinking skills—skills that today define soft skills (Peddle, 2000; Doria et al., 2003; Minton-Eversole, 2012; and Apparaju, 2016). Soft skills are often described as an art (Belzer, 2004; Conger, 1998; and Ravindranath, 2016) that requires high levels of emotional/social intelligence, language ability, and training in the art of persuasion (Cialdini, 2012). Soft skills are now considered essential in “the process of managing and working with people, guaranteeing customer satisfaction with the purpose of retaining them, [and] forming a favorable atmosphere. . . to deliver high quality products within budget, on time, consequently going beyond the expectations of the stakeholders (Ravindranath, 2016, p. 16). A 2010 survey conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) attempted to unravel the root cause of deficient soft skills in new hires. Survey results found that 91% of respondents indicate the change of pace in business today is the leading cause, followed by global competitiveness, the nature of how work is accomplished, and the way organizations are structured. According to the AMA survey, 80% of executives believe that blending the three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and the four C’s (critical thinking/ problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity/innovation) would ensure students are better prepared to meet the demands of today’s workforce. This statement exemplifies the current trend of thought that, increasingly, it is the university’s role to prepare students for the workforce. And while subsequent studies from the 1980s to the present have consistently revealed employer concerns about communication and soft skills deficits among new members of the workforce, the question of responsibility has never been fully addressed. It is clear that the business communication course in the business core seems to play a considerable role in supporting student development of soft skills. However, other opportunities may exist, both curricular and co-curricular, to support soft skills development beyond the business communication course—and universities have an obligation to explore how best to fill this long-standing deficit.

Training To better understand how university and curricular roles might be reshaped, it is important to examine the training historically provided to employees by organizations and the decline of such training opportunities in the past few decades. There is limited Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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data documenting corporate training practices over time. However, a handful of researchers have shed light on organizations’ historical role in taking responsibility for correcting employee deficiencies as the economy shifted the needs of employers (Peddle, 2000; Carnevale and Fry, 2001; AMA, 2010; Davidson, 2012; Cappelli, 2014; and Wells, 2015). pls chk not there in the references ?


In the 1970s, American workers received an average of 2.5 weeks of training a year (Cappelli, 2012). By the next decade, during the 1980 recession, companies became more cost-conscious and cut back (Davidson, 2012). Between 1983 and 1991, the US Bureau of Labor cited that workers receiving formal training increased from 11% to 16%. However, according to the 1994 US Department of Labor census, less than half of the small to mid-sized companies offered skills training (Carnevale and Fry, 2001). Cappelli’s (2014) research on training trends in the late 20th century revealed that by the mid-1990s, the average amount of training workers received per year was under 11 hours, and the most common training topic was workforce safety—not the development and enhancement of new skills. Corporate training dollars shrunk considerably during the 2007-2009 recession and few companies have returned to days of extensive new hire training (Davidson, 2012). In contrast to company-dedicated employee training, only 21% of employee respondents in a 2011 Accenture survey indicated that in a five-year period, from 2006-2011, they had received skills training, compared to the 2.5 weeks of training per year offered to employees in the 1970s. As companies weathered Y2K, employers began to feel the exponential change in the global and technological economy during the first decade of the 21st century. They also faced shifting company budgets that provided little to no training funds for employees who needed soft skills to work in a business world with people from varying backgrounds, cultures, and ages. Employers feared that the gap between required skills and applied skills would only become greater as we moved further into the 21st century (Peddle, 2000; Rozanki and Cohen, 2003; David and David, 2011, and Minton-Eversole, 2012).

The Role of Colleges and Universities In 1999, John Reed, Chairman of Citicorp and the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Executive of the year, asked of business schools, “Do you give students a set of skills that is going to serve them well over their careers?” An interesting debate ensued: How well are colleges and universities preparing graduates for the workplace? The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) as well as the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) conducts annual employer surveys about new graduate career preparation. Along with determining employer needs, other research has looked at the gap between what the workplace demands of new hires and how well colleges and universities are helping students translate their academic accomplishments into workplace success (Peddle, 2000; Thomas, 2007; David and David, 2011; Dragoo and Barrows, 2016; and Tewari and Sharma, 2016). 4


Oblinger and Verville (1998) answered John Reed’s 1999 question by stating, “The work world has changed enormously and higher education has not.” Instead, universities and colleges were seen as places that train students to proclaim their ideas, rather than expose students to the values of being exceptional communicators. Furthermore, employers were critical of schools producing graduates who were able to apply business-school formulas but who were not skilled in being collaborative thinkers trained in problem-solving and communication, competencies needed to be not only academically ready but job ready (Carnevale and Fry, 2001; Robinson et al., 2007; Minton-Eversole, 2012; and Tewari and Sharma, 2016). The 1998 criticism of higher education was reinforced in a 2011 content analysis study of job descriptions, student resumes, course syllabi, and business textbooks which revealed a gap between business school curriculum and skills required of new hires (David and David, 2011). Similar to other studies, the job description analysis study advocates for stronger communication skills and soft skills in recent graduates (AAC&U, 2013; Kleckner and Marshall, 2014; Renuga and Ezhilan, 2014; Zimmer, 2014; and Messum et al., 2015). While industry and technology move at a rapid pace, the current post-secondary education system seems slow to review and revise curriculum and move beyond the transfer of knowledge to focus more on developing the skills required to succeed. The point is conceded that employers want institutions to deliver graduates who have the skills necessary for workplace success; however, the perceptions of business and academic leaders in graduate job readiness presents a noticeable gap. A 2011 Gallup survey found that 96% of college and university academic officers felt extremely or somewhat confident in their institution’s ability to prepare graduates for success in today’s workplace. Yet in a Gallup-Lumina poll of 623 US business leaders, only 11% of the respondents strongly agreed that today’s college graduates possess the skills businesses require (Weathers, 2014). Further, adding to the employer-university perception gap is the additional chasm that exists between the preparedness and confidence level of new graduates and the views of those who hire them. Asking college students how well prepared they are for their future careers postgraduation and asking employers how able graduates are to meet workplace demands yields two very different responses. Students nearing graduation consistently rank themselves as prepared in key areas such as oral communication, written communication, critical and creative thinking, and teamwork, all the things many colleges and universities speak to in their mission statements (AACU, 2013) and the critical skills sought after by employers (GMAC, 2014). In a 2015 Hart Research survey of 613 college students, 74% of respondents indicated that their university programs are doing an effective job preparing them to have the skills needed for workplace success. In contrast, of the 400 employers surveyed in the same study, fewer than 3 in 10 thought graduates are prepared, especially in critical thinking skills, and written and oral communication skills. Too often, graduates do not realize the Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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importance of acquiring these critical soft skills until they enter the workforce, a workforce that provides minimal to no training.

Demographic Trends The millennials, those born between 1982-2004 (Strauss and Howe, 1997) were supposed to be the generation practically guaranteed a job upon graduation. After all, there was an expectation that a mass career exodus of baby boomers (those born between 1946-1964) would open thousands of jobs for the newly graduated millennials. However, the downturn in the economy, coupled with the changing retirement plan participation system rather than the pension system previously known to US workers, delayed retirement for a large generation and kept the job market exceedingly tight for new college graduates. This, however, appears to be changing in the next five years as boomers reach age 65. Data from the Pew Research Center indicated that 10,000 baby boomers will reach age 65 every day during the next two decades, and the oldest of the 77 million boomers began turning 65 in 2011 (Minton-Eversole, 2012). If it is true that 65% of workers retire by age 65 (Sightings, 2014), companies will be left with a significant workforce deficit in addition to a void in soft skill savvy employees. A 2012 SHRM-AARP survey found 51% of HR managers indicated that a skills gap between workers 31 and younger and those in the 50-plus age range would impact the workforce as more and more boomers retired. The survey pointed to a predicted deficit in writing, speaking, professionalism, and work ethic. Given the demographic statistics, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce within the next 10 years (Sightings, 2014). This will require our now underemployed college graduates, who are in low-wage jobs that offer little on-the-job skill development, to step into leadership roles that require strong soft skills (Merrick, 2016). Are they ready? How can universities and business programs improve graduates’ preparation and increase their probability of success? To answer this question we must first understand what new hires know upon graduation and how they rate their own job readiness skills upon entering the workforce.

The Survey Study The subsequent exploratory survey study is an attempt to better understand what new hires discover about their workplace preparedness and to ascertain specifically which soft skills are most important in the early months and years of their careers. Perhaps more importantly, the results of this study provide the information needed to start the discussions of ways business programs can be more intentional in focusing on the longterm soft skills students need throughout their careers, those very skills we have seen at the top of employer lists of preferences for decades.

Methodology The authors used a 7-question Qualtrics survey to investigate the frequency and importance of daily oral and written communication skills and other soft skills 6


most used by new hires as they interacted with various audiences including customers, supervisors, co-workers, vendors, and potential clients. In addition to collecting demographic information about major area of undergraduate study and number of years in the workplace, the authors also collected data to determine the size of the employees’ organization and the industry and job title represented by the employee. The guiding research questions of the study include: (a) Which oral and written communication skills, and other soft skills do you use on a daily basis?; and (b) How important are those skills to the success of your job? The survey used a mixed-methods approach, including a Likert-type scale, with seven quantitative questions, asking participants to rate and rank responses, and one qualitative question requesting descriptive text. One of the primary goals of the survey was to better understand what soft skills are most important to a new hire’s success and ultimately how prepared graduates feel as a result of their academic study. Therefore, the survey asked questions such as (a) “Which of the following oral/written/soft skills are most important for new hires?” and (b) “Which of the following oral/written/soft skills do you use on a daily basis and how important are they to the success of your job?” To both questions, respondents rank ordered the skills followed by a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 being not used and 5 being very important. In addition, respondents were asked, “in the first years of employment, approximately what percentage of the day do you spend communicating with the following audiences?” (formatted as a multiple-choice question with a sliding scale for employees to indicate percentage of time spent communicating with a particular audience). The open-ended question, “what soft skills do you wish you had developed in college to better prepare you for the work you now do?” was formatted as a fill-in-the-blank question. The researchers used Qualtrics data analytics and performed keyword searches to look for themes and patterns based on repeated word frequency. Before launching the August 2014 survey, the authors field-tested the survey with five different graduates ranging from newly graduated and recently employed to those who had been in the workforce for three years, following their undergraduate graduation. Field-test feedback on clarity of instructions and questions as well as ease of survey navigation was taken into consideration before distributing the final survey to 320 business school graduates (BBAs) from a small, private, liberal arts university in the US.

Results Of the 320 business graduates surveyed, 108 valid survey responses were received from graduates. The majority of respondents (84%) graduated between 2010-2013. Sixteen percent graduated in 2014. Respondents’ majors spanned across various business disciplines, as represented in Table 1. Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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Table 1: Undergraduate Majors of Survey Respondents Finance

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Marketing

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International Business

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4%

Entrepreneurship

3%

Economics

3%

Despite the various majors reflected, 27% indicated their primary work is management-related. Fifteen percent identified as analysts, 11% identified as accountants and 10% indicated their jobs focused on sales. The remaining respondents associated their work with banking, consulting, event planning, healthcare, law, engineering, marketing, and real estate. When rank ordering the percentage of time communicating with various stakeholders, the respondents indicated they communicate most with their colleagues, followed by clients/customers, then potential customers, employees they supervise, and finally, with supervisors. Given this rank ordering of audience, it was interesting to learn which oral communication skills respondents found the most important in order to be effective on the job, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Respondents Oral Communication Skills Rankings Oral Communication Skills (in order of importance)

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pls note the change

Recent hires listed proper grammar, engaging in conversation, taking initiative, and team communication as the four oral skills they consider most important for job effectiveness, aligning with findings of relevant research (Robles, 2012; and Ortiz et al., 2016). However, as illustrated in Figure 2, when asked which oral skills they use most on the job, these same respondents listed the same three top skills but noted that persuasive communication and conflict resolution are used more frequently than expected, supporting Apparaju (2016) and Conger (1998) on the importance of persuasive skills for business graduates. Figure 2: Oral Communication Skills Most Used by New Hires

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Us ing pro per En gag gra ing mm in ar c on ve r sat ion Tak ing Per ini sua tiat siv ive ec om mu nic Res atio ol v n ing con P la nn flic ing t f or Me me etin etin gp gs art Bad ici pat new ion sc om mu nic atio n Tel e Ac ph cep on e tin g fee db Cri ack sis com mu nic atio Giv n ing f e Tea edb m ack com mu nic atio n

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Equally important to oral communication skills, survey respondents indicated which written communication skills they found the most important in order to be effective in their jobs. As evidenced in Figure 3, respondents listed writing e-mails, spelling correctly, use of proper grammar and punctuation as the top three written skills necessary for job effectiveness, similar to findings of studies such as Lim et al. (2016). When asked which written communication skills they use most on the job, respondents listed proper grammar/spelling, writing e-mails, and crisis communication as the skills most used, shown in Figure 4. While much of the literature includes oral and written communication skills as part of a larger needed skill set referred to as ‘soft skills’ (Aiken et al., 1994; Scheetz, 1995; Doria et al., 2003; Minton-Eversole, 2012; Kleckner and Marshall, 2014; Mishra, 2014; Weaver, 2014; Messum et al., 2015; and GMAC 2014-2016) the survey also identified a subset of soft skills respondents feel are used most such as listening, time management, and positive attitude, as illustrated in Figure 5. Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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Figure 3: Respondents Written Communication Skills Rankings Written Communication Skills (in order of importance)

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Figure 4: Written Communication Skills Most Used by New Hires

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Figure 5: Soft Skills Used Most Often by New Hires

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Li s ten ing Tim e m ana gem Pos ent itiv ea ttit ud Cri e tic al thi nki ng Wo rk eth ic Ad apt abi lity Pro bl e ms ol v ing P r ofe Un ssio der sta nal nd ism ing per son alit ies Fr i end li n Wo e ss rk un der pre ssu re Tea mp lay er

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Respondents listed similar soft skills such as professionalism, listening, understanding personalities/audience, and confidence as skills they consider most important to their job effectiveness, shown in Figure 6. Figure 6: Soft Skills Most Important for Job Effectiveness According to New Hires

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Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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Discussion Despite recent studies showing that students overestimate their soft skills abilities compared to employers’ perceptions of these skills in new hires (Zimmer, 2014; Hart Research Association, 2015; and Valenter, 2015), the results of this study show that employers and new hires are mostly in agreement about the communication and soft skills required to be successful in today’s workplace.


The survey findings underscore the specific skills that new hires consider most important for success on the job, correlating with the skill sets employers have also indicated lead to company success. Minton-Eversole (2012) found that executives cited writing, grammar and spelling as critical skills for the new generation of workers, echoed by other researchers such as Marcel (2012) and Lim et al.’s (2016) findings of the importance of English skills for entry-level auditors. Moreover, survey respondents— similar to employers cited in previous studies—indicate that among the top skills required by the demands of the ever-changing business environment, new graduates must be attentive listeners and have awareness of audience, able to take initiative, work and communicate well in teams with diverse personalities, write persuasively, possess critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and be able to manage time effectively (Robinson et al., 2007; Kleckner and Marshall, 2014; Messum et al., 2015; Apparaju, 2016; GMAC, 2016; and Tewari and Sharma, 2016). In their open-ended feedback, survey respondents expressed additional appreciation for the soft skills required to be successful. Comments from these new hires about the skills that would help them succeed include: “Learning to engage in conversation, understanding team dynamics, personalities, and personal work style would help me succeed on the job” and “I find that e-mail accounts for about 70% of my daily communication. If I am not clear and succinct in my e-mail, I have failed.” Thus, the results of this study reveal that in order to equip a graduate with the ability to compete and succeed in today’s business environment—through skills such as communication, interpersonal, collaboration, time management—all of these skills are critical for both employee and company effectiveness. This is increasingly important as emerging research indicates that employers view new hires not merely as cogs in wheel but as essential to organizational performance and operational success (Ortiz et al., 2016). Overall, the results of this study indicate that the employer-employee-readiness perception gap narrows significantly once new hires are in the workplace, suggesting that training and education while in college are key to students’ employment readiness. One respondent in the survey supports the notion that: “Business principles can be learned and tested in the classroom, and later perfected in the workplace, but I have realized since graduating that the idea of emotional intelligence is actually very important, specifically, the ability to understand both nonverbal communication and verbal communication that is so often found in the workplace. It would have been helpful to develop this skill while in college, rather than on-the-job.” Findings of a 2010 survey by The American Management Association (AMA) support this notion, citing 12


that nearly 59% of managers and executives indicate it would be easier to develop the identified skills in students than it would be to develop them in currently employed workers (Davidson, 2012). While there appears to be fairly broad consensus on when soft skills development should take place—before graduation—there is a lack of consensus as to how or where. The business communication course is the obvious choice for where, and may be the most suitable learning context, given the broad range of soft skills covered both at the micro (writing, presenting, standard genres for business communication) and macro level (rhetorical strategy, audience awareness, personal branding, employability). Yet, there exist additional opportunities to support this learning with both curricular and co-curricular initiatives such as building intentional soft skills development into the entire business curriculum and making internships and other experiential practices part of the standard degree plan. Renuga and Ezhilan concur that “soft skills training has to be incorporated in the curriculum and it should be spread over all four years of [a student’s] degree program” (2014, p.103). High impact practices such as internships (domestic and global), client-based projects, role-plays, and simulations can play a prominent role in increasing job readiness and can be extremely useful in closing the skills gap between academia and industry (Seymour and Ray, 2014; Apparaju, 2016; and Tewari and Sharma, 2016). This soft skills gap, what Apparaju (2016) terms “the mismatch,” may be attributed to a lack of student understanding of workplace context and its skills demands. As Apparaju posits “a vast disconnect emerges when the [business communication] course either fails to incorporate the necessary skills or when it fails to address the context of the workplace” (2016, p. 26). Clearly, internships and other experiential practices, where students have the opportunity to work in situ, in real-time-real-world, may be incredibly helpful in providing this context and creating opportunities for students to practice and develop desirable soft skills. Limitations: This study features important research questions that are highly relevant to business education but it does so with limitations. The qualitative analysis of the survey study is useful and yields very specific and distinct answers yet it lacks the quantitative rigor of statistical analysis. The sample size is not expansive but is large enough to draw significant inferences. Despite the limitations, the results and the overall paper provide practical and applied value for guiding colleges and universities to be more intentional in incorporating soft skills development in business and business communication curricula.

Conclusion Organizations with limited training budgets continue to seek workers who can “hit the ground running.” Historical wisdom in job readiness research suggests that this need for the ‘ready’ employee has always existed, and despite many efforts to shrink the skills gap, it persists. Increasingly, however, both employers and new graduates are aware of these necessary readiness skills and seem to agree on their importance. This creates Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates

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a perfect opportunity for business schools to foster curricular environments that support soft skills achievement and provide both graduates and employers that important link to complete the chain of successful employability.

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