Soft skills training for employees: how to choose a program in 2027

The best soft skills training for employees is the one people actually finish and use on Monday morning: it targets two or three skills tied to a business problem, makes people practice realistic situations with feedback, and measures behavior change, not just completions. Format matters more than catalog size. A library of 10,000 videos will not teach a new manager how to handle a tough conversation; practicing that conversation will.

This guide walks you through how to choose a soft skills training program in 2027: which skills to prioritize, the main training formats and when each one works, eight criteria to compare providers, a comparison of the best-known soft skills training providers and a simple rollout plan. Full disclosure: Game Strategies is one of the providers on the list, and we will tell you where we are not the right fit.

What is soft skills training for employees?

Soft skills training develops the interpersonal and personal skills people use to work with others and manage themselves: communication, leadership, empathy, adaptability, problem-solving, customer service. Hard skills are the technical know-how of a role, such as coding, accounting or running a machine. If you need a refresher on the difference, see hard skills vs. soft skills.

Here is the catch: most soft skills programs fail for the same reason. They explain the skill instead of training it. Knowing that you should listen before responding does not change how you react when a customer starts shouting. Effective programs have three things in common:

• Practice in realistic situations, where people decide, make mistakes and try again.
• Immediate feedback, so people know why something worked or didn't while it is still fresh.
• Reinforcement on the job, usually from a manager who asks about it and recognizes the change.

Which soft skills should you train first?

Start with the skills employers say they need most. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers in 55 economies, lists these as core skills for their workforce:

The same report found that employers expect 39% of workers' core skills to change by 2030, and that 85% of them plan to prioritize upskilling their workforce. Upskilling is on almost every employer's agenda, and soft skills make up most of the list above.

That said, do not try to train all nine at once. Pick the two or three that solve a problem you can name: new managers who avoid feedback, rising customer complaints, teams that struggle with change.

Soft skills training formats compared

Most soft skills training programs combine several formats. Here is what each one is good at:

Instructor-led workshops

A facilitator, a room (or a video call) and exercises with peers. Workshops are great for building trust in a team and for discussing real cases, and they can include role plays and group activities. The limits are logistics and consistency: the experience depends on the trainer, and it is hard to reach a distributed workforce or to let people practice again a month later. If you run workshops, our guide to games for soft skills training has activities you can use.

E-learning video courses

Short videos, readings and quizzes, usually from a large library. They are cheap per person and give everyone access to many topics, which makes them useful for awareness and self-directed learning. Their weak spot is practice: watching someone give feedback is not the same as giving it. Ask any provider for real completion data.

Simulations and game-based training

The learner plays a role inside a story, faces decisions (a negotiation, a team crisis, an angry customer) and sees the consequences of each choice, with feedback along the way. Because the situations resemble real work, the step from training to the job is smaller, and the game mechanics keep people going to the end. This is the format of our catalog. We cover it in depth in our guide to training simulations for employees.

AI role play

Employees talk in real time with an AI avatar that plays a customer, a prospect or a team member, then get feedback on how they handled the conversation. It is ideal for skills that depend on what you say and how you say it: presentations, discovery calls, customer service, feedback conversations. People can repeat the same conversation until they feel confident, without booking a trainer. See how it works in AI Role Play.

Coaching and mentoring

One-to-one development with a professional coach, an internal mentor or, increasingly, an AI coach. It is the most personal format and works well for leaders facing a specific challenge. Because it is individual, it is usually reserved for managers and key roles rather than the whole workforce.

How to choose a soft skills training program: 8 criteria

1. Practice, not just content. Do learners make decisions and see consequences, or do they watch and answer a quiz? Ask to try a course yourself.
2. Relevance to your people. Do the situations look like your employees' work? A frontline team and a leadership team need different scenarios.
3. Completion. Ask for completion data from similar clients. A program nobody finishes cannot change behavior.
4. Depth. A thousand ten-minute videos are not a leadership program. Check how long and how structured the courses are for the skills you care about.
5. Languages. If you have teams in several countries, check that courses exist in their language, not just with subtitles. Our catalog is available in up to 20 languages.
6. Integration. Can people access it from your LMS and with single sign-on, on any device? Ours works from our campus, from your LMS (through integration or hybrid SCORM), with SSO or via a QR code, on desktop, tablet or phone.
7. Measurement. Look beyond completions. Our Admin module reports indicators based on the Kirkpatrick model.
8. Support. Will someone help you launch, drive participation and read the data? Every Game Strategies project has a Customer Success Manager.

Pricing is rarely public. Most providers charge per user or per user bundle on annual contracts, so ask for a proposal with your headcount and check what is included.

Soft skills training providers compared (2027)

These are the providers that come up most often when companies shop for soft skills training. We stick to public information and leave prices out, since almost none of them publish theirs.

Game Strategies

A catalog of 70+ soft skills, sales and compliance courses built as video games that work as simulations: your team practices a negotiation, a difficult meeting or an angry customer and gets feedback on every decision. Behind it is Gamelearn's experience: more than 5,000 clients over 20 years.

• Languages: up to 20.
• Access: our campus, your LMS (integration or hybrid SCORM), single sign-on or a QR code.
• Measurement: Admin module with reports based on the Kirkpatrick model, and a certificate on completion.
• Beyond the catalog: AI Role Play to rehearse conversations about your own product or customers, and gamified onboarding built with your content.
• Good fit if your problem is that training does not get finished or applied.
• Keep in mind that we do not build custom courses: the catalog focuses on transferable skills. For company-specific processes, pair it with another provider.

GoodHabitz

A Dutch company with a catalog of online courses on personal and professional development for the whole workforce, in many languages, sold by subscription.

• Good fit if you want employees to choose what to learn from a broad range of topics.
• Keep in mind that the format is the classic online course (videos, readings, exercises), so track how many people finish.

LinkedIn Learning

A very large library of video courses connected to each employee's LinkedIn profile.

• Good fit if you want open access to many business and tech topics.
• Keep in mind that video on its own offers little practice.

Coursera for Business

Courses and programs from universities and companies, with certificates.

• Good fit if you want longer learning paths with academic backing.
• Keep in mind that they take time, so they suit selected groups more than the whole workforce.

Udemy Business

A curated selection of courses from the Udemy marketplace, strong in technology and digital skills.

• Good fit if technical teams need to get up to speed on specific tools.
• Keep in mind that quality varies from one instructor to another.

Skillsoft

One of the longest-standing corporate catalogs, with plenty of leadership, technology and compliance content.

• Good fit if you are a large organization looking for a broad, standardized catalog.
• Keep in mind that you should check which parts of the catalog exist in each language you need.

Go1

An aggregator that brings together courses from many content producers in one subscription.

• Good fit if you want maximum topic variety under one contract.
• Keep in mind that style and quality are not uniform across producers.

BetterUp

A platform that combines human coaching and AI guidance to develop employees and leaders.

• Good fit if you want individual coaching for managers and key roles.
• Keep in mind that coaching is one-to-one, so it complements a training catalog rather than replacing it.

Soft skills courses by skill: examples from our catalog

How to roll out a soft skills program that sticks

1. Start from a business problem. "New managers avoid difficult conversations" is a goal; "we need a leadership program" is not.
2. Match skills to audiences. Leadership, feedback and talent development for managers; communication, resilience and customer service for everyone.
3. Pilot with a small group. Look at three things: how many finish, how they rate it and what they say they will apply the next day.
4. Get managers involved. Share the content with them first and ask them to bring it up in one-on-ones and team meetings.
5. Measure behavior, not just completions. Use the four Kirkpatrick levels (reaction, learning, behavior and results) and agree on one or two business indicators before launch. We explain how in KPIs to measure the impact of training programs.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs Report 2025 (January 2025; Figure 3.3, "Core skills in 2025", and chapter 3), and public information from each provider, accessed October 2026. Offers change, so confirm them in a demo with each provider.