According to the dictionary of S. I. Ozhegova, a skill is a skill developed by exercise, habit. People often don't think about the skills they use in everyday life. However, as far as the profession is concerned, the issue of skill is fundamental.
What should an employee be able to do? What should be taught? What is optional and what is necessary? And what exactly is a skill? These questions are very often faced by the employer. Seemingly simple at first glance, in fact, they turn out to be quite complex. An employee's skills are divided into hard and soft skills. Relatively speaking, hard are qualifications, soft are behavior. Rigid skills are a combination of tools and actions, the determinants of which are predictable context. Their value lies in the fact that by the same actions the performer finds himself in the same environment. Such skills are possessed by a worker who works on the same machine, a lawyer or an economist who does the same job day after day. Their skills remain liquid until the context changes (the worker will be given a new machine; and the lawyer will need to be retrained due to changes in legislation). Soft skills are skills, the application of which may change depending on the context. As a rule, soft skills characterize two skills - communication skills and decision-making skills. An example of such a skill is the ability to communicate with customers and partners. Some need a subtle approach, others already agree to all the conditions. The employee builds his communication with the client (partner) depending on the character and mood of the interlocutor. The need to acquire different skills for a person of any profession is undeniable. The acquisition of hard skills is conditioned, so to speak, by training, practicing the same actions. The acquisition of soft skills is carried out through trainings. To date, there has been a lot of research in the field of relationship psychology. Based on these studies, various training programs for the development of soft skills have been compiled.