Recently, I was having lunch with a client team before a speaking engagement. One team member shared she also earned her bachelor’s in psychology.

“Did your parents freak out when you chose that major?” I asked (ever the woman for small talk).

“A little bit,” she said. “Did yours?”

“I think so. They didn’t badger me about it, but I could tell they were nervous.”

“About finding a job…” she commented.

“Oh no!” I waved my hands dramatically in the air. “She’s learning about human behavior, how will she ever work with others?!”

When we think about it, it is very silly that it is a universal concern among psychology undergrads that understanding human behavior might not be valued in many organizations. And yet, it is a valid concern for parents and undergrads because useful skills are not necessarily valued the same way by employers. In American work culture, we have forced skills into two categories: “hard” skills and “soft” skills. Hard skills are supposedly ones you learn on the job or through a degree, while soft skills are more “inherent.” I respectfully, and vehemently, disagree, for three main reasons.

1. The divide between these skillsets is not clear-cut. For example, communication is considered a soft skill, but there are communications majors. So are these hard or soft skills?
2. I have witnessed many people with ample job experience who struggle in leadership positions because they never learned these “soft skills.”
3. As an I-O psychologist, I have never entered an organization and found that the employees did not have the hard skills to do the job. It’s almost always the soft skills that are lacking. I have never heard a client say, “Hey we just cannot find anyone who can use Excel.” It’s almost always, “Why aren’t my people happy? Why aren’t they working together?” It’s the culture clashes. The bigotry. The interpersonal drama. The communication errors. The role ambiguity. You know…the soft sh*t.

In the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI)…I think we need to re-evaluate the value we place on “soft skills.” Because here’s the thing folks, AI can do a lot of the “hard” skills now.

As with many things we perceive as “normal,” the separation of hard and soft skills isn’t completely innocent. Some scientists have pointed out its intimate tie with gender. “Hard skills” have been determined to be economically valuable and masculine. Men do “hard” skills. While “soft” skills are perceived as a more natural fit for women; aka, not worth much money because they just come naturally to the gals….right?

Now, I am not saying that women cannot conduct hard skills and men cannot achieve soft skills. I’m saying the opposite y’all. I’m saying we’re both capable, but culturally, we have assigned gender to things that do not inherently have gender identities — like skills. This false binary of skill ability harms us all in the messaging. Little girls grow up being told they’re bossy and bad at math, which impacts their choices to go into high-earning fields such as STEM, and even if they do persevere and achieve those skills they are paid less, not promoted as frequently, and experience more harassment. On a not-so-comparable contrary, men who rate higher in agreeableness are paid less than men who are not (which makes us wonder…what are we measuring here?)

In my work as a culture change connoisseur, I am repeatedly humbled to learn that culture is what our perception of normal is. And our perception of normal is just that…a perception. There is not one inherently right way.

Think of it this way. Most Americans (I dare say, all?) know that in American football, a touchdown is 6 points. A field goal is worth 3 points unless it’s after a touchdown, then it’s one additional point. To football fans, this is normal. It’s the only way (duh!). But to someone from a country that does not play American football…how did we come up with this scoring system?

I’m not here to challenge the NFL. I truly do not care how they score football (ask any of my five brothers). What I am hoping to exemplify is that we accept rules that are normal to us without question. The question I am asking you is…who determined which skills are hard or soft? And how was their economic value measured? I think these questions are especially salient now because…the robots have the hard skills covered y’all.

Now that AI can do math and writing…are those now soft skills? Are these skills more or less valuable economically? Who will decide that for us? Will we agree with it, or push back? If so, how will that go?

If we’re still going to have people at work (which I think we will, at least for the foreseeable future), the soft skills still have to get done. How will your workplace operate without teamwork, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, time management, and leadership (all listed as soft skills)?

Work Without Soft Skills

New research is investigating if employers are starting to seek more employees with soft skills, and so far…many employers say yes! For decades, people have reported having to code switch, take out the personal, and become a robot to be considered “professional,” and now…we. have. robots. The parts of us that make us human are higher in demand.

So is this it, is this the win for gender equality we’ve been waiting for?

Unfortunately…that’s still up to how we assign that market value. Research has identified that stereotypically feminine traits, skills, and values are devalued. Research also demonstrates that when men move into stereotypical fields (like nursing), the economic value in that field goes up and men get promoted quicker (we call this the glass escalator phenomenon); however, the reverse happens when women move into stereotypically male fields.

I don’t have to mention what stereotypically male fields and skills are…do I?

Okay fine, I’ll give one example. The big stereotype is math ability (which there is no scientific basis for this being an inherent biological difference…but there is ample evidence that it is a cultural one). And what are women’s fields stereotyped to be? Say it with me…nursing, teaching, the “caring” fields (though I do wonder…how do these men learn so much math from the majority of their teachers who are women?).

I encourage leaders to reflect on the following questions as they consider AI implementations and hiring:

1. What is the economic value of having no teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving, or conflict-resolution skills?
2. If none, how has your company survived without these things?
   1. If you’re at this step, go back to question 1 and repeat your analysis. There’s no way your company has survived without…any of those skills.
3. Evaluate the biases you have against rewarding those skills.
   1. How can you identify the employees who have these skills, without making assumptions?
   2. What resources can you provide to help employees who may struggle in these areas to learn and practice them?
   3. How will you reward these soft skills in your organization?

Want to talk through some of these questions? Your first booking with me is free!