Tim Ryan teaches the Radical Candor feedback framework

NAIDOC Week 2025: A Leadership Opportunity for Australian Businesses

INSEAD Professor Erin Meyer takes us inside Netflix culture

[_98% of CEOs_](https://www.cfchildren.org/policy-advocacy/sel-employability-skills/) report instances of a disconnect between what a role entails and what their employee can offer.

The employee's technical skills are fine, but their soft skills are lacking.

_"Future Fit"_ author Andrea Clarke once told us she'd love to see "a Master's degree in **human skills** " taught across universities and schools.

_"I do think that is the one thing that's missing from our conventional schooling,"_ she said in our interview. _"It is understanding and mastering those skills that will make us disproportionately advantaged in our careers."_

So here, we'll introduce you to **social-emotional learning** , which covers communication, problem solving, creativity and innovation. These are crucial skills to be productive, engaged and contributing members of a team.

We'll discuss why its crucial in the workplace and how you can incorporate social-emotional learning within your own teams.

Social-emotional learning \(SEL\) is a process in which people develop a **spectrum of soft skills** vital for success in professional and social settings. These skills translate across the workplace, school, and within interpersonal relations.

Self-awareness, empathy, discipline and communication skills are all examples of having strong social-emotional skills. When we practice these skills in our everyday life we become better at handling day-to-day stressors, manage everyday workloads and effectively communicate with others.

As [_Stephen Covey_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/stephencoveyleadingspeedoftrust?recacheSoql=true) says, _People are social beings and social learning is the primary form of learning, just as word of mouth is the highest form of advertising._

What is Social-Emotional Learning?

A Leadership IQ study found that [_48% of new hires_](https://www.leadershipiq.com/blogs/leadershipiq/35354241-why-new-hires-fail-emotional-intelligence-vs-skills) fall short within the first 18 months of starting a job. 

Clearly the organisation's onboarding could be to blame, but the study suggests that 89% of these employees failed because of a **lack of soft skills** (22% of this number struggled to deal with and manage emotions).

Strong social-emotional learning (SEL) skills within the workplace contribute to a stronger company culture, and more engagement and job satisfaction from staff.

Simply put, when individuals have a better grasp of their own emotions and behaviour, they have more of a capacity to better understand others, manage challenges effectively, and maintain positive relationships.

Why Is Social-Emotional Learning Crucial For Workplace L&D?

Here are a few ways your organisation can implement social-emotional learning \(SEL\) within your team and workplace:

4 Ways to Incorporate Social-Emotional Learning Within Your Team

It may seem a little left field, but ensuring your organisation's **core values** are set in stone, along with a clear business strategy, can help you more effectively track KPIs and guide any social-emotional learning (SEL) changes you make for your teams.

Strong social-emotional learning (SEL) skills often impact on business strategy indirectly through general productivity and engagement. Tracking performance on the key soft skills can help your organisation steer towards its goals.

1. Have a Strong Mission & Vision Statement

On average, people get along better with others with whom they can share a genuine connection with. This starts with understanding another's perspective as to why they made a certain decision, or allowing employees to better understand where you're coming from.

Yet, according to a [_Gallup survey_](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/391739/showing-care-employee-wellbeing.aspx) only 24% of employees really feel their organisation cares about [_wellbeing_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/monthofmindfulnessChelseaPottenger).

Empathy is shown to be one of the [_10 qualities that successful leaders share in common._](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/10qualitiesallsuccessfulleadershaveincommon)

2. Practice Empathy

When a team feels more involved in workplace decisions it makes employees feel heard and their opinions valued. While employees wont necessarily make any major decisions, gathering opinions will make them feel a part of the process.

This instills a healthy workplace environment that focusses on actively listening to employees, what they want, and what they need. Try to create a [_pyschologically safe space for employees_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/psychologicallysafeworkplaces) to feel comfortable in voicing opinions - especially those counter to the rest of the group.

3. Share Decision Making

Implementing training programs that teach social-emotional learning \(SEL\) will help build an employee's soft skills. Usually, training should cover areas like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Implementing such training helps build these skills over time. Here are some areas SEL tactics can help improve:

4. Implement The Right Training

This is the first skill associated with social-emotional learning (SEL). Having self-awareness means we are able to correctly recognise our own emotions, thoughts and values. This means we can grasp our own strengths, and limitations, have more of a sense of confidence, and have an accurate sense of self.

Simple exercises like regular check-ins, performance reviews, or asking for reflections and learnings are all great ways to recognise and build an employee's self-awareness.

Self-awareness:

Self-management builds upon self-awareness and reflects a learner's ability to regulate thoughts and feelings in a range of situations. This may be shown through effective stress management, impulse control and self-motivation.

Self-management:

Social awareness is the ability to empathise with those around you. This may be having the ability to pick up on social cues, practicing empathy and understanding, and expressing gratitude. It may also mean one's ability to strive show eagerness to take on new opportunities.

Social awareness:

Relationship management is the ability to maintain healthy, positive relationships with others. This may mean having good communication skills, being cooperative, listening to others and having the ability to mediate conflict.

Tactics in building and maintaining relationship management in the workplace may be practicing role play, training in client liaison, and taking part in team-based activities.

Relationship management:

Heres some easy ways to implement SEL activities into the workplace:

How Can Leaders Implement Social-Emotional Learning?

Role play doesnt always seem like fun at first, but its an effective way for employees to learn key concepts by acting them out as real life scenarios.

For example, if you're teaching someone how to present a client meeting from start to finish, you understand that it can be a daunting experience for the learner. However, a role play scenario allows other employees or management to provide feedback, and build self-awareness in the learner.

Role Play

[_Peer learning_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/8benefitsofpeerlearning) indirectly allows organisations to reinvest in their employees while strengthening empathy, teamwork and company culture.

When peers teach other, they tend to practice more self-awareness on how they provide constructive criticism, it also builds learning retention, and saves the financial investment of third party training programs.

Peer-to-Peer Learning

Gamification uses specific learning tools to enhance the learning experience in a fun way. It uses game elements to educate and engage learners in an attempt to break the conventional mould of learning strategies. Its a great way to combat boredom or a dip in motivation. Its one of the best and most effective [_interactive learning_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/whatisinteractivelearning) strategies in the workplace.

In fact, it can [_increase overall engagement and productivity_](https://financesonline.com/gamification-statistics/) by 60% and 50% respectively.

Gamification

Coaching and mentoring are one of the most effective ways to build and maintain engagement with employees. It brings insight, perspective and instills a [_growth mindset_](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/growthmindsetrethinking) in the learner. It also drastically helps build thought habits like introspection, self-awareness, collaboration and communication. It hits all the parts of what social-emotional learning entails.

Coaching

Our weekly cadence of learning events includes a lot on soft skill development. We give members in our community access to the best speakers in the world on topics like communication, feedback, self-awareness, listening, accountability, and more.

With our new [Enterprise package](https://thegrowthfaculty.com/#plans) to suit teams of 20+, you can increase the number of those on your team who hold annual [_Growth Faculty membership_](https://join.thegrowthfaculty.com/#live-virtual-events). When more of your organisation have access to 40 live virtual events, live and interactive masterclasses, podcasts and more from the world's best leadership thinkers, there is no limit to how much social-emotional learning you can build into your L&D schedule.

Photo by [Mapbox](https://unsplash.com/@mapbox?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/people-in-office?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

4 Ways to Incorporate Social & Emotional Learning For Your Team

Keep informed
Stay Inspired

4 Ways to Incorporate Social & Emotional Learning For Your Team

Keep informedStay Inspired

Keep informed
Stay Inspired