In corporate life today, having an undergraduate business degree and technical expertise may secure you a job in your field— however chances are slim. A 2024 study conducted by Deloitte indicates that 92% of companies now “prioritize soft skills over technical expertise.” (1) For years, a business education from a Canadian university at large meant developing foundational expertise in financial strategies and key-performance indicators ensuring success in your field of study. But the recent shift to prioritizing soft skills begs to question whether a business education still delivers the changing needs today’s market now demands.
Soft skills are “non-technical skills that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with others.” (2) They extend beyond possessing broad communication skills, helping to shape every facet of businesses — from the leadership of management and the collaboration of workers to the growth and drive of entrepreneurs. The research agency Hult International Business School and Workplace Intelligence analyzed recent graduates who had received an undergraduate degree focusing on either finance, accounting, or marketing. They reported that, “nearly all of recent graduates (94%) regretted their degree”, citing a lack of job preparedness with respect to essential employee skills. (3) This finding suggests a fundamental mismatch between workplace skills taught in post-secondary education and subsequent real-world expectations — making students ultimately question the utility of their degree.
Business education that prioritizes these skills has recently been on the rise. Since 2020, the Centre for Professional Skills (CPS) has allied with Rotman School of Business professor Ralph Tassone, to incorporate relevant workplace skills such as team building and strategizing into courses. In one of Tassone’s introductory accounting courses, students engage in online modules, in-class workshops and mandatory appointments with teamwork mentors. (4). The Ivey School of Business and Economics also prepares students’ soft skills through experiential learning by using the case-competition method of learning. (5) This learning technique has been extremely effective in developing crucial employee skills such as collaboration, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.
Despite these increasing efforts to incorporate human skills into curricula, the method of teaching remains suboptimal. Business faculties have implicitly attempted to insert essential employee skills into a broader business model, without the skills themselves being the primary focus. While Rotman’s teamwork model and Ivey’s case method initiatives present opportunities for collaboration, teamwork and communication, the underlying structure is inherently technical. For example, accounting courses and business case competitions, at its base, prioritize analytical business problem solving over complex interpersonal dynamics or cross-disciplinary issues. Consequently, organizational situations that deal with heavier, and more complex emotional and collaborative situations are deemed secondary and/or not fully explored.
Bridging this educational gap is hardly an easy task and requires genuine effort from all players involved in post-secondary institutions. Business faculties should emphasize soft skills as essential requirements, not voluntary tasks. Further, experiential learning opportunities must involve more than solving financial case-studies but real engagement with students facing authentic interpersonal situations. Hence, while significant strides have been made in recent years, until soft skills in business academia are treated as supplemental rather than truly essential graduates will risk remaining underprepared for the human struggles that define modern business.
