With so many candidates to hire when building your offshore team, it's not enough to simply look at skills and experience. Another factor to look at is soft skills, which make one adaptable to change and capable of solving complex problems.

Choose the right people when building your team with KDCI. Take note of the 15 most important soft skills to look for in 2024.

1. Conflict Management

This skill is not about avoiding an actual conflict in the workplace but resolving one in an efficient manner. Employers want individuals to handle conflicts with respect and in an optimistic way that breeds growth and learning in the office.

2. Time Management

One of the most important soft skills that every employer seeks. Basically, this means that deadlines must be met whatever the task. You must deliver all of your tasks before a deadline on top of other time-based tasks like meetings and presentations to clients.

3. Leadership

Arguably the most sought-after soft skill that every company wants. Leadership is the ability to influence, motivate, and lead a team to accomplish the final objective. This skill can be trained through experience and be nurtured, but employers really want employees to have this right off the bat.

4. Stress Management

For employers, it is important that employees learn to recognize their own stress triggers and have effective ways to manage these levels and ultimately avoid it negatively affecting life and work itself.

5. Communication Skills

Having this skill means that you have the ability to interact and share effectively with others. Employees must know when to talk, what to say, how to address other employees and determine what is the right tone and dialogue to deliver the right message.

6. Company Culture

This skill involves an employee knowing the importance of building the right culture in a company. By knowing and taking in mind what the company culture is, you’ll know how to interact with others with the company in mind. Numerous studies show that having this skill is an important part of the success of a company.

7. Customer Service

For customer-facing jobs, this skill is the most important. All employees that regularly interact with a customer must have the personality and confidence to present the product (product knowledge is a must, too).

8. Problem-solving Skills

There will always be moments when things go south and an employee can only do two things: complain or act. Employers would always prefer the latter and so would everyone else in the company. That’s why you should always prepare yourself and practice thinking under pressure and come up with ideas to solve the problem. This is also a sure way to learn how to take the initiative.

9. Collaboration

As they say: teamwork makes the dream work — and it’s very true for all workplaces today. Almost all projects in a company will require some sort of teamwork with each member having a specific task to do. With a deadline and checklists, everyone in the team is expected to work together to achieve the objectives. This skill includes delivering clear communication, empathy, problem-solving, accountability and adaptability.

10. Emotional Intelligence

Related to problem-solving skills, emotional intelligence is about discerning and controlling one’s emotions. It’s a skill wherein you’d be able to observe your own and other’s feelings and emotions then use them to take a valid and correct action. Always pause when emotions are running wild. Stay calm and meditate, take the problem head-on with a sound mind.

11. Adaptability

You have to expect that every company nowadays is always changing. When something fails or goes out of hand, managers are going to come up with alternatives that will be different from the normal work process. That means that you as a worker must be ready to experiment and try something new.

12. Creativity

Even though some jobs don’t always leave a lot of space for creativity, it is still one of the essentials in the workplace. Being creative means that you’re willing to take risks while everyone else would hesitate. However, it also means that you’ll be the one more likely to unlock new and meaningful results.

13. Negotiation Skills

This is very important to the sales side of the company and also to employees who are going to present and pitch decks to their clients. Having this skill means that you have the capability to persuade and even argue out a case. You should be able to negotiate well with clients, suppliers, seniors, and even competitors.

14. Persuasion

This ability works hand-in-hand with negotiation soft skills. For marketers and salespeople, they need to persuade customers to purchase their product or use their company’s service. As for everyone, an employee is expected to make his/her case when presenting an idea, present compelling evidence and ultimately persuade the person on the receiving end to say yes.

15. Professionalism and Attitude

Professionalism includes an employee’s personal etiquette, attitude, courtesy, dressing and work ethics. Employers love it when someone is able to observe established workplace norms and quickly adapt to them. Of course, respect and courtesy are expected from every employee, so you should strive to dress and act the part even during the selection process.

Find The Right Offshore Staff

There are many talented people, but people who are the right fit for your organization are difficult to find.

At KDCI, we specialize in finding the right people when building your team. With our large database of talent, we are more than capable of finding people who have the skills, experience, and soft skills you're looking for.

Learn more about KDCI's tailored outsourcing solutions. Contact us today!