Needs assessment of human resources soft skills learning and development programs in public organizations
Subject Areas :mina boustanirad 1 , سید مهدی الوانی 2 , Ali Hamidizadeh 3 *
1 - کاندیدای دکترا؛ مدیریت منابع انسانی؛ دانشگاه تهران؛ دانشکدگان فارابی،قم، ایران
2 - Professor, Department of Public Management, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin Branch, Qazvin, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Department of public management, Farabi Campus, University of Tehran, Qom, Iran
Keywords: .Needs assessment, learning and development, soft skills.,
Abstract :
Needs assessment is a first step in the process of human resources soft skills learning and development programs designing, and paying attention to it, will increase the effectiveness of them. this study addresses the need assessment for learning, and development programs of human resources soft skills in public organizations. Lack of attention to the essential differences between soft and hard skills in the needs assessment stage, will cause problems in the later stages of the personnel development process. Based on this, first the components of human resources soft skills were identified using the systematic review method; Then in order to identify other components of the needs assessment, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 experts in the field of human resources training and development, and content analysis was performed. Then, the findings validity of the content analysis, was calculated using the Delphi method, and descriptive statistics, and was confirmed by reaching the maximum consensus of the panelists participating in the study. Finally, soft skills were identified in two categories of individual, and social soft skills with 20 components, and needs assessment components with two main themes, four sub-themes and eight codes. Lack of proper attention to soft skills by public organizations indicates their need to designing these programs. It is also worthwhile to pay attention to the codification of soft skills in the jobs description in the needs assessment stage, and the necessary .classification between managerial and non-managerial jobs in terms of the type of their need for soft skills.
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8. Ahmed, Faheem., Fernando Capretz, Luiz., Bouktif, Salah., Campbell, Piers. (2013). Soft Skills and Software Development: A Reflection from Software Industry. International Journal of Information Processing and Management (IJIPM), 4 (3). 171-191.
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14. Bhatnagar N, Bhatnagar M. (2012). Effective communication and soft skills, strategies for success. Dorling kindesley. Delhi, India. Blazquez M, Herrarte A, Llorente- Heras R. Competencies, occupational status, and earnings among European university graduates. Economics of Education Review. 2017; 62, 16-34.
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16. Borner, K., Scrivner, O., Gallant, M., Ma, S., Liu, X., Chewning, K., Wu, L., & Evans, J. (2018). Skill discrepancies between research, education, and jobs reveal the critical need to supply soft skills for the data economy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(50), 12630-12637.
17. Boyatzis, R E. (1982), The Competent Manager : A model for effective performance, Wiley, New York.
18. Brill R.T, Gilfoil D. M, Doll K. (2014). Exploring Predictability Of Instructor Ratings Using A Quantitative Tool For Evaluating Soft Skills Among MBA Students, American Journal Of Business Education- Third Quarter. 7 (3), 175- 181.
19. Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
20. Cherian, Jacob., Farouq, Sherine. (2013). Does Effective Leadership Style Drive Financial Performance of Banks? Analysis in the Context of UAE Banking Sector., International Journal of Economics and Finance; 5 (7), 105-114.
21. Cimatti B. (2016). Definition, development, assessment of soft skills and their role for the quality of organizations and enterprises. International Journal for Quality Research. 10(1), 97–130.
22. Cinque M. Lost in translation. (2016). Soft skills development in European countries. Tuning Journal for Higher Education. 3 (2): 389-427.
23. Clarke M. (2018). Rethinking graduate employability: The role of capital, individual attributes and context. Studies in Higher Education. 43(11), 1923-1937.
24. CPA Canada. (2012). The chartered professional accountant competency map. Understanding the competencies a candidate must demonstrate to become a CPA. Retrieved from http:// unification.cpacanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CompetencyMap.pdf.
25. Crawford, Alleah., Weberb, Melvin R., Lee (Jay), JungHoon .(2020). "Using a grounded theory approach to understand the process ofteaching soft skills on the job so to apply it in the hospitalityclassroom", Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 26,1002392, 2-7.
26. Dall’Amico, E., and Verona, S. (2015). Cross-Country Survey on Soft Skills Mostly Required by Companies to Medium/High Skilled Migrants: Methodological approach for a common framework of Soft Skills at work. Ceipiemonte S.c.p.a., for Valorize High Skills Migrant (VHSM) Project, No. 2014-1-IT02- KA204-003515. Torino, Italy.
27. Devedzic V, Tomic B, Jovanovic J, Kelly M, Milikic N, Dimitrijevic S et al. (2018). Metrics for students' soft skills. Applied Measurement in Education. 31(4), 283-296.
28. DewiyaniS M. J. (2015). Improving Students Soft Skills using Thinking Process Profile Based on Personality Types. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE). 4 (3), 118-129.
29. Dixon J, Belnap C, Albrecht C, Lee K (2010) The importance of soft skills. Corporate Finance Rev. 14(6):35–38.
30. Dubey RS, Tiwari V. (2020). Operationalisation of soft skill attributes and determining the existing gap in novice ICT professionals. International Journal of Information Management. 50, 375–386.
31. Fixsen, A., Ridge, D., 2019., Shades of Communitas: A Study of Soft Skills Programs, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 48(4), 510–537.
32. Graham HT, Bennett R. (2002), Human Resources management. London: Longman Group. 33. Ghahremani M. (2009). Organizational Learning Management Tehran, martyr Beheshti University Publications Center.
34. Ghorbanizadeh, V., Nangir, STH., (2014).,Practical guide to meta-analysis., Tehran., Sociologists Publications.
35. Gibert A, Tozer W. C, Westoby M. (2017). Teamwork, soft skills, and research training. Trends in ecology & evolution. 32(2), 81-84.
36. Grugulis, Irena., Vincent, Steven. (2009). “Whose skill is it anyway? ‘soft’ skills and polarization”, Work, employment and society, Volume 23(4), 597–615.
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