The Top 10 Job Skills of Tomorrow

The widespread use of disruptive technologies has been sped up across nearly every industry since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many businesses are in survival mode, struggling to adapt to sweeping changes in their business environment, while others are easily beating the curve with effective digital transformation strategies.

By and large, about 50% of workers across all industries will need reskilling by 2025 , according to the World Economic Forum’s latest Jobs Report. They’ll need to equip themselves with future skills that are increasingly becoming critical in the emerging business landscape. Skills like active learning, stress tolerance, and flexibility, as well as technological skills.

But there’s a silver lining. Most of these skills are easy to acquire thanks to the availability of advanced learning resources and practical tools. Professor Klaus Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF speaking at a press conference, revealed that “We have the means to reskill and upskill individuals in unprecedented numbers, to deploy precision safety nets which protect displaced workers from destitution, and to create bespoke maps which orient displaced workers towards the jobs of tomorrow where they will be able to thrive.”

With adequate learning resources and the right mindset, most of these skills can be acquired in just a matter of months.

Here’s a rundown of the top 10 skills for future jobs according to the World Economic Forum:

Creativity and Initiative

The main engine room of the emerging fourth industrial revolution is the innovative minds of path-breaking thinkers and designers. Advancements in various industries owe as much to the inherent momentum of science as to creative minds.

To remain competitive, businesses need to think of new, improved ways of doing business, solving problems, and supporting customers. And creativity plays a huge role in all of that.

Another reason why the demand for creative minds will continue to grow is that it’s one of the few spheres of activities where A. I is still light years away from replacing humans.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Digitalization is leading to an unprecedented increase in the volume of information inundating the modern working environment. To prevent overwhelm and distractions in the workspace, you need emotional intelligence to manage your emotions and mental resources as well as those of others.

To improve your emotional intelligence, you need to cultivate empathy, integrity, and self-control. These virtues will help you build a much deeper relationship with others in your working environment – something they’ll most likely not be able to get from robots any time soon.

Analytical (Critical) Thinking

Businesses are facing an ever-increasing range of choices in just about everything sphere of activity. Since 2016, the demand for analytical thinking has been on the rise, proving to be one of the most reliable decision-making tools needed to navigate through an ever-widening landscape of choices.

Analytical thinking is also critical to innovation and growth across various industries. Analytical thinking helps you to make the best decisions concerning just about everything, generating logical conclusions from careful considerations of the relevant factors and the effects of their interplay.

Active Learning

The willingness to learn new skills is fast becoming a leading virtue in today’s work environment. This willingness can be influenced by the availability of proper learning tools and learning methods. People who have access to effective learning systems will thrive better in the future compared to those who don’t.

Effective learning systems and learning strategies make upskilling and reskilling a much easier affair.

Judgment and Decision Making

Most jobs that’ll be lost to robots and AI are those that hardly require human judgment. Since technology can hardly penetrate more complex jobs, such openings will be filled at a much slower pace compared to those that can be automated.

While technology can help us drill valuable insights from wells of data, they still require human judgment to impose meaning and determine the full range of consequences of their outputs.

Interpersonal Skills

Communication will still be a thing for a long time to come as far as teamwork and collaboration are concerned. Regardless of the technological resources at their disposal, teams will still need to imbibe good interpersonal communication skills to realize their full potentials. The ability to harness body language, voice tone, and choice of words towards a desirable outcome will be a major plus that HR managers across industries will look out for in resumes.

Leadership Skills

HR managers will also be keen on candidates’ ability to rally the efforts of others towards set goals and objectives. Businesses will require employees across all levels to assume responsibilities and take up initiatives to help the organization reach its goals.

Leaders inspire others to make their best efforts by showing good examples and exerting a positive influence.

Cultural Intelligence

The world is fast becoming more integrated than ever. With people now interacting more frequently with others from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, it’s becoming imperative to keep an open mind and be tolerant of others.

Cultural intelligence can come in handy not only in relationships with other co-workers but also with customers and stakeholders.

Technology Skills

Employees across all levels will need to deal with data for various reasons, and that requires some level of technical knowledge. Also, the current disruptions taking place across various industries are driven by technologies like business intelligence, A.I, virtual/augmented reality, etc.

Positions requiring proficiency in these technologies are increasingly opening up across industries.

Resilience and Stress Management

With new challenges emerging in the working environment across industries, the demand for the strength of character and resilience among employees is on the rise. Workers need to find better stress management techniques and strategies to cope with the fast-paced changes and new demands that may arise in the workplace.

Conclusion

Most jobs in the near future will involve human-to-machine interactions, but technical skills are only a fraction of the skills required for future jobs. Companies’ employee development programs need to focus on a mix of interpersonal skills, self-management skills, and technological skills to secure decent jobs in the future.

You can check out our other blog posts here.