What 130+ HR and L&D leaders told us about soft skills
Ten recurring challenges, and the methods that leaders say actually work.
From October 2024 to March 2026 we ran more than 130 discovery interviews with L&D, HR and business leaders in about 18 countries. We analysed them with AI-assisted thematic analysis and published the result as an open-access report with a DOI.
The challenges that repeat
- Feedback is too rare and too subjective to change behaviour (about 30% of interviews).
- The ROI of training cannot be measured (about 25%).
- Assessment is subjective and biased (about 23%).
- What people learn does not reach their behaviour at work (about 21%).
What leaders say works
- Realistic case-based simulation and role-play, the method cited most (about 30%).
- Objective competency frameworks (about 27%).
- Continuous feedback for development (about 23%).
- Short, repeated practice (about 18%).
The methods leaders trust are the ones that manual approaches cannot deliver at scale.
Together these findings describe one measurement gap. Objective assessment, realistic practice and fast, continuous feedback need time from experts that most teams do not have. The frequencies are approximate and indicative, and all quotes in the report are anonymised.
Sources
SoftTrainer team
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