Key Points
Back to top- It’s National SEL Week, a powerful “SEL”ebration of social, emotional, and academic learning in every community! This year’s theme—Skills for Success, Ready for the Future—spotlights how SEL builds the foundation for thriving careers, strong communities, and fulfilling lives.
- To celebrate, we’re sharing an exclusive excerpt from the Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning, Second Edition.
- In their chapter “SEL Competencies in the Workplace,” Patrick C. Kyllonen, Michelle P. Martín‐Raugh, and Harrison J. Kell examine why social and emotional competencies are valued by employers and critical to job success. They also outline next steps to help students build the SEL skills needed to thrive in their careers.
If people cannot work together effectively, how can they stay on a job? How can they develop the career they wish for? It is increasingly apparent that employers and supervisors value some of the same skills that SEL promotes, including good listening and communication skills, strong problem-solving skills, the ability to deal with stress and time demands, and getting along well with diverse individuals. We now know that students who acquire these skills are highly valued in the workplace as adults.
In the following excerpts from their chapter in the Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning, Second Edition, Patrick Kyllonen, Michelle P. Martin-Raugh, and Harrison J. Kell observe the close connection between what schools can do to prepare their students for the workplace and the skills employers value.
Joseph A. Durlak
Chapter 24: SEL Competencies in the Workplace
Back to topPatrick C. Kyllonen, Michelle P. Martín‐Raugh, and Harrison J. Kell
Social and emotional learning competencies (SELCs; Durlak et al., 2015) intersect with the workplace in two distinct ways, one obvious and the other less obvious. The obvious way is the school-to-work transition: K–12 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational institutions are responsible in part for preparing students to be productive members of the workforce by not just developing their foundational, curricular knowledge (e.g., reading, writing, mathematics, science) but also their cross-curricular SELCs (e.g., social skills, emotion regulation, self-management). The less obvious way in which SELCs connect to the workplace relates to the concept of lifelong learning, the integration of social and emotional learning (SEL), and the competencies that result from it, in the workplace. SEL occurs in the workplace as well as in school, and for many more years. A person typically spends a decade or two in school, and another four to five in the workforce. Employers are concerned with not only the SELCs their employees possess when they are hired but also the continued development of those SELCs, just as teachers and parents are concerned with students’ ongoing social and emotional development.
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What Skills Are Employers Looking For?
Various methods have been used to address the question of what skills employers value currently and seek in new hires. These include employer surveys and analyses of job ads, trends in skills compensation based on analyses of occupational databases, and analyses of the effects of technology on the changing workplace. Regardless of the method, the conclusion is the same: SELCs are in high demand in the workplace. (e.g., Kyllonen & Zu, 2023). According to job ads, communication, collaboration, problem solving, social intelligence, and self-direction are the skills most highly sought after (Rios et al., 2020), while employer surveys indicate professionalism, work ethic, teamwork, and collaboration are in high demand (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Cengage Group, 2019; Mourshed et al., 2012). Specifically, the National Association of Colleges and Employers most recent annual survey of U.S. employers found that the top six attributes employers seek on candidates’ resumes were problem-solving skills (89%), ability to work in a team (79%), written communication skills (73%), strong work ethic (72%), and flexibility/adaptability (70%) (the number in parentheses indicates the percentage of responding employers identifying the attribute as either very important or extremely important). Interestingly, in that same survey, the percentage of employers screening candidates by grade point average (a historically prototypical indicator of cognitive skills) had dropped from 73 to 38% in the past 5 years, suggesting that not only are SELCs valued in the workplace, but their value has also increased dramatically over time.
The picture of skills sought outside the United States looks similar. The World Economic Forum (2023) conducted a survey of 803 companies outside the United States in 12 languages, asking employers to identify core skills today and to predict their importance in the next 5 years. The top core skills were analytic thinking (66%); creative thinking (56%); resilience, flexibility, and agility (50%); motivation and self-awareness (49%); and curiosity and lifelong learning (45%). Other SELCs, including dependability and attention to detail (43%); empathy and active listening (42%); and leadership and social influence (39%), were also widely considered core skills for the international workforce. Employers expect that in the near-term future, the top core skills will be creative thinking (73%); analytic thinking (72%); technology literacy (68%); curiosity and lifelong learning (67%); and resilience, flexibility, and agility (66%). Interestingly, fewer of the organizations considered reading, writing, and mathematics (25%) and programming (18%) to be core skills. These findings make clear that both domestically and internationally, SELCs are a top priority for employers now and are likely to remain so into the future.
A potential limitation to surveys is that they reflect what employers say they are looking for, but they might not be the basis for hiring decisions. Burning Glass (2019) conducted an analysis of job ads and divided skills sought into three categories: technical skills (e.g., welding, financial analysis), software skills (e.g., Structured Query Language [SQL], AutoCAD [computer-aided design]); and 142 baseline skills, a category that included SELC-type skills. The top baseline skills across all 16 career areas (e.g., administrative, construction, customer support) were communication skills, teamwork and collaboration, organizational skills, problem solving, and physical abilities (Burning Glass, 2019, p. 14). Communication was rated first across all career areas; teamwork and collaboration were rated in the top five in all but four of the career areas (it was rated 15th in the administrative area); and organizational skills were rated in the top 10 in all areas (except they were 12th in information technology [IT]). This finding makes clear that SELCs are highly valued, based not only on what employers say are important skills but also on the skills they actually seek when hiring new employees.
Another way to study the value of skills and trends in demand for those skills is by examining occupations themselves. This approach, too, yields evidence for the critical importance of SELCs in the workplace. Deming (2017) showed that from 2000 to 2012, the fastest growing occupations were ones that involved a social component, such as teachers, managers, nurses, and therapists. Occupations not similarly involving a social component, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations, such as engineers, drafters and surveyors, architects, and biological and physical scientists, experienced negative growth. Social skills intensive occupations grew by 12% as a share of all jobs in the United States, and wages grew more rapidly in these jobs as well.
Analyses of the likely future effects of automation and computerization on skills suggests that jobs requiring social intelligence (e.g., negotiating, managing) and creativity (e.g., fine arts, jobs requiring originality) are the least susceptible to computerization (Frey & Osborne, 2017). Eloundou and colleagues (2023), based on analyses of the capabilities of ChatGPT and related large language models, similarly suggested that jobs requiring skills such as speaking and active listening are relatively less exposed to technology compared to jobs requiring skills such as programming and writing. A general conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that SELCs are currently important in the workforce and are likely to remain so as new technology automates an increasing number of job tasks. Many traditional cognitive skills (i.e., those typically assessed by standardized tests and indexed by grade point average; Kell, 2018) are susceptible to automation in the future, making acquisition of strong SELCs particularly important in insulating current and future workers from job loss. Computers and technology will not replace the need for workers with good intrapersonal and interpersonal skills.
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Recommendations and Future Directions
Schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the workplace, and industry is interested in employing prepared students. But too often, preparedness is understood purely in terms of cognitive readiness: Are students prepared to enter the workforce with the language and quantitative skills needed to succeed? This is an important consideration, but SELCs are an underappreciated factor in preparedness. Are students prepared to enter the workforce with the requisite social–emotional competencies that will enhance their value to employers? Surveys suggest that students believe they are not adequately prepared emotionally for the workforce (Ames et al., 2023), and employers believe that students are not prepared for the workforce on key social–emotional competencies, such as professionalism/work ethic, leadership, and communications (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2018).
We suggest several next steps to address the issue of SEL preparedness for the workforce. First, although SEL standards are now increasingly commonplace in K–12 (Dermody & Dusenbury, 2022), more can be done to promote the importance of SELCs in higher education, in community colleges, and in vocational education. Although colleges frequently offer student preparedness courses, vocational education could more routinely make such courses available. Also, there is little attempt to recognize SELC in the form of certificates or badges, which might incentivize institutions and individuals to provide and gain such recognition.
Finally, employer recognition of the shortcomings of entrant SELC preparedness should prompt employer investment in educational programs that prepare students socially and emotionally for the workforce. There are many examples of school–employer partnerships, particularly at the community college level (Davidson et al., 2019). These programs tend to focus on specific, technical skills, but more effort could be put into developing the soft skills and professional skills that are recognized by employers as critical for the workplace.
National SEL Week (March 3-7, 2025) is a call to rally together online and showcase the powerful combination of support and evidence for SEL. Join us in celebrating!
The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.
Joseph A. Durlak, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago and is now enjoying retirement in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His major interests are social and emotional learning and related prevention efforts, implementation of interventions, and meta-analysis. Dr. Durlak is a recipient of the Joseph E. Zins Award for Action Research in Social and Emotional Learning from CASEL.
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