As a healthcare professional, you've worked hard to develop the clinical skills you need to success. But do you have the soft skills to back them up? Here's why soft skills in healthcare matter, and six ways to build them.
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Why Do You Need Soft Skills in Healthcare?
What are soft skills in healthcare? In contrast to the clinical skills you learn during your education, soft skills are the mental and emotional abilities you bring to the job — for instance, communication, leadership, teamwork, and problem solving.
And make no mistake, they're just as important for your career as any other skill. In addition to helping you do a better job by relating to patients and co-workers — or making the right decisions in fast-paced situations — soft skills can also help you get hired, since they're often a key characteristic that employers seek.
In addition, soft skills carry over to other roles in a way that helps your development. They're especially useful if you want to move into leadership or education, for example.
6 Ways to Develop Soft Skills in Healthcare
While some soft skills can be taught — leadership, for example — you usually have to actively work on them. And here are six ways to do just that.
1. Pursue education, training & certifications
Perhaps the most reliable way to build soft skills is by earning certifications and continuing education (CE) credits, which have the added bonus of helping you maintain your license or boost your earnings. They're also widely available — you can get them at events, in workshops and webinars, and sometimes at work, too.
In addition, pursuing an advanced degree — a Bachelor’s if you have an Associate’s, or even a Master’s — can provide more opportunities to focus on soft skills like collaboration, active listening, problem solving, among others.
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Deep dive: Discover the best certifications for nurses and allied clinicians
2. Be mindful during your day-to-day duties
Some of the best opportunities to develop soft skills come not from training but the work you do every day. For instance, you can practice time management by focusing on prioritizing your most urgent tasks throughout the day.
This is especially true when interacting with patients and families, where you can work on active listening and your ability to detect nonverbal cues. It’s also useful when working with co-workers, where you can focus on solving programs as a team to develop skills in communication, collaboration and teamwork.
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Pro tip: Working in resource pools is a great way to develop multi-tasking skills
3. Focus on constructive feedback
Another way to develop soft skills at work is by actively seeking feedback from colleagues, both managers and your peers in the department where you work. The ability to give and receive constructive criticism is an important soft skill on its own, and highly useful for understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
Your job may even have formal programs for role-playing or scenario-based training programs, so ask your supervisor what opportunities are available. If nothing is, ask what they would recommend.
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Pro tip: Build more relationships by networking at conferences and events
4. Join a mentorship or coaching program
Another way to develop soft skills on the job is through mentorship programs. While they may often be formally designed to teach clinical skills, mentorship programs can be used to develop skills like teamwork and problem solving.
Having a mentor offers other benefits, too, like developing a professional support network and references for future roles. Mentors can also help provide guidance on what jobs to pursue, and tips on how to land them -- and so can other senior members of your team that may be willing to provide feedback.
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Pro tip: If your job doesn't offer mentorship, consider a charitable organization
5. Buddy up!
If you're looking for something less formal, another option to develop soft skills in healthcare is practicing with a buddy at work.
By working together to watch each other's work and progress, and then getting together to recap things at the end of the day or week, you can take the process of giving and receiving constructive feedback to the next level, while also finding new ways to build communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.
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Pro tip: Join a group or organization to meet and bond with other professionals
6. Develop a self-improvement mindset
Ultimately, developing soft skills in healthcare — and getting results from any of the above methods — takes commitment. And that means getting into a mindset that's focused on self-assessment and self-improvement.
A “critical tool" for understanding yourself, self-reflection means taking the time to evaluate your progress in a fair, honest, and calm way. It means understanding that practice makes perfect. And it means actively working on building empathy for others and stress management for yourself, both of which are essential soft skills, and perhaps the most difficult to learn.
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Deep dive: Learn how to boost focus and self-control with these self-care tips
Put Your Skills to Work with HealthTrust!
From working on time management with per diem jobs to focusing on communication in new settings with travel jobs, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to develop soft skills with HealthTrust! Search jobs now to see what’s available.
