How do we measure our employees’ soft skills?

The problem I’m an HR manager at a firm providing IT services to SMEs and, in these tough times, we’re placing a greater emphasis on soft skills, training our staff to go beyond their technical skills to generate client loyalty. But as these aspects are difficult to measure and we have a fluid, project-based structure, I’m concerned that even our managers don’t know who our top performers are. Our appraisals help us to weed out poor performers, but they do little to identify who is going the extra mile. How can we tighten up our performance management?
 

Language does not simply reflect what is going on in organisational life: it also influences what people think and what they do

Linda Holbeche, director of the Holbeche Partnership and visiting professor of HRM/OD at Cass Business School