What Are the Top Behavioral Skills to Include in a Behavior Skills Training?
Have you ever wondered why behavioural training is important?
Behavioral skills are becoming a necessary ingredient to any successful team. A workplace culture that doesn’t promote good behavioural skills can lead to interpersonal frustrations, decreased productivity, and higher turnover rates.
If behavior skills training isn’t something you’ve thought seriously about, now is an excellent time to start.
Join us as we talk all about behavioral skills and behavioral skills training programs. We’ll provide insight and tips to help you better understand the need for workplace behaviour training.
Keep reading to learn the top behavioral development areas at work.
What Are the Behavioral Skills?
Behavioral skills are like soft skills—intangible, subtle skills that can be learned over time. They’re often social in nature and impact how well someone gets along with others. They also influence how someone perceives their role and performs tasks.
Some examples of behavioral skills include:
- Communication
- Critical thinking
- Creativity
- Honesty
- Planning
- Organization
- Management
Ultimately, behavioral skills affect how someone behaves toward their roles, responsibilities, and others.
Why Behavioural Training is Important
Above, we mentioned that behavioral skills impact how someone views themself and their surroundings. Good behavioral skills lead to a healthy understanding of roles, responsibilities, and team culture. This can lead to:
- Effective communication
- Increased productivity and performance
- Greater unity and connectedness to the team
However, a lack of behavioral skills can have the opposite effects, meaning:
- Poor communication
- Decreased productivity
- Increased frustrations and conflict
The importance of a skills development program is to address skills gaps before they become a more significant issue. Workplace behavior training is a way to upskill your employees in non-technical skills. It provides employees with the opportunity to learn about and grow in behavioral skills.
But which behavioral skills are the most important to focus on?
The Top 5 Behavioral Skills to Include in Your Training
The reality is that you can’t train your employees in every behavioral skill. So, we did the heavy lifting for you and chose the five most critical behavioral skills for company and team success.
1. Communication
Effective and appropriate communication is an essential part of any workplace. Whether it’s communicating with other team members or clients, you want your employees to know what to say and how to say it.
There’s more than in-person communication in our current remote work environment. Your employees are most likely using email, text, phone, and video chat. Each of these different modalities requires a unique understanding for proper use in the workplace.
Additionally, non-verbal communication is as important as verbal communication. Even with a video call, employees may need training on things like eye contact and body language. Growth in these areas can lead to better interactions between co-workers and with clients.
You may want to take time to:
- Think through each of the verbal (or typed) and non-verbal communication methods
- Consider co-worker and client interactions
- Create a custom training program that teaches best practices
- Provide practice and feedback opportunities for employees
Good communication can lead to better relationships within the workplace and with clients.
2. Conflict Resolution
No matter how hard you try, you’ll probably experience some sort of workplace conflict.
Effective conflict resolution involves good communication skills and the ability to approach others comfortably. It can also be beneficial to have a protocol in place when conflicts arise.
The best-case scenario is that your company encourages addressing conflict and that the opposing parties feel comfortable engaging in conflict resolution.
What you want to avoid is employees feeling uncomfortable sharing conflict. An inability to address conflict healthily can lead to deepened hatred, anger, or frustration. This can eventually lead to a more significant fallout or tension between employees.
- Are managers aware of conflict, and do they step in to mediate?
- Do managers know how to handle conflict within teams?
- Do employees feel comfortable sharing and addressing conflict?
- Is there a workplace protocol for dealing with conflict?
These are questions you can ask as you think through the conflict resolution portion of a behavioral skills training program.
3. Empathy
Another critical behavioral skills training topic is empathy.
Empathy isn’t simply rejoicing with people when they rejoice or crying with them when they cry. Genuine empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It involves stepping into someone else’s world to understand their point of view and why they have that particular view. Empathy means being aware of and focused on others.
Empathy is especially necessary for managers and others in leadership. When managers take a genuine interest in their employees and show compassion, it will trickle down. It might be best to start with a leadership training on empathy to ensure your leaders grow in and begin practicing empathy.
Some questions you can ask when considering empathy skills training are:
- Do managers look for and regularly recognize when employees are overworked?
- Do leaders demonstrate a willingness to help employees with personal problems?
- Do leaders show sincere interest in employees’ needs, hopes, and dreams?
Empathetic leaders cultivate greater trust and deeper relationships with their employees, leading to increased team unity and productivity.
4. Time Management
Time management always has been and always will be a valuable behavioural skill. With so many different roles, projects, responsibilities, and meetings, it’s easy for time to slip away and priorities to fall.
Training your employees to manage their time and organize their workflow can help them become more productive.
A few training ideas you can incorporate into your workplace behaviour training are:
- How to create a daily schedule and stick to it
- The benefits of avoiding multitasking
- Ways to get organized and prioritize well
- Tips on how to eliminate distractions
You can’t create more time in the day for your employees, but you can train them to use their time at work as effectively and efficiently as possible.
5. Problem Solving
Lastly, it’s a good idea to provide your employees with problem-solving (critical thinking) training. Employees who can problem solve and think critically on their own will:
- Identify and recognize problems
- Generate creative solutions
- Evaluate these solutions
- Implement the best solution
- Assess the answer and learn for the future
Teaching employees how to think and solve problems independently also frees up managers and other leaders. When employees are proficient on their own, managers don’t need to micromanage the daily tasks of their employees.
Working through previous or hypothetical problems is one of the best ways to train employees in problem-solving. You can give employees some scenarios and have them walk you through the problem-solving process.
Need Help Creating a Behavior Skills Training?
Behavioral skills often take a backseat to technical skills. Yet, behavioural skills are a vital component of a high-quality employee and overall workforce. These skills impact your employees’ ability to connect and interact with clients and each other effectively. A lack of behavioral skills can lead to frustrations, conflict, and decreased productivity.
Fortunately, you can teach behavioral skills to your employees through a behavioral skills training program.
Focus on training your employees in the most necessary skills for their daily roles and responsibilities. If you’re unsure where to start, some of the most critical behavioral skills are:
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Empathy
- Time management
- Problem-solving
Still, it can be challenging to know how to create and implement a high-quality training program.
At Unboxed Training & Technology, training is our specialty. We’ve dedicated ourselves to helping companies create and implement custom training programs that drive employee learning and engagement. Our creative team takes the time to get to know you, your team, and your needs. Then, they carefully craft a training program that fits your brand, voice, and culture.
Request a demo of our custom employee training. We’re excited to help you transform your workforce through a behavioral skills training program!
