Hello;
The basis of this research was to study interpersonal skills at the work place, the interplay between soft & hard skills, cultural dynamics and the ability of employees to work together to sustain employment. It relied on the Garderner’s theory of Interpersonal Intelligence which argues that Interpersonal Intelligence is a product of Intrapersonal skills, Interpersonal skills and People Management skills – Gardener (1993). Intrapersonal skills include stress management, self-awareness and problem solving; Interpersonal skills are motivation, conflict management, and communication while People Management skills include Delegation, leadership, empowerment, management and working in team.
To collect data, the study relied on a mixture positivist and inductive research philosophies. It collected qualitative and quantitative data through secondary materials primarily company websites and reports. The strategy used was multiple case studies selected through purposive sampling where a focus was to have companies from cultural diversities. Bentley Motors (UK), Marriott hotels (US), John Lewis supermarkets (US), Wahaha group (China) and Hebei steel company were studied.
The findings showed that Marriott Hotel has a special inclination on interpersonal skills and hires or fires 62.5% of employees based on soft skills against 31.3% because of technical skills. Bentley Motors (UK) on the other side bases more than 54% of their employments or fires on technical skills compared to only 43.7% on soft skills. Generally, Companies in China mainly fire or hire by highly considering soft skills while those in US and UK consider technical skills most when firing or hiring employees.
In conclusion, Technical and interpersonal skills are important in employment and need to be cultivated in equal measure by everyone in or out of employment. Secondly, culture has some impact on how employment and firing is executed with individualistic countries such as UK and US being less concerned with interpersonal skills in recruitments and firings than socialist countries like China.
It is therefore recommended that other than companies simply looking for employees with good interpersonal skills, they should also take the challenge of training their employees to acquire admirable technical and soft skills. Secondly, companies need to develop a positive corporate culture that embraces teamwork, free communication, and reduced bureaucracy so that interpersonal skills can naturally be transferred from one person to another
Finally, the biggest limitation of this research was on accessing employment and sacking data which many companies hold as confidential. As a result, a quantitative survey through a primary study is suggested to solve this problem so that research validity and reliability can be assured in future.