The Chicago-based business and technology consultancy West Monroe Partners found that the lack of focus on soft skills was one cause for productivity, innovation and growth issues.

The company surveyed 1250 individuals across two surveys - 600 human resources and recruiting professionals, and 650 full-time employees who work with their company’s technology teams.

The survey found that while the importance of soft skills has increased over the last three years, many companies do not train their technology teams in these skills. Leadership was found to be tech employees' most under-developed soft skill.

“To stay competitive in today’s digital world, business leaders need to enlist a holistic mindset regarding technologists’ skillsets,” said Kevin McCarty, president and chief executive of West Monroe.

“Some of today’s best leaders come from a technology background, and we need more of them. To remain on the forefront of innovation, companies need to put their technologists in a position to lead. They also must prioritise soft skills and leadership training as part of continued growth and development.”

Key findings:

• Ninety-eight percent of HR leaders say soft skills are important in landing a technology position – so important that 67% say they have withheld a job offer from an otherwise qualified technical candidate solely because they lacked soft skills.
• HR leaders ranked verbal communication and collaboration as the most important soft skills. Once hired, however, most companies did not invest in developing technology professionals’ soft skills further. About a quarter of companies provide soft skills training to line-of-business employees, but not to IT.
• HR leaders considered leadership to be the least important soft skill for prospective technology hires.
• Technology employees often did not ascend the career ladder, with 39% of companies lacking a technology background in the c-suite. This absence affects collaboration between business and tech employees.
• Forty-three percent of full-time employees said soft-skills-related challenges with IT had affected their work. This was problematic considering that innovative projects increasingly required employees to work alongside each other.
• Collaboration-based issues had delayed or prolonged a project for 71% of respondents. A third had missed deadlines altogether because of communication issues.

“Technologists and full-time employees are collaborating more than ever, and it’s evident this will continue in the coming years,” said Greg Layok, senior director of West Monroe’s technology practice.

“However, communication barriers can still silo these groups and stifle productivity. Businesses must take a two-pronged approach to training - one that not only develops technologists’ soft skills to effectively collaborate with the line of business, but also teaches business leaders a level of fluency to understand the technology side.”