69% of UK employers look for candidates’ people skills when hiring new talent.
When you consider the broad range of jobs (some of which, let’s be honest, don’t exactly demand superlative people skills), that’s quite the staggering statistic. 😲
Broadly speaking, communication, listening skills, empathy, adaptability, and a smattering of other so-called soft skills are certainly in demand. After all, people rich in these skillsets have the capacity to understand and work efficiently as part of large or small teams, while simultaneously meeting internal and external objectives.
Investing in the development of people skills is paramount.
As we move into 2026 and beyond, a time when AI and an increased emphasis on technological innovation will begin to shape workplaces, the danger is that core people skills will fall by the wayside. And this has broader organisational implications.
Thankfully, there is a way to mitigate this: develop people skills.
Below, we’ve put together a comprehensive practical guide for organisations to effectively develop people skills in 2026 and beyond.
But first, let’s look at why people skills matter in 2026.👇
What Are People Skills?
People skills, otherwise known as soft skills, interpersonal skills, or more broadly speaking, social skills, are a group of attributes that help you to better relate to others around you. These skills form the bedrock of communication, teamwork and leadership.
There’s a subtle difference between people skills and the popular commercial term ‘soft skills.’
This is an important distinction to make. People skills are specifically about how you interact with others through teamwork and empathy. Soft skills improve the effectiveness of how you connect, collaborate, influence, and build trust with others.
Why People Skills Matter More Than Ever in 2026
People skills have long been the bedrock of organisational performance.
However, as we reach the midway point in the 2020’s, workplaces are evolving. Technology is accelerating faster than workplace culture can keep up with. Yet, despite this, people skills still matter more than ever.
Relevance in 2026
AI and automation are flooding the commercial market.
Although they’re especially useful when completing routine tasks, distinctly human abilities, like communication, collaboration, and even empathy, matter more than ever. This is especially true as we turn a corner and enter 2026.
Cross-Functional Collaboration and Skill Shortages
Today’s popular working environment–hybrid working–has many advantages.
One disadvantage is that hybrid workers (in general) sparingly interact face-to-face with colleagues and clients. This means that cross-functional collaboration demands a degree of personality fluidity.
Adding to this is the global skills shortage.
This means organisations must retain the talent they have – something that depends heavily on managers’ and teams’ people skills. Without strong people skills, teams fracture.
Key Statistics
Developing people skills is paramount to prosperity. 92% of employees believe that empathy is essential to workplace success. 72% of CEOs believe people skills to be key drivers of success.
These statistics are rather glaring.
Especially when you consider that for much of the 2020s, the forecasted workplace developments have largely been driven by AI and innovation, yet, despite the relentless march towards automation, people skills are still prized in the workplace.
In 2026, don’t be surprised to find the smallest organisations doubling down on people skills. Below you’ll find a practical guide explaining how to develop people skills for 2026.
Why People Skills Matter in the Workplace
People skills such as emotional intelligence, communication, empathy, and adaptability matter in the workplace.
In many ways, they make the difference between effective leadership, communication and collaboration. This filters through all areas of an organisation. Let’s look at each briefly.
People Skills Underpin Leadership
Leaders and decision makers who cultivate people skills, listen to colleagues, spearhead initiatives, and motivate others in a purposeful way.
Additionally, as workplace dynamics evolve, e.g., rapid change and digital disruption, human leadership becomes more important. Technical skills may manage tasks, but people skills are intrinsic to resolving key issues, such as conflict, encouraging collaboration and navigating uncertainty.
People Skills Shape Organisational Culture
Organisations with a strong L&D culture, one where people feel encouraged and supported to learn, grow and collaborate, tend to enjoy stronger people retention rates, fluid internal mobility and robust management pipelines.
According to recent research, social, collaborative learning is crucial to addressing business-critical needs, supporting a culture of openness, trust and shared responsibility. ☺️
Support Project Success and Collaboration
Cross-functional, peer-to-peer, hierarchical support is increasingly recognised as critical to managing complex products, driving innovation and adapting to change.
LinkedIn data supports this. In 2024, soft skills, e.g., communication and problem-solving, ranked as the most sought-after skills. This is despite AI and technology skills being highly sought-after. There are simply things people can do that AI simply can’t.
Team members who communicate clearly, demonstrate empathy, negotiate differences, adapt and support one another are more efficient and resilient.
According to CIPD’s Learning at Work 2023 Report, peer collaboration learning increased as much as 36% in the prior two years. The report also uncovered that 63% of L&D professionals shared that collaborating with other business functions is now essential to operations.
12 Essential People Skills You Need in 2026
So far, we’ve talked about people skills in a general sense, their relevance and why they matter. Now, let’s look at the core people skills that your organisation can encourage in 2026, with a brief description of each.
1. Communication
Misunderstandings can quickly and easily disrupt progress.
Being able to clearly communicate visions, ideas, tasks, feedback, and more ensures alignment, reduces paperwork and accelerates decision making. This is especially important in 2026 when the hybrid or remote working environment still dominates many global sectors.
2. Active Listening
Almost all workplaces must manage rapid change and diverse viewpoints.
This requires active listening. Understanding context, needs, and even risk clearly helps teams to respond to information more accurately, rather than making assumptions.
3. Empathy
Like years before, 2026 workplaces that prioritise well-being, inclusivity and psychological safety retain top-tier talent.
Understanding empathy helps people to respond appropriately to stress, change and conflict, creating a healthier and more productive workplace.
4. Adaptability
We’ve already begun the AI revolution. The technology is slowly reshaping roles. This has shifted priorities.
Employees must adjust rapidly without losing their effectiveness and efficiency. This supports innovation and helps organisations to be resilient in the face of change and challenges.
5. Collaboration
In 2026, it’s safe to say that most work is cross-functional and independent; this means that collaboration is, arguably, the key to solving complex problems.
Effective collaboration accelerates project delivery while building shared ownership across teams.
6. Conflict Resolution
Given the nature of how it’s highly likely most of us will work in 2026–remote or hybrid, swift communication and exposure to a broad range of teams, conflicts and their consequential resolution will be paramount to preventing disruptions.
In fact, strong conflict resolution skills turn disagreements into opportunities for learning and improvement.
7. Influence and Persuasion
As hierarchies flatten, people need to increasingly influence without authority for initiatives to progress.
Strong influence and persuasion promote buy-in, shape decisions, and align stakeholders around shared outcomes.
8. Cultural Awareness
In today’s modern working world, one with a strong emphasis on multiculturalism, demonstrating cultural awareness is paramount to avoid miscommunication and exclusion.
This allows organisations to make decisions that factor in diverse perspectives.
9. Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
People with high EQ can regulate their own emotions and effectively respond to others.
This is vital during times of stress, change or uncertainty, improving leadership, teamwork and day-to-day interactions. 🫶
10. Relationship Building
Strong relationships build trust, improving and speeding up communication, collaboration and problem-solving.
In 2026, relationship-driven workplaces will outperform workplaces that don’t place emphasis on relationships. People perform better when they feel connected and supported.
11. Feedback and Coaching
It seems almost a cliché to say at this point, but continuous learning is expected in almost every modern workplace.
Organisations that focus on feedback grow rapidly while staying aligned with goals. Coaching skills empower peers and leaders to unlock performance and build capability across teams.
12. Teamwork
Complex projects often require people to work seamlessly together, sharing responsibilities and combining strengths. Strong teamwork boosts creativity, reduces silos, and ensures a faster and more reliable delivery.
How to Develop People Skills: 15 Practical Tips
Now we know what people skills are and why they matter, next comes the most important part: how to develop them.
We’ve listed 15 practical tips for anyone or any organisation that wishes to develop people skills.
1. Practice Active Listening
Let’s start with active listening.
There are three core elements to this: focus, reflect and respond. These elements can be explained as follows:
Focus
Giving your full attention to the speaker, psychologically, emotionally and physically. At this stage, you’ll set aside distractions, maintain open body language and think of how to respond to the other person talking.
The goal is to create conditions for genuine understanding and replying, opening a dialogue, rather than waiting for your turn to speak. This focus encourages connection, making it easier and safer for the speaker to share more willingly.
Reflect
This action demonstrates that you’re not just hearing what’s being said but processing the information with the intention of responding in a meaningful way.
There are several ways to do this, acknowledging emotional cues and summarising key points to demonstrate engagement.
When reflecting, clarifying questions are a valuable attribute to demonstrate, with one caveat being that they don’t interrupt the speaker’s flow.
Reflection helps to prevent misunderstandings and shows that you have your own thoughts and feelings to contribute. This transforms the interaction from a one-way transfer of information into a collaborative moment of connection.
Respond
The last action, respond, encourages the listener to provide their own perspective, offer support or move the conversation forward.
A good response extends naturally from your understanding of what the speaker’s saying. This can mean adding valuable context to demonstrate understanding before adding your own thoughts.
Additionally, responding can involve brainstorming solutions, proposing the next steps or simply expressing appreciation for conversational candour.
When executed correctly, responding closes the active listening loop while strengthening trust, making communication flow more smoothly and making it more meaningful.
2. Asking Better Questions
People who ask better, more insightful questions in meetings shift their role from passive participant to engaged collaborator.
This signals to everyone that you’re engaged, curious, and willing to see things from other people’s perspectives, while having the confidence to challenge notions.
Asking better questions creates psychological safety, making people feel heard and valued, encouraging them to contribute their own ideas openly. Over time, this builds a stronger rapport and makes someone others naturally trust and want to work with.👂
Moreover, good questions also help you to practice deeper listening.
Rather than merely preparing your next comment, asking better questions allows you to fully tune into what other people are saying, sharpening your ability to understand nuance.
It also makes it easier to identify what someone really needs and respond in a way that moves the conversation forward. Being able to demonstrate this skill benefits both personal and professional relationships.
Lastly, asking better questions helps to guide discussions without dominating them. Rather than providing answers to control the direction of the conversation, this facilitates shared thinking.
As a bonus, asking questions encourages collaboration, uncovers hidden assumptions and empowers others who may not automatically think to speak up.
The result is a more inclusive dynamic, helping while developing a reputation for being thoughtful, empathetic and effective. All hallmarks of strong people skills.
3. Join Cross-Functional Projects
Joining cross-functional projects is a powerful way to develop people skills. Why? Simple. It exposes you to colleagues at different levels of experience and expertise, priorities and communication styles.
Collaborating with people outside of your typical team environment teaches people how to share perspectives, explain ideas, ask for information and align goals. This builds clarity, empathy and adaptability – core components of strong interpersonal effectiveness.
In addition to this, cross-functional projects teach people how to navigate differing perspectives and resolve competing needs.
Each team brings its own pressures and constraints, developing negotiation skills and making it easier for people to find common ground and understand multiple viewpoints.
These experiences build emotional intelligence, helping people to get better at reading situations, anticipating concerns and addressing tension before it escalates. Over time, this strengthens your ability to collaborate with a wide range of professionals.
Also, experiencing a broad range of projects gives people the opportunity to build relationships organisation-wide.
Becoming familiar with different departments, including how they operate and what motivates them, makes people feel like a true team member while building bonds through shared challenges and successes.
4. Use Weekly Feedback Loops
Creating a consistent rhythm of honest, open communication is paramount to operational efficiency.
Make feedback loops a normal part of your day and not solely reserved for annual reviews, and you’ll build confidence and contentment.
This level of consistency trains you to express observations constructively, listen and respond appropriately, adjusting your behaviour based on what people need. Over time, people become more attuned to how actions affect teammates. This is a major component of emotional intelligence.
Weekly feedback loops also strengthen relationships by fostering trust and transparency. Regularly checking in with people, inviting them to share their perspective, makes people feel seen and heard. This builds rapport and reduces misunderstandings.
Practice these conversations weekly, and you’ll develop better communication habits. For example, asking better questions, validating feelings and collaborating. This all leads to consistent improvement, helping people and teams to optimise performance. 📈
5. Shadow a Colleague for One Hour
Understanding different people’s roles and how they impact the larger business builds stronger relationships.
Look at how someone else communicates, tackles challenges and builds relationships, and you’ll get firsthand insight into how they navigate relationships, day-to-day tasks, and achieve objectives.
There are several ways that you can do this. Reactions to circumstances. Tone of voice, body language, how people communicate, complete tasks, solve problems, and more.
This all contributes to an understanding of who people are, while broadening understanding of the functions of different roles that vary in different contexts.
Additionally, shadowing colleagues for just an hour creates the opportunity for reflective learning.
Watching how someone functions, allowing people to compare approaches, analysing how someone managed a particular situation and giving the opportunity to explore alternative approaches. These insights can be applied to everyday interactions, accelerating growth, empathy, communication and collaboration.
6. Improve Emotional Regulation
Remaining grounded so that you’re able to respond with clarity and confidence, instead of reacting impulsively, is a core people skill that, when deployed, is highly effective in the workplace.
Learning to recognise one’s own emotional triggers and manage them in the moment makes people far more equipped to manage any situation.
Honing listening skills, communicating clearly and remaining present in conversations make people far more equipped to add value to any interaction.
This steadiness makes others feel secure and understood, especially in high-stress or high-stakes situations. It also prevents misunderstandings and reduces the chances of someone saying something that will need to be addressed later.
Strong emotional regulation also enhances your ability to empathise with and read other people’s emotions.
With greater emotional space, you can notice subtle cues, e.g., tone, body language, even word choice, all of which illuminate conversations with the right amount of support, patience or authority.
This all contributes to smoother collaboration, healthier conflict resolution and deeper trust–the core components to excellent people skills.
7. Use a Role-Play or Scenario-Based Practice
Creating a safe environment for people to feel free to experiment with different communication approaches is a surefire way to elevate people skills. This can be challenging to do in real-world situations. 📣
A role-play or scenario-based practice approach allows people to rehearse difficult situations, practice conflict resolution or participate in active listening without real-world consequences.
The result?
People build confidence through muscle memory, making it easier to apply the skills learnt naturally in real-world situations.
Role-play also strengthens self-awareness and empathy by placing you in someone else’s shoes. Acting out a scenario or observing someone else doing it allows you to gain insight into how your words and actions are perceived.
Feedback from partners or observers helps people to understand what comes across well and what creates tension and/or confusion. This reflective loop accelerates a person’s growth in emotional intelligence, enhancing every interaction.
8. Seek Mentors for Communication
Someone who has already mastered communication nuances and knows what effective interpersonal communication is, knows how to navigate difficult conversations, read emotional cues, manage conflict gracefully and adapt their communication style to different personalities.
Mentors can model how to read emotional cues, navigate difficult conversations, resolve conflict gracefully, and adapt communication style to different personalities.
This experience helps shortcut trial-and-error and adopt proven techniques more quickly.
Additionally, a communication mentor can provide tailored feedback that accelerates your growth. They can point out blind spots that you might not notice, such as unintentional signals, unclear phrasing and tone issues.
Regular conversations with a mentor encourage reflection, accountability and continuous improvement.
Over time, this guidance not only sharpens your communication techniques but also boosts your confidence, emotional intelligence and ability to build strong, productive relationships.
9. Improve Conflict Resolution
To effectively improve conflict resolution, people must understand, navigate, and respond to the feelings and emotions of others.
This is especially true if someone is under pressure. Conflict reveals people’s true emotions; this is very apparent in circumstances of professional or personal stress. Why? Patterns emerge in people’s behaviour.
The good news is that this can be mitigated.
Learn to stay calm, listen deeply and identify real issues behind disagreements.
You become better at managing tense interactions without escalating them. This builds trust, shows emotional maturity and makes you someone others feel comfortable approaching, even if the stakes are high.
Conflict resolution also strengthens your ability to collaborate with people and build stronger, long-lasting relationships.
Instead of avoiding difficult conversations or letting issues fester, by resolving conflict, you learn to address conversations head-on, proposing solutions and finding common ground.
This encourages healthier communications with a wider team, reducing friction that could otherwise undermine performance.
As time progresses, your ability to turn conflict into constructive dialogue enhances your empathy, assertiveness and negotiation skills–key components of strong people skills.
10. People Skills for Leaders and Managers
Just as it’s important for everyone to demonstrate superior people skills, regardless of their role, it’s arguably most important for leaders and managers.
There are five core ways that leaders and managers can demonstrate superior people skills to get the most out of their teams.
11. Motivating Others
People skills are central to successfully motivating everyone. Why? People are driven more by emotional connection than by directives or pressure.
A leader understands what energises different members of a team. This could be autonomy, recognition, purpose, growth, and much more. Knowing this will then help to spark genuine engagement.
Having strong interpersonal awareness helps leaders to communicate goals in a more meaningful way.
More than that, knowing how to motivate others will help leaders to acknowledge effort, authentically celebrate wins and create an environment in which people feel valued. Employees who feel seen and supported are more motivated.
This leads to stronger ownership, deeper commitment and enhanced performance. Ultimately, root motivation in people skills, and you’ll build a culture that encourages people to consistently perform to their highest level.
12. Leading with Empathy
Empathy, arguably, is the foundation of effective leadership. Why? It allows managers to understand the emotions, perspectives and challenges of the people they’re responsible for.
Leaders who practice empathy build trust and psychological safety – two ingredients essential to honest communication and high performance will be more respected and therefore more effective.
Team members are more likely to share concerns early, ask for help, and collaborate openly when they know their leader genuinely cares. Empathy also helps leaders to make more humane, informed decisions, especially during times of change, conflict or stress.
13. Coaching Conversations
To efficiently coach people in conversations requires strong people skills because coaching relies on curiosity, active listening and the ability to guide someone toward insight rather than dictating solutions.
Leaders with strong interpersonal skills know how to ask high-quality questions that prompt reflection, growth and problem-solving.
They understand how to create a supportive space, one where employees feel comfortable discussing strengths, challenges and career aspirations without fear of judgment.
People skills help leaders to read emotional cues, adjust their approach based on personality and offer support that feels authentic.
Additionally, effective coaching builds capability and confidence, empowering employees to think independently and take ownership of their development. This raises team performance significantly.🥇
14. Giving Constructive Feedback
To give constructive feedback, leaders and managers need a blend of clarity, sensitivity and emotional intelligence – all core people skills.
Leaders and managers must be able to provide their honest input without damaging morale or making people feel defensive.
Strong people skills help managers frame feedback in a specific, actionable and supportive way. They know how to balance candour with empathy, acknowledge effort and explain the reasons for any changes.
Effective, constructive feedback ultimately helps employees grow, preventing recurring issues and building a culture of continuous improvement.
15. Managing Difficult Conversations
One of the core strengths managers and leaders must have is the ability to manage difficult conversations.
This can include conversations about performance, behaviour or conflict. Leaders must stay calm, listen deeply and communicate with clarity, respect and authority. This requires strong people skills.
Let’s not forget that managers who demonstrate strong people skills are able to spot underlying issues, address unspoken concerns and steer conversations toward constructive outcomes, not conflict.
Leaders and managers capable of handling tough conversations build credibility, maintain trust and prevent smaller issues from becoming larger problems. This is essential to creating a healthy, transparent team environment. One where challenges can be addressed early and fairly.
People Skills for Hybrid and Remote Work
As 2026 unfolds and hybrid and remote working models continue to mature, communication demands placed on hybrid and remote teams will only persist, likely becoming more complex.
This means that the skills required to collaborate effectively will also need to evolve.
Success in flexible working environments will depend not only on technical proficiency but on a set of refined interpersonal capabilities adapted specifically to digital and in-person contexts. Below is a list of the people skills that will likely become vital in 2026 and beyond.
Communicating with Clarity Online
The trend of having globally dispersed teams looks set to continue into 2026, meaning communication must travel across time zones, cultures and digital platforms clearly.
With instant messaging applications, like Slack, becoming an increasingly vital means of communication, in addition to emailing, WhatsApp messaging, and even posts to online platforms, having superior people skills to effectively communicate will be more vital than ever before to superior decision-making. 📱
Ambiguity and confusion, especially in digital communications, delay decision-making and fuel misunderstandings. This is magnified when people cannot just leave their desk for a quick face-to-face with a colleague to discuss an issue. Moreover, when you integrate AI tools into team workflows, the emphasis on clear communication becomes increasingly more important.
Don’t forget that with attention spans shrinking, communicating clearly and succinctly in all ways is increasingly necessary, especially in 2026. Organisations that master structured explanations, explicit expectations and context-rich updates reduce friction and accelerate alignment.
Clear online communication doesn’t just prevent mistakes, it amplifies productivity, trust and inclusivity for colleagues who rely on written channels to stay connected and perform at a high level.
Reading Signals Without Body Language
2026 will likely see remote and hybrid collaboration in digital spaces continuing to be in the spotlight.
In this environment, non-verbal or muted cues and hence the ability to read between the lines are essential to understanding colleagues’ emotional states, engagement levels and unspoken concerns.
Sure, as most of us have experienced in the Covid–and post-Covid era, video calls have their own refined etiquette. However, they only offer partial body language, with many interactions, including chat messages, shared document comments, and even asynchronous voice notes, provide no visual cues to speak of.
As we move into 2026 and beyond, it’s safe to assume that teams will continue to be cross-cultural and interpreting subtle signs such as response speed, writing tone, message length, and even emoji use will be critical to preventing conflict and ensuring psychological alignment.
Leaders who can detect communication intent, enthusiasm, hesitation, and frustration in digital behaviour will be better equipped to intervene, support colleagues and maintain team cohesion. This prevents multiple misunderstandings, allowing people to maintain cohesion.
Creating Psychological Safety Remotely
Today’s modern working environment, one with globally distributed teams and a broad range of personalities and cultural identities, must balance an array of different viewpoints.
For operations to run seamlessly, collaboration, problem-solving, innovation, and more must be aligned. Therefore, cultivating a psychologically safe space, one where people feel supported and encouraged to share ideas, is essential.
Not cultivating this type of environment may result in team members feeling excluded, misunderstood or unheard.
Creating remote psychological safety, especially in asynchronous or digital environments where messages can be easily misunderstood in the wrong context, is central to seamless operations.
This asks leaders to model openness, invite diverse perspectives, normalise mistakes and show visible support in digital spaces.
With AI increasingly automating operational tasks, the uniquely human work, e.g., creativity, judgement and experimentation, will be allowed to flourish. An environment that encourages people to explore and experiment without fear of judgment cultivates psychological safety both in person and digitally.
Building Trust Autonomously
Hybrid and remote ecosystems encourage 24/7 collaboration, building trust asynchronously, without having to rely on overlapping hours to communicate and make key decisions.
This allows people to move projects forward without real-time interaction, promoting transparency and accountability.
Predictable communication, clear documentation, and timely updates demonstrate competence, integrity and visible progress, creating an ecosystem where trust can thrive both online and offline.
Any organisation that fails to demonstrate these behaviours will find itself at risk of experiencing work stalling, doubts growing, and teams defaulting to unnecessary micromanagement. This compromises scalability, the ability to trust people to deliver to expectations, communicate openly and cultivate respect.
In the year ahead, businesses that can demonstrate open communication, respect conventions, and, importantly, trust that colleagues will be able to work together will be the glue that holds dispersed teams together.
This asynchronistic approach promotes speed, reduces burnout from constant availability and supports a more flexible working environment. 🧑💻
How L&D Teams Can Help Employees Build Strong People Skills
L&D teams are integral to helping employees to build strong people skills, spearheading initiatives, reinforcing policies and leading by example.
As the leading learning platform for SMBs, Thirst offers organisations the opportunity for SMBs to access more than 700 courses of high-impact content to improve people skills.
From communication and conflict resolution courses to time management and understanding unconscious bias, Thirst can provide you with resources to help people build strong people skills.
Let’s have a look at how L&D teams can help employees to build strong people skills in a little more detail, examining microlearning, skills pathways, AI-assisted development, roleplay practice, behavioural feedback, and manager involvement.
Microlearning
The short, targeted lessons microlearning offers enable L&D teams to strengthen people skills that easily fit into daily work duties.
People skills such as listening, empathy, conflict navigation, or assertiveness are best acquired when you break down complex behaviours into digestible, repeatable modules. This is exactly what microlearning does.
Better still, microlearning supports personalised pacing, allowing employees to revisit lessons when they need a refresher or even explore new lessons as their roles evolve.
People skills require both cognitive understanding and behavioural change, and microlearning (or any learning in small chunks) reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed, while spearheading learning through micro exercises, quick self-reflection and prompts to make learning continuous, not episodic.
Skill Pathways
Skill pathways allow L&D teams to guide teams through a structured, sequenced journey to develop people skills.
Instead of offering isolated courses, skill pathways map essential skills, e.g., communication, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and influence, and connect them in a logical way that mirrors real-world growth.
This approach helps employees to understand what’s integral to the learning process, why every step on the learning journey is important and how these steps can be implemented to effect change.
Assigning clear milestones, badges, or competency markers gives learners a keen sense of direction and achievement while promoting investment in the L&D process. Additionally, skills pathways provide a framework for blending formats such as videos, readings, coaching, and practice exercises.
This clear roadmap gives employees a foundation to build functional behaviours before advancing to more complex interpersonal capabilities. Having a structured approach like this accelerates mastery and creates more consistent people-skill excellence across multiple teams.
AI-Assisted Development
Organisations equipped with a powerful set of tools to personalise, scale and enhance people-skills training are more capable of delivering a rounded learning experience, one that identifies strengths and weaknesses and can recommend tailored activities to improve both relevance and impact.
These tools can respond dynamically, allowing learners to experiment in a safe environment and receive immediate feedback on a range of issues, including tone, clarity, empathy, and emotional cues.
AI also supports ongoing reinforcement, such as chat-based coaching, nudges and micro feedback to help embed behaviours long after formal training ends, adjusting programmes accordingly.
Supplementing human-led learning with intelligent, adaptive technology allows organisations to accelerate people-skill development in a way that’s personalised to everyone, allowing people to mature into more effective collaborators and leaders.
Role-Play Practice
One of the most effective methods L&D teams can use to help employees internalise people skills is role-play.
Active listening, negotiation, empathy, and conflict resolution cannot be mastered through theory alone; they require experimental learning.
Role-play creates a safe, controlled environment where employees can rehearse real-world scenarios, experiment with different approaches and build confidence in real-world situations. Digital platforms, peers, or role-plays provide an environment for skills to be transferred.
Learners will experience discomfort, unpredictability and the nuances of human interaction. This will strengthen their ability to remain calm under pressure. L&D teams can tailor scenarios to reflect organisational challenges, ensuring consistent relevance and engagement.
Structured debriefs also reinforce key behaviours and help people to reflect on both strengths and blind spots.
Over time, this repeated practice builds confidence, competence and reduces anxiety, transforming people skills into natural habits–making role-play a cornerstone of people-skill development.
Behavioural Feedback
People who have clear insight into how their actions are perceived by others can adapt and evolve their behaviour and communication to meet their circumstances.
L&D teams can spearhead this by creating systems that provide timely, specific and actionable feedback directly tied to observable behaviours. This can include peer reviews, 360-degree assessments, in-session coaching, or AI-generated feedback from communication tools.
Effective behavioural feedback highlights areas where people excelled and areas where improvement is necessary, helping learners understand the true impact of their words, respond in the appropriate tone and demonstrate empathy or clarity.
Regularly integrating feedback loops into learning programmes helps employees to track progress, stay accountable, and continuously refine their interpersonal capabilities, therefore accelerating growth by turning experience into meaningful, measurable improvement. 📊
Manager Involvement
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to discover that manager involvement is one of the strongest predictors of people skills development.
L&D teams can train, support, and empower managers to reinforce on-the-job learning. How? Simple. Managers can model effective communication, empathy and collaboration, making these behaviours visible and aspirational.
Not only that, but managers can also provide ongoing coaching, recognise progress and create opportunities for employees to apply new skills in real-life situations, for example, leading meetings, resolving tensions or delivering feedback.
Managers who actively encourage growth by equipping people with toolkits, conversation guides, observation checklists, and even simple prompts to integrate development into everyday actions foster a growth mindset.
Common Mistakes Made When Developing People Skills
When developing people skills, organisations must avoid a handful of common mistakes to ensure success. We’ve listed these below.
Focusing Only on Communication
People skills are much more than just communication. It’s about addressing the underlying behaviours that make interactions effective.
As 2026 unfolds, workplaces with strong people skills require emotional intelligence, active listening, conflict navigation, relationship-building, and the ability to read digital cues across hybrid organisations to thrive.
Over-focusing on communication leads people to optimise how they speak instead of how they understand, respond and collaborate. Neglecting to develop skills like empathy, self-awareness and adaptability leads to surface-level skills development.
Copying Others’ Styles
It’s common for employees to observe colleagues’ interactions and consciously or unconsciously copy their behaviour, mannerisms, or, to a larger extent, approach, especially if the person they’re observing is influential or charismatic. 🤔
However, this results in inauthentic behaviour, discomfort or inconsistency – especially in hybrid settings where digital presence amplifies tone and intent. Attributes, strengths, weaknesses, role, and even cultural differences can be profound.
Copying someone else’s uniqueness can be jarring to other people. People’s strengths are most effective when they’re aligned with an individual’s personal strengths and, importantly…values.
In 2026, teams value authenticity, psychological safety and diverse collaboration styles.
Developing people skills is something that’s personal to individuals. Not mimicking others. Adapt best practices but express them in your own voice.
Thinking People Skills Are Innate
Despite what people may think, people skills are NOT innate or fixed.
Sure, some people are naturally better with people than others. However, people skills can be developed. There’s nothing stopping people from practising people skills, especially with modern tools like AI coaching.
Viewing people skills as fixed or innate can lead to development stagnation. Adopting this attitude will spell concern for organisations in 2026, and as the future unfolds. Adaptability and interpersonal competence offer distinct strategic advantages.
The mindset that anyone can grow with practice, reflection and feedback shifts perspective. Treating people skills as learnable encourages a growth mindset and makes development accessible to everyone.
Using Feedback Incorrectly
Feedback is often underused or misused.
The consequence of this is it’s either taken too personally, dismissed too quickly or applied without context.
Employees can overreact to minor comments, causing unnecessary friction, while others ignore them entirely. Both circumstances stifle growth. This is especially true in hybrid workplaces.
Effective feedback requires genuine curiosity, reflection and specificity, describing the behaviour, outlining the impact it can have and how it could be improved in the future. 💭
Assuming Empathy = Agreement
Empathy is, in many ways, about understanding someone else’s perspective. It’s NOT adopting that truth as your own.
In 2026, workplaces that suffer from conflict, notably digital conflict, not understanding empathy can lead to weak boundaries, unclear decision-making and unresolved tensions.
People may fear challenging others because they want to demonstrate empathy.
Real empathy allows for disagreement with respect, curiosity, and psychological safety. Recognising this distinction helps people to better navigate relationships with compassion, accountability and clarity.
How to Measure Improvement in People Skills
Understanding people skills and the impact they have on any working environment is one thing.
Knowing how to measure these skills is another. Yet, measuring improvement in people skills is paramount to understanding where people skills can be improved so that people are able to perform better as individuals and as a team.
Below are six ways that you can measure an improvement in people skills.
Self-Assessment
A powerful starting point for tracking growth, including growth in people skills, is self-assessment. Why? Simple. Self-assessment encourages honest reflection and accountability.
By regularly evaluating your communication clarity, empathy, listening habits, and confidence in interpersonal situations, you create a baseline from which to build improvements.
To do this, you can leverage a range of tools, including reflection journals, rating scales and post-interaction debriefs to identify patterns–both strengths and gaps. Over time, comparing these self-ratings reveals measurable progress and highlights areas that would benefit from attention.
The key is to be consistent. Schedule regular check-ins, review your notes and adjust development goals accordingly. This builds awareness–the fuel that powers all forms of skills improvement.
Manager Reviews
Manager reviews provide tremendous insight into how effective an individual is in their role. Measurement reviews involve several elements. These generally are as follows:
- Structured performance discussions
- Competency frameworks
- Observation checklists (focused on communication, collaboration, reliability, conflict resolution, and influence)
Managers should score behaviours using a consistent metric, e.g., feedback frequency rating, supporting teammates and conflict resolution.
Regular review cycles (e.g., monthly or quarterly 1-2-1’s) create clear comparison points, and documented examples strengthen evaluation.
Tracking whether individuals meet specific behavioural goals, such as facilitating meetings or improving stakeholder communication, provides clear, transparent progress insights. Align these with team outcomes, and you’ll achieve consistent professional and personal growth.
Poor Feedback
Peers often witness day-to-day behaviours that managers miss. Any feedback is therefore a powerful performance and skills indicator.
Measurement usually involves anonymous surveys, basic ratings forms or structured prompts focused on collaboration, communication clarity, helpfulness, empathy or reliability. Scoring how consistently someone contributes to team success or manages stress in collaborative efforts.
When collected regularly, this data makes it possible to spot patterns, i.e., misunderstandings, more constructive conversations or increased willingness to support others.
Comparing peer evaluations over time highlights general behavioural shifts. More notably, because it’s grounded in real interactions, peer feedback is often one of the most accurate performance measurement tools.
Behavioural KPIs
There are several behavioural KPIs that, when effectively leveraged, translate soft skills into trackable performance indicators.
These can include cross-team collaborations, time-to-resolve conflicts, client satisfaction scores, meeting facilitation effectiveness, or follow-up comments.
To effectively measure improvement, organisations can create clear expectations, e.g., responding to stakeholder action within one working day, or improving meeting outcomes based on participant ratings.
Tracking these KPIs monthly or quarterly demonstrates whether interpersonal behaviours are strengthening productivity and contentment. A rise in positive feedback, more productive meetings, or faster conflict resolution suggests meaningful improvement.
Behavioural KPIs help qualify people skills that often feel subjective, making progress easier to evaluate and communicate.
360 Feedback
360-degree feedback combines insights from managers, peers, direct reports, and occasionally customers or partners. This multi-angle evaluation offers the most holistic view of someone’s interpersonal performance.
Measurement involves structured surveys with competency ratings across communication, leadership presence, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and trust building. The key is consistency – using the same feedback forms across each review cycle can promote consistent, accurate and valuable insights.
Comparing results year-on-year reveals where skills have improved and where gaps remain.
Quantitative comments contextualise scores, offering concrete examples of strengths and weaknesses, challenges. Better still, 360 feedback removes blind spots, making it one of the most powerful tools for tracking people’s development. 😀
Future People Skills for 2026 and Beyond
As 2026 unfolds, there will be essential people skills that organisations will need to cultivate to succeed in a rapidly changing workplace.
Understanding what people skills to focus your energy on will give you a head start for the year ahead and beyond.
Below are the future people skills that will prove invaluable to future-proofing your organisation.
Cross-Cultural Intelligence
It has been said many times before, but the global nature of 2026’s workforce will become intrinsic to remote and hybrid working, especially in a multi-cultural market.
This involves understanding diverse communication styles, respecting cultural values and adapting behaviour to mirror the social expectations of any interaction.
Workplace professionals who can effectively navigate nuances, including direct and indirect communication, preferred decision-making styles and varying attitudes towards hierarchy, will excel.
Developing this skill includes exposure to global teams, cultural briefings, language learning, and practising curiosity instead of assumptions.
Leaders who excel in cross-cultural intelligence, foster trust, reduce misunderstanding, and collaborate effectively across different time zones will prove to be increasingly effective in 2026 and beyond.
Digital Communication Literacy
By 2026, digital communication literacy goes beyond simply using messaging apps or video calls; it means communicating clearly, empathetically, and efficiently across multiple digital channels.
Professionals must understand platform etiquette, use AI-driven tools responsibly, and tailor tone and asynchronous conversations.
Strong digital literacy includes mastering concise writing, interpersonal conflict without visual cues and recognising when face-to-face interaction is the best course of action.
More than that, digital communication literacy demands managing digital overload, using automation ethically, and understanding how communication algorithms shape collaboration.
People capable of cultivating this skill will reduce disruption, friction, speed up decision-making, and maintain human connection even in virtual-first environments. 🖥️
Collaborative Problem-Solving
In 2026’s increasingly complex workplace, collaborative problem-solving means combining diverse perspectives, data and experiences to reach innovative solutions. This relies on active listening, constructive debate, rapid prototyping, and the ability to foster shared goal alignment.
Teams frequently use digital whiteboards, AI-assisted brainstorming and real-time co-creation tools. Individuals who excel at this invite input from others, manage disagreements productively and stay focused on outcomes rather than ego.
Adaptability in AI-Enabled Teams
In 2026, most teams will work side-by-side with AI-systems to automate tasks, generate insights and shape workflows.
In this environment, adaptability is central to being comfortable refining processes, learning new tools quickly and adjusting responsibilities as AI capabilities grow.
This requires openness to experimentation, critical thinking, the ability to trust AI outputs and collaborate with humans and intelligent systems.
Professionals who can adapt and shift seamlessly between strategic tasks and human-centric work, while leveraging AI, will have a distinct edge over the competition.
This flexibility ensures resilience during technological change and positions individuals as valuable contributors in increasingly hybrid human-AI teams.
Emotional Resilience
Given what we can surmise about how 2026 is likely to shape up, with workplaces becoming increasingly reliant on speed, adaptability and agility, especially digital agility, emotional resilience to be able to deal with these pressures is paramount.
Remaining grounded in the face of rapid change and recovering quickly from setbacks, while keeping yourself grounded, regulating emotions, not feeling overwhelmed and maintaining clarity under pressure will become central to efficiency and productivity.
Developing this practice means being mindful, self-aware, and maintaining healthy boundaries while proactively managing stress habits. All these elements contribute to people being emotionally resilient and optimising performance in different environments. 😑
FAQs
What are the best ways to develop people skills?
Developing strong people skills involves a combination of mindset, practice, and self-awareness.
The best ways to do this are to give people your full attention, improve your nonverbal communication skills, ask open-ended questions, build empathy and an understanding of people, stay calm in high-stress situations, and get better at reading emotional cues.
Why are People Skills Important in the Workplace?
People skills are–and will continue to be–essential in the workplace.
Being able to effectively communicate your intentions, sharing ideas openly, contributing to collaboration and adapting to evolving workplace necessities will only benefit everyone. Moreover, people skills make problem-solving easier, while improving customer relations and managing difficult or unexpected situations with finesse.
How Do I Improve People Skills Quickly?
Easy. For one, start by actively listening, offering non-verbal acknowledgement of engagement.
Smile and use people’s names in conversation (not too much, though, it can be off-putting if names are repeated too frequently).
Ask insightful questions and not humdrum, forgettable ones; match someone’s energy. Don’t interrupt people when they’re speaking or look or glance at your phone. These are just a few ways to improve your people skills.
Are People Skills the Same as Emotional Intelligence?
Not exactly, although people skills and emotional intelligence do overlap. People skills are the outward behaviours you use to interact effectively with others.
As previously mentioned, these include communication, active listening, conflict resolution, reading social cues, building rapport, and teamwork. Emotional intelligence is, perhaps, best described as how well you manage situations with others.
It’s the ability to read, understand and manage both your and others’ emotions.
These include self-awareness and regulation (knowing what you feel, why and managing impulses), empathy (understanding how other people feel), motivation (your internal drive) and social skills (successfully interacting with other people).
Final Thoughts
People skills will matter more than ever in 2026.
Remote and hybrid working environments don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Quite the contrary. But that doesn’t mean that everything will be automated. Organisations that can leverage people skills in the workplace, while adapting to a remote and hybrid environment, will have the edge over the competition. In short, people skills matter.
Developing people skills isn’t optional. It’s essential.
Without people skills, the core element of any organisation simply cannot thrive. Despite all the talk of automation, AI, digital platforms, and the benefits they bring, people skills will always be central to operational success.
From knowing the 12 essential people skills to understanding the 15 practical tips to developing these skills in the workplace, having a practical guide will give you an edge on the competition.
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