Page 26 - trends in automation

With employee engagement rating
so highly in terms of leadership
and management issues, perhaps
manufacturing and engineering
firms need to address how they
actively communicate and engage
with their employees. This will also
be beneficial in creating a ‘reason
to join’ a company and key message
for recruitment activities.
People skills
People skills (sometimes referred to as
‘soft skills’) are typically hard to observe,
quantify and measure. They have to do
with how people relate to each other
through communication, listening,
giving feedback, solving problems and
resolving conflict. Leaders at all levels
have to rely heavily on people skills.
It is often said that people are
‘born leaders’ and that somehow
true leadership is a natural trait. In
reality, born leaders are rare. Skills
development makes true leaders.
Equally, technical expertise does
not make people true leaders. A
typical example is an entrepreneur
with a passion for engineering who
founds their own business. A common
issue is that they find themselves
running a company and managing
people, rather than concentrating on
technical innovation and creativity.
Over three quarters of respondents
(77%) said that people management
skills needed to be developed. Equally,
skills such as listening were also in
demand for development (see fig 4).
Fig. 4
Fig. 3