Having the best results for your project doesn’t only depend on the skill set of the workers you hired but also on their continuous development of soft and hard skills throughout the project. Think about communication, problem solving, teamwork, organization… Knowing how to design a battery cell or a fab is without a doubt the most important part of the job, but what about working in a team or respecting deadlines?
We here at CMC (Coalesce Management Consulting) continuously support our clients during their projects with extra services, such as tailored workshops and trainings for CMC consultants, and entire project team. But why are workshops important, how do we at CMC train our consultants, and how do companies benefit from these trainings?
Soft Skills and Hard Skills
Professional workshops and trainings can be divided into soft skills training and hard skills:
- Soft skills: Skills that are focused on personal abilities and cognitive skills like communication, teamwork, critical thinking, leadership or problem solving. They enhance one’s capability to interact with people harmoniously, complete a task more efficiently and enhances situational awareness. Soft skills are less measurable and definable, but are essential for a healthy work structure, ROI and group dynamics.
- Hard skills: Skills that are based on knowledge and technical abilities which is usually gained by education, training or experience. In contrast to soft skills, hard skills are definable and measurable which can be directly linked to ROI. Examples include foreign languages, data mining, programming languages and statistical analysis.
Although hard skills are essential for the success of a project, being the core of the contractor’s job, soft skills are equally important. Soft skills ensure good communication, positive team dynamics and job satisfaction. Because in engineering and energy projects hard skills are the core requirements, employers sometimes overlook soft skills which can lead to frustration and bad communication.
Why Should Employers Invest in Learning and Development (L&D)?
Looking for the right contractor for your project is one thing but keeping them motivated and satisfied is another. That’s where L&D comes in. Both soft and hard skills trainings are essential for a successful project. LinkedIn Learning has summarized statistics on L&D in 2024. Here are the most important statistics from their research:
The graphic above shows that L&D workshops and trainings increase retention, sense of connection to the organization and adds purpose to a job. A happy and motivated consultant or colleague will also have a positive effect on the rest of team motivating teamwork and better results.
We also asked our own LinkedIn network what kind of training/workshops would be most beneficial for engineers and that’s what 55 participants responded:
To conclude, if you look for the right consultants and/or teams to execute a project successfully, L&D will play a big part in that goal. That’s why soft and hard skills workshops and trainings are a part of our CMC services, because that way we can truly deliver expertise in every phase of your project. If you want to know more about the quality of our services and our consultants, read our article on employee engagement measurement process of our CMC consultants.
CMC workshops and trainings
When CMC has placed a consultant on your project, we offer our clients further extra support by organizing workshops on site for engineering teams on demand. Because we want the workshop to be successful and tailored to the client’s needs, we follow the following steps:
- Assessment: We assess the situation and need for training after a P&E review, consultant request or client request. This assessment is thorough and consists of multiple questions about performance, training goals, future plans, and cost-benefit analysis with our client.
- Proposal: After the assessment we carefully create a workshop plan and propose it to our client for approval. In this phase we work as detailed as possible, so our client has a clear view of the content of the workshop, place, time, budget and number of participants.
- Workshop: After approval we organise the workshop with external professionals who have experience in the specific soft or hard skill.
- Evaluation: After the workshop we re-evaluate the situation again and report to our partner to discuss the effectiveness of the workshop. If the desired result isn’t fully reached, CMC organises more workshops and trainings to ensure CMC consultants, and their teams are being followed-up during the project.
Above organizing requested workshops and trainings, CMC also offers support with travel organisation of a CMC consultant if a client would organize a workshop or training themselves. We take over the administration of accommodation and travel bookings which are first discussed with the client.
CMC Workshops
At CMC our clients are fully supported throughout the project with workshops and trainings that they can request. We offer both soft and hard skills workshops that are tailored to the client’s needs. Here are some of the most requested workshops by our clients for CMC consultants:
- Communication: Communication is the key to success and that doesn’t change for engineers. Our partners ask often for communication workshops focused on effective communication with stakeholders, managers, team members and people with different personality types.
- Time management: Some contractors struggle to respect deadlines or find it difficult to maintain a clear organisation plan or structure. In our workshops our clients can choose if they want to focus on one particular topic of time management or if they want a general overview on how to meet deadlines, keep a tight schedule and maintain organisation throughout the project.
- Teamwork: Some engineers are used to working independently or working within teams for a short time of period. That’s why some companies don’t book the results that they would like to see, or the team dynamics need to be improved to optimise the project’s outcomes.
- Hard skills: Sometimes clients may request hard skills trainings for consultants because their needs change during the project. CMC is happy to organize an expertise class that teaches teams a specific hard skill to optimise the results of a project.
CMC Trainings
CMC doesn’t only organize group workshops but also individual training. Similar to the workshops we first assess the skills gap of the specific consultant and then organize the best suited training by finding the right course for the consultant through experts. In the meanwhile, CMC also provides the contractors with related books, and training materials during these trainings.
In contrast to the CMC workshops, trainings are mainly online. This way, the consultant has more flexibility and can combine their individual training with their work.
Who can participate?
A project is a job for more than one engineer and that’s why CMC doesn’t only offer workshops for only CMC consultants but also for their team including non-CMC consultants. That’s why our workshops are highly effective for entire teams. On the other hand, trainings and travel organization are extra services CMC only offers for CMC consultants.
True Expertise Delivered
CMC is a specialised consulting for Advanced Engineering and Energy projects around the world. We deliver experienced, industry-leading consultants who offer innovative and effective solutions for projects of all sizes and complexity, while providing consulting services on the project where able. We are determined to deliver true expertise by supporting our partners from start to end of their project. Are you interested in partnering with our expert teams or do you want to know about our service? Contact us for more information today!