Technical skills open the door; people skills decide how long you stay

When companies in Bolivia's three largest cities look for new staff, commitment and responsibility come up as an obstacle as often as lack of experience: 25% each, according to an IDB survey carried out in 2022 and 2023 in La Paz-El Alto, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. The lack of specific technical skills ranks lower, at 14%. Many owners share the intuition that a trade can be taught in weeks, while responsibility is much harder to teach.

Technical skills open the door

Technical skills, meaning those that belong to a trade or a function, are still the first thing people look at. An accountant who cannot work the accounting system, or a technician who cannot read a drawing, does not reach the final interview. These skills also set people apart: between two candidates with a good attitude, the one who solves the job's problem wins.

They have one drawback. They expire. According to the World Economic Forum, employers expect 39% of their workers' core skills to change by 2030. What sets a person or a company apart today becomes a basic requirement within a few years.

Socioemotional skills decide how long you stay

Socioemotional skills, the ones we usually call soft skills, are behavior traits that show in daily work: commitment, responsibility, communication, customer service. A diploma does not certify them, which is why companies find them hard to come by. Technical skill can be checked in a one-hour test; socioemotional skill is discovered over months, and that uncertainty is what employers perceive as risk. They are highly valued: in intermediate and small cities, the same survey shows that almost all companies ask for a good attitude (100%) and for responsibility and honesty (99%).

The reasons for leaving show it. In the same IDB survey, companies in the large cities cited behavior or conduct problems (14%) and absenteeism (9%) among the reasons for dismissal in 2022. Low levels of specific skills appeared at 7%. Added together, conduct and absenteeism weigh more than three times as much as a lack of technical know-how. Low productivity, at 14%, is a mixed category that may have causes of both kinds. The figure needs careful reading: these are employers' perceptions and they do not separate every case. Even so, the direction is clear. People get in through technical skill and stay, or not, because of everything else.

The same happens for people who want to advance. Someone who coordinates others, presents results, takes criticism without getting defensive or helps a colleague out of a jam is often the one who gets the next responsibility. This is a management observation that many owners recognize, not a statistic, and it should be taken as such.

Training is a management decision, not an act of goodwill

Continuing education is often the first thing cut under pressure. In the large cities, the IDB found that 57% of companies trained at least one worker in 2021 or 2022, compared with 81% in 2015 and 2016. The study itself attributes part of the drop to the economic effects of the pandemic. In the earlier survey, average spending on training was about USD 60 per worker per year.

A mid-sized company, with 15 to 49 employees, does not always have a dedicated human resources unit. That does not prevent training. It is enough to decide which behavior and which skill each role needs, and to set aside time and a small but steady amount to develop them. Lifelong learning stops being a slogan when it appears on Monday's calendar and in the month's budget.

There is also a cash argument. Replacing someone takes time: according to the IDB, filling a managerial vacancy in the large cities takes 35 working days on average, and an unskilled worker's vacancy, 13. If training and good treatment prevent even one departure a year, that saving appears on no training line, but it shows in operations.

A company that looks after its people trains better

Turnover also tells a story. In the large cities, among the workers who turned over in 2022, 48% resigned and 25% were dismissed, according to the same study. The data do not explain why people leave, and assuming so would be a mistake. What is useful is that every owner can find out inside their own company. Asking why someone left, and why others stay, costs one conversation and yields more information than any outside study. Knowing what keeps those who stay makes it possible to repeat it with newcomers.

A safe workplace, in practical terms, is one where people can report a mistake, ask for help or propose a change without paying a price. It is also a place where growth has a visible path: what is expected at the next level and how to get there. When that exists, training pays off more, because the person has reasons to apply it.

Each field has its part

Companies can train and care, as seen above. Universities and institutes can build communication, teamwork and responsibility into their programs, with real projects and assessed placements, so that students reach their first job having rehearsed those behaviors. Today the bridge is narrow: according to the IDB, only 30% of companies in the large cities have a defined internship program. Each person, for their part, can treat their skills as an asset to be maintained, like equipment: with periodic review, learning on the job and the habit of asking colleagues and bosses for feedback.

The shared task is to stop thinking of training as something that ends with a degree.

What to do on Monday

1. Review the last five departures from your company, voluntary or not, and write down the real reason for each. Separate technical reasons from those of conduct and work environment.
2. Define three expected behaviors for each role (for example, giving notice in time, finishing what is started, treating a difficult customer well) and ask for concrete examples in interviews.
3. Set aside a fixed monthly amount for training, however small, and pick one skill per quarter: one technical and one of communication or teamwork.
4. Turn Monday's meeting into a space with ten minutes for someone to describe a mistake and what they learned, without consequences.
5. Once a year, ask five things anonymously: whether the person understands what is expected of them, whether they get help when they need it, whether they see how to grow, whether they feel treated with respect and whether they would recommend working with you.
6. Talk to a nearby institute or university about hosting interns, with clear tasks and a person to accompany them.

Skills travel with each person from one company to the next, and a company can help improve them without buying equipment. Whoever looks after them is more likely to keep their workers and to see customers come back. That account is settled role by role, starting with the next person you hire.