Can Virtual Reality Improve Your Communication and Connection Skills?
Let’s face it, being able to humanely connect with people and develop good relationships is a key skill that many people need help mastering. Learning to improve your communication skills and being willing to grow and how you connect and talk with others can help you greatly in your life, career, business dealings and romance.
In the United States, the number of Millennials in the active workforce will soon reach 75-percent. Yet, many don’t know where to start to improve their interpersonal and leadership skills.
A survey of American executives reveals that verbal, written, communication and collaboration skills are among the top traits sought by hiring employers. Important professional capabilities — such as problem-solving, critical thinking, writing and attention to detail — are among the top skills today’s employers find that most job candidates fail to possess. These business skills are rated by enterprise leaders across all industries as the most important abilities of workers.
Most People Lack Soft Skills and Self-Awareness
Another survey of U.S. businesses with 100 or fewer staff members reports that miscommunication costs those firms each an average of $420,000 per year. Further studies of 400 American enterprises with 100,000 or fewer employees revealed that those firms lose an average of $62.4 million annually.
Resultantly, today’s educators must transition toward ensuring that graduating bodies of students have learned these essential business skills. While the demand for most skill requirements haven’t changed among employers for quite some time, the demand for collaborative skills has increased dramatically. People are also actively pursuing advance degrees and training to develop their leadership skills. In fact, studies show that collaborative activities have increased over 50-percent in the last two decades among US enterprises. Proprietors currently want employees who possess exceptional influencing skills and can build professional networks as well as company brands.
For the nation’s business leaders, interpersonal and influencing skills have never held more weight when making hiring decisions than they do now. Researchers have found that 60-percent of polled corporate executives rate collaborative skills as the most important business trait among others. That study also revealed that the respondents believed that most job applicants lacked collaborative skills.
Clearly, soft skills are an invaluable asset to employers. In the past, staff members could have avoided engaging in most collaborative situations where soft skills were required simply by closing their office door. However, a 24/7 always connected world and innovative open office workspaces make avoiding collaboration nearly impossible in the modern business environment.
Why Emotional Intelligence Is So Important
To be able to communicate well, you need to be able to understand emotional intelligence and learn how to be mindful of your statements, thoughts and feelings. Emotional intelligence (EQ) has been an important subject among business leaders for years. Contemporary hiring managers seek hi-EQ job candidates. They view this characteristic as important as education, professional certifications and technical skills.
Emotional intelligence lowers stress and burnout as well as improves communication and promotes rapport among internal and external organizational stakeholders. EQ encompasses effective self-expression, which requires self-awareness, self-respect and a commitment to improve continually. Furthermore, professionals who possess emotional intelligence are appropriately direct with others about how they feel, manage stress well and remain optimistic.
Additionally, EQ-enabled employees adapt well to unforeseen circumstances. Moreover, emotionally intelligent employees are proficient in managing long-term professional relationships.
Organizational leaders can develop soft skills, as well as teach them to those under their purview. Modern technology and EQ are poised to advance business in remarkable ways. Professionals, for instance, can now leverage virtual reality training to learn how to better assess the feelings of others by evaluating their feelings, speech cues, inflections and gestures. EQ competent leaders can also detect depression and emotional wellness by assessing workers vocal tones.
Enterprise leaders who possess EQ will continue to be an invaluable asset to organizations. Management and staff members of all levels can benefit by adding emotional intelligence to their professional toolkits.
How Virtual Reality Can Help With Communications
In the modern business environment, virtual reality is emerging as a new training tool for professionals. Potential applications for the technology are vast and range from military training to healthcare simulations. Immersive virtual reality training can help organizational leaders gain an accurate understanding of the variables involved in managing ethical dilemmas, for instance.
Professionals who participate in VR training are better equipped to handle real-world scenarios. Researchers believe that VR training will one day be an important resource for practicing, honing and assessing essential business skills, and once the price drops for the technology, there are great possibilities for enterprises of all kinds to benefit from immersive training.
In the past, influencing and inspiring others was solely the domain of senior managers and internal marketing teams. Today, enterprise leaders desire this skill among all their employees.
It’s never been more important for advancing students to learn the soft skills that are demanded by today’s enterprise leaders. As an example, the demand for critical thinking skills has risen more than 158-percent in the last four years. Additionally, job openings that list presentation skills as a requirement pay nearly $9,000 more annually compared to jobs that don’t require this competence. Moving forward, it’s essential that the nation’s educators prepare graduating students with the soft skills needed to compete in the modern job market.
