Today’s workplace is weird.
Employees are highly connected to their technology, constantly communicating with an army of AI chatbots, SaaS services, and digital collaboration platforms. At the same time, they are profoundly disconnected from their customers and co-workers.
Constant digitalization, remote work, and now outsourcing communication to AI have created an empathy and soft-skills deficit. Inevitably, when you spend all day interacting with a machine that gives you instant, frictionless answers, you begin to treat human colleagues the same way.
As a result, workplace conversations and customer interactions become brief, blunt, and highly transactional.
All this is taking place as a new generation enters and rises in the workforce.
They are brilliant with technology, but their formative years were interrupted by remote schooling and followed by hybrid work environments. Many have never experienced the subtle, day-to-day interactions of a traditional office.
When every company has access to the same software, offers competitive pricing, and provides identical product features, technical proficiency is no longer a sufficient differentiator. The things that separate a good company from a great one are judgment, relationship-building, conflict resolution, and trust.
In other words, protocol intelligence (or soft skills) is the ultimate differentiator.
HR must recognize that soft skills training is no longer a professional development perk. It’s a core business strategy for upskilling, engagement, and retention of top talent.
Here is how we get there.
Reversing the Protocol Intelligence Deficit
When workplace communication is optimized for speed and efficiency, the diplomatic nuances of professional etiquette are often the first casualty.
An employee sends a harshly worded message on Slack rather than picking up the phone to resolve a misunderstanding. Cameras are turned off during critical team meetings. Colleagues talk over one another because they lack the basic situational awareness to read a room.
As isolated instances, these lapses are easy to dismiss as minor annoyances.
However, they take a cumulative toll that erodes trust and team cohesion. People begin to feel excluded and disconnected from their employer’s mission and their role in helping fulfill it.
HR leaders are uniquely positioned to reverse this trend.
Technical training and software onboarding alone won’t get it done. HR leaders have to teach people how to be human at work again.
Making the Implicit Explicit for a Digital Generation
Senior leaders are frequently frustrated that younger generations lack the traditional business etiquette and soft skills the job requires.
We can’t fault a generation for missing skills they were never allowed to observe. Unlike their older colleagues, today’s younger professionals have only ever known a digital-first workplace.
Older colleagues sat in conference rooms, traveled with senior executives, and watched how veterans negotiated deals or handled upset clients.
Today’s younger professionals largely grew up behind screens. They are heavily accustomed to communicating with AI companions and social algorithms, meaning the subtle art of face-to-face rapport is completely foreign territory for many of them.
Simply put, stop assuming that new hires will simply absorb the unwritten rules of professionalism. Instead, we have to make the implicit explicit.
Teach them the mechanics of making an introduction, the right way to hold a conversation at a networking event, and the proper way to express dissenting opinions respectfully.
The results can be game-changing.
When you give younger workers an explicit playbook for human interaction, their confidence skyrockets, and they become among your most engaged and capable team members.
Empowering People to Compete
We cannot solve a human problem with more software. That’s why soft skills training isn’t a discretionary line item or a nice-to-have that can be discarded when budgets get tight.
It’s a proven, actionable way to retain employees and maximize their potential, producing bottom-line results, bridging generational divides, and cultivating workplace collaboration. As you plan your talent strategies for the coming year, remember that while AI will undoubtedly level the playing field operationally, it will actually widen the gap in how people show up.
Sophisticated tech stacks will only partly define successful organizations. They will also be defined by their ability to cultivate protocol intelligence, empathy, and professional presence in their people.
Pamela Eyring is the president and owner of The Protocol School of Washington® (www.psow.edu), an accredited school focusing on international protocol, business etiquette, and communication skills training. With more than four decades of public and private sector experience in operational protocol and educational development, Pamela has extensive knowledge of U.S. and international practices. She is a global thought leader in the etiquette and protocol industry. Currently, she oversees the national and international operations of the PSOW in Washington, D.C., Columbia, S.C., and Dubai, UAE.
Pamela and the PSOW team won the Gold Globee® Award as Best Training Provider of the Year in the 10th Annual 2025 Awards Program for Achievement. She has also received past recognition, being named the Enterprising Woman of the Year from Enterprising Women Magazine. Because of her expertise in cross-cultural communication, international protocol, and etiquette, Pamela is regularly featured as a protocol and etiquette expert on national and regional radio and TV outlets, from the Today Show, PBS NewsHour and CNN to FOX Business, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, among many others.