It has often been said that "Technical skills get you hired, and soft skills get you promoted." Whether they are called "soft skills," "nontechnical skills," or "professional skills," the incorporation of soft skills into the development of technical professionals is evolving and becoming more critical to both employers and technical professionals. Because of the "Big Crew Change," new supervisors and technical leaders will take on new responsibilities, which will require them to rely upon their soft skills. Ensuring that soft skills training is embedded with technical training prepares future leaders. The quality of the technical contribution increases when individuals work more collaboratively. Soft skills help to improve personal effectiveness, providing a vehicle with which to deliver business results. Soft skills enhance expected business outcomes of the technical professional's work product. A variety of methods are utilized in professional development to disseminate best practices in soft skills to technical professionals. In addition to SPE, several other professional and technical societies are placing an increasing emphasis on soft skills development. There are several ways to measure the impact, both qualitatively and quantitatively, of incorporating soft skills into professional development for engineers. One way of measuring the impact includes surveying participants and their supervisors according to Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation. It is challenging to incorporate soft skills development into existing rigorous engineering degree curricula or corporate onboarding programs without sacrificing the emphasis on development of technical competency. Increasingly, it is becoming more apparent that the value of the effort to incorporate soft skills, pays off in multiple ways to both the corporation in achieving their strategic objectives and to the working professional in realizing their career development goals. Common themes from case studies, surveys and benchmarking with other professional technical societies will illustrate how to deliver better business outcomes with soft skills.

Objective/Scope As the Oil and Gas industry looks for ways to better manage its increasingly age diverse workforce, reciprocal mentoring (RM) has become a necessity. Industry veterans are nearing retirement. Young entrants to the workforce are knowledgeable in technology, but lack industry experience. These two circumstances, along with other factors, helped create the perfect storm – the Great Crew Change. RM can pave the way for a new standard of open dialogue in business, stretching far beyond technology. Ideally, learning and information sharing would cross all lines of seniority and responsibility. Methods, Procedures, Process Everyone knows that mentoring can be useful to a young employee. However, there is a lot that junior employees (millennials) can offer as mentors themselves. Senior employees were trained when technology transfer was slower and less sophisticated. They learned to give presentations without the aid of PowerPoint and other media available today. Often, they relied on a flipchart for a presentation, so they have well developed soft skills and interpersonal skills. Millennials recently graduated, have more experience in technology transfer, and recent applications and technology developed, and are more inclined to communicate through email, text, and social media. RM acts as a powerful tool to help both junior and senior employees strengthen specific skills. Results, Observations, Conclusions Reciprocal mentoring can create dynamic teams utilizing the overall strengths of both millennials and senior employees. These two-way conversations become avenues where employees can discuss insights from both perspectives and gain valuable knowledge from one another in an environment of trust. With the increasing number of Millennials joining the workforce in the oil and gas industry, management must incorporate new ways of mentoring them. The increase in the age gap between senior employees and millennials creates a challenge to keep the workforce engaged. Novel/Additive Information Differences in perspective, attitude towards work and different motivation can result in friction and an unwillingness to collaborate. This is the role of reverse mentoring which is detailed in this paper. With the "Big Crew Change" we are experiencing a shortage of younger more experienced technical professionals. Reciprocal mentoring is a way to bridge that gap.

Soft Skills From the exploration and production of oil and gas to the ultimate distribution of petroleum-based products to customers, the oil and gas industry is global and multidisciplinary. The global nature of the industry is reflected in the membership of SPE: Professional members of SPE live in 147 countries, and a review of the student membership suggests that the Society will become even more diverse in the years to come. Given that mergers and acquisitions are the global climate in the industry today, as a young professional, how do you feel about change? Do you feel confident that your job is secure and you have room for growth, or are you worried? It is inevitable that change will be part of your future in this industry, and soft skills hold the key in helping you successfully navigate it. If you imagine yourself standing in front of a pyramid face (Fig. 1), there is something that you cannot see—the third corner at the back of the pyramid. But without it the pyramid cannot stand. Such is the role that soft skills play in career success. Take the case of a major professional sports team with highly paid players. They all want to win, but sometimes they let their own importance get in the way of the team’s success. Diversity is having a team of players, each with his or her own unique level of physical capabilities and experiences. Inclusion is all of the team members, including the star players, accepting the talents, strengths, and experiences of others, along with the insight of the coach, to move the team to a higher level of excellence. Embracing Diversity and Inclusion Diversity and the ability to accept, adapt, and change with the global climate of the industry is a gift that not every person possesses. To appreciate a gift, you have to understand how valuable it is to you. In a 2014 Ernst & Young series called “The DNA of the COO: Time to claim the spotlight,” a report titled “An oil and gas sector perspective” states that mergers and acquisitions are on the rise as oil and gas companies seek to divest noncore assets. Three-quarters of the chief operating officers polled for the report said that highly developed leadership qualities and interpersonal skills are the most crucial attributes to success, while 60% emphasized communication and influencing skills. These are professional people in charge of the operations of major oil and gas companies who cited soft skills as a large percentage of the most important attributes they needed to be successful.

With many engineering disciplines projected to have a shortage of workers in the next 10 years and the impending retirement of many senior-level employees, there has been an emphasis on identifying job competencies and skills gaps. SPE, and others, have developed a variety of tools to identify and address these and help members ready themselves for the emerging realities of the future workplace, further their careers, and meet employers’ expectations. As the SPE Soft Skills Committee reported in the February 2016 issue of JPT(Fig. 1), the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) released an Engineering Competency Model (CMT) in July 2015. The group engaged subject matter experts from its 17 member societies to develop the model in conjunction with the US Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration over a 2-year period. The administration partners with industries and professions to develop and maintain dynamic models of the foundational and technical competencies that are necessary in economically vital industries and sectors of the American economy. SPE’s parent organization, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) participated as a member society. AIME interfaced with SPE training staff during development of this model. The creation of the competency model included an examination of existing bodies of knowledge, as well as the inclusion and involvement of the stakeholders within the engineering community, including associations, industry, and academia. The tool was vetted via a webinar, a survey, and an in-person review session. The team built the model to provide a universal standard for the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary not only for entering the engineering profession but also for maintaining proficiency during one’s career. It is also helpful to employers, educators, associations, and economic developers. While the Department of Labor has used this pyramidal template to develop models for 23 industries, engineering was the first profession for which this was used. Additional detail can be found at https://www.careeronestop. org/CompetencyModel/. Bridging the Engineering Competency Model  With SPE’s Competency Work The ECM competencies are laid out in pyramidal fashion to display foundational skills typically learned earlier in life underneath those skills acquired in later stages of educational and workplace achievement. But it stops short of identifying competencies for specific engineering disciplines and jobs. This is where most of SPE’s technical competencies come in.

Soft skills are a collection of people management skills. In the current economic atmosphere of the oil and gas industry, technical skills alone are insufficient for career success. Engineering professionals tend to prioritize technical skills over soft skills, however, the demands of their jobs require effective leading, speaking, listening, communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution "soft skills". The industry has had to make some very difficult decisions in the last few years. Many companies have opted to hire or retain technical professionals with excellent soft skills, who are adaptable, effective communicators, who are adept at collaboration and team management. Technical skills and Soft skills if combined, create a synergistic effect that enables the technical professional to effectively communicate their needs or strategies. Being able to effectively communicate through confident speaking, listening, feedback, conflict resolution, critical thinking, and effective interpersonal skills create a positive environment that is conducive to a successful outcome through collaboration. Increasing numbers of University Petroleum Engineering Programs are beginning to add "soft skills" to their curriculum because they recognize the human to human skill factor is crucial to overall technical career success. With the rigorous demands of the engineering curriculum, it is difficult for academia to provide adequate training in soft skills. This is one of the reasons that SPE has initiated a Soft Skills Committee, offering Webinars, Workshops, ATCE Sessions, Journal Articles, and Papers, to provide crucial soft skills training in the industry and to direct technical professionals to other avenues of training to enhance their abilities, thereby increasing their effectiveness in their chosen technical careers. With the loss of over 350,000 jobs in the recent industry downturn, this paper the results of quantitative and qualitative studies which provide insight into the importance of soft skills and how they relate to the success of technical professionals. Data will be provided through industry market trends, professional studies of soft skills for engineer’s career success, and surveys of industry management. It will be illustrated that the blending of technical knowledge with effective soft skills abilities can increase the overall success of the engineer, and the success of the company.