The differences between hard and soft skills and their relative impact on training transfer

Abstract

Most research and conceptualizing of training transfer assumes that the content of the training is irrelevant in whether or not or to what extent transfer is successful. The singular perspective that all training is the same when it comes to issues of training transfer is misguided. This is especially true for the types of training that have been traditionally referred to as hard‐skills (technical) and soft‐skills (intrapersonal and interpersonal) training. It is hypothesized that this singular perspective of making no differentiation between hard and soft skills can actually hinder training transfer. It is the contention of this article that this perspective masks significant differences between these two forms of training and the extent to which each transfers to the job. Anecdotal evidence has emphasized that soft‐skills training is significantly less likely to transfer from training to the job than hard‐skills training. Soft‐skills training, rather than hard‐skills training, has primarily been discussed in the HRD literature. This is easily reflected in reviews of the training‐transfer literature. Consequently, from this perspective, the work on training transfer has almost been exclusively based upon soft‐skills training. This focus on soft skills may be warranted by the specific difficulty in transferring soft skills (intrapersonal and interpersonal) rather than hard skills (technical). This lack of soft‐skill transfer results in an extremely costly waste of time, energy, and money. This article discusses differences that are hypothesized to exist between hard‐ (technical) and soft‐ (intrapersonal and interpersonal) skills training that we believe impact the degree of training transfer achieved. It is our belief that differentiating between hard and soft skills may add greatly to our understanding of training transfer and additional ways of its facilitation. This article also contends that development of a more robust and comprehensive model of training transfer must consider training content.