Want to make yourself indispensable to future employers?
It’s not just technical skills you need to cultivate. As we move into the new industrial revolution and the pace of change continues to accelerate, the skills you need to thrive in the workplace are shifting, as well.
Let's take a look at some of the skills that will be in demand by employers in the next ten years in US.
1. Digital Literacy
Digital literacy encompasses the skills to learn, work and navigate everyday life in our digital world. These skills involve the ability to use devices, software, and apps safely and with confidence. People with strong digital literacy skills can communicate and collaborate easily using digital tools, and they keep on top of new technologies and understand how they might impact their job and their business.
2. Data Literacy
For most companies, data is now one of their most important and valuable business assets, which means organizations will want to employ people that are able to take data and use it effectively. In the average business context, data literacy means being able to access appropriate data and work with it confidently. To cultivate data literacy, working on extracting meaning from data and communicating data-based insights to others. With data literacy, you'll also be able to question the integrity and validity of any data you are working with rather than just blindly following the information you are given.
3. Critical Thinking
In this era of fake news, social media bubbles, and information overload, critical thinking is at the top of the list of the most vital skills to cultivate for success. Thinking critically means analyzing issues and situations based on evidence rather than hearsay, personal opinions, or biases. When you are practicing critical thinking, you can question the validity of evidence and figure out what’s true and what’s not in a variety of situations.
4. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to express and control our emotions. An emotionally intelligent person is aware of how their emotions influence their own behaviors and impact others around them and can manage those emotions accordingly. I believe empathy – the ability to see the world from someone else's perspective – is a key component of emotional intelligence.
5. Creativity
Have you ever wondered what creativity really is? One way to define it is "the act of turning imaginative ideas into reality." Creativity will be one of the most desirable skills in the future workplace, especially as we hand more and more routine tasks over to machines. Creative thinking, like coming up with new ideas, problem-solving, imagining beyond the status quo, and implementing ideas to fix issues and make things better, will be critical in the workplace of the future.
6. Collaboration
The nature of collaboration and teamwork is changing as teams evolve to include hybrid workers, fully remote workers, contractors, and other employees who flow between projects and teams. In this changing workplace, you will need to be able to effectively collaborate and communicate with a variety of colleagues and coworkers.
7. Flexibility
Are you open to change? In the workplace of the future, change is going to be even more of a driving factor than it is today. We'll have to continually contend with new technologies, rising automation, the rapidly evolving pace of work, and vast business disruptions. We must all develop the mental resilience to thrive in times of constant change. Adaptability – the ability to adjust to new conditions – is key to developing flexibility. Adaptable people are open-minded, curious, and willing to learn new things because they focus on opportunities, not obstacles.
8. Leadership Skills
Good leadership is about bringing the best out of other people and making sure they can thrive. And if you think leadership skills are only necessary for those at the top of the ladder, think again. Factors like distributed teams, increasing diversity, the gig economy, and more fluid organizational structures mean that leadership skills will be important for every individual throughout the company – whether they are leading a project, a team, or an entire department.
9. Time Management
Whether you work from home, work full-time in an office, run your own business, or work for an organization, the ability to manage your time effectively is essential for your workplace performance. Remember that time management is about working smarter rather than harder. Putting in extra hours isn't necessary for people who are great at managing their time. They know when they are most productive and use this time wisely, reserving their less productive hours for other tasks.
Cultivating effective time management skills is also important for your mental health. When you can manage your time effectively, you create a better work/life balance to ensure you have room in your life for the things that are most important to you.
10. Curiosity and Continuous Learning
If I were to pick just one skill that I think everyone must cultivate, it would be curiosity. Whatever your age or industry, adopting a mindset of continuous learning is critical to thriving in tomorrow’s workplace. Curiosity and continual learning will help you stay flexible and embrace change, as well as help you keep your skills sharp so you can keep up with the major changes taking place today. Want to stay relevant to employers and give yourself the best chance at building a successful, fulfilling life? Adopt a growth mindset and spark your desire to learn.
11. Service orientation
Service culture is an increasingly important skill to hone in the new digital world. Figuring out how best to connect with customers remotely and deliver the same level of service as in a face-to-face interaction is an essential skill to acquire.
12. Persuasion and negotiation
Positively persuade others’ choices by focusing on what is important to them and building consensus. Professionals in sales are probably already astute at this skill but it is important for all areas of business and customer relationship professionals to learn the art of persuasion to maximise profitability in an increasingly competitive world.
13. Troubleshooting and user experience
In the new customer-centric digital age, it's important to have an understanding of user experience. Critic every digital touch point and put yourself in the shoes of your customer - a core competency for marketing and sales professionals.
14. People-centricity
Interpersonal skills should be at the center of our activities as we continue to transition into the digital age, be it with customers or teammates. The ability to effectively lead a team which may be partially or fully remote is a core competency to build. Creating a cohesive team with shared goals through online and offline interaction.
15. Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
The use of facts and data to back up reasoning and develop solutions to problems is a muscle that must be used often enough to become second nature. This in turn develops a methodical approach to problem-solving which can help create order in chaotic working environments.
How to develop essential soft skills for the future
Soft skills are the low hanging fruits that can, for the most part, be adopted pretty simply into one's behavioural habits. Hard skills take longer to hone, it’s a commonly accepted fact that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a skill.
The diagram below indicates that soft skills could be learned in a matter of several weeks. So, how to develop soft skills and future-proof your career?
It’s a more competitive world out there. You’re no longer simply competing for a position against your counterparts within a commutable distance but rather an international pool of talent with varied backgrounds.
Use this list of the
most in demand skills as a resource to future-proof your career whether you’re
an experienced professional or just embarking on your degree. Now is not the
time to rest on your laurels or feel defeated by the current global health and
economic crisis, after all “out of adversity comes opportunity” - Benjamin
Franklin.
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