This article is contributed by Jason Dirkham
It’s no secret that the skills demanded by the job market are changing. But in which direction?
A recent study by the World Economic Forum might shed some light on the issue. The WEF worked with more than 350 high-powered CEOs and entrepreneurs across a range of industries to find out where they think the next skills shortage will come from.
Here are the skills they identified would be most important and in highest demand in the coming decade.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence as a concept emerged in the 1990s as psychologists looked for ways to better characterize human intelligence than simple IQ. Although they thought that there would be a gulf between the two – with highly intelligent people failing to display high emotional intelligence, and vice versa – that’s not what they found. Instead, they discovered that the two were intertwined: intelligent people were more likely to have highly developed emotional skills too.
Businesses need emotional intelligence. Not only do they want people who can get on with each other, but they also need employees who also have the ability to sense what their clients really want. A team of emotionally intelligent people is far more productive.
Security Knowledge
As Alpine Security points out, too few employees know enough about the importance of cybersecurity at present. But as companies become ever-more reliant on data to keep their operations going, staff need training. Cybersecurity threats not only put businesses at financial risk (by interrupting their operations), but legal risk too if data are jeopardized.
People Management
The world of work isn’t getting any easier. If anything, things are more competitive than they ever were, and more and more people become experts in their respective fields. As a result, industry needs more people with the managerial talent to motivate others and to inspire them to achieve their best, all the while keeping negative feelings, like anxiety, to a minimum.
Creativity
Machines are doing more and more of the grunt work in businesses, whether it’s robots on the factory floor or software in the office. In the future, humans will be left to do the things that they do best, like being creative. The WEF suggests that creativity is now the third most crucial skill that employees need, up seven places since 2015, the last time the organization filed a report on the future of work. Businesses want people who can see the potential in the slew of new technologies coming their way.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to have two conflicting ideas in one’s head and then use reason and evidence to decide which idea should come out on top. Although it sounds like a simple idea in theory, putting it into practice is anything but. Today’s workers need the skills to evaluate how their companies use automation technologies, and whether they are doing so ethically. They also need people who can think clearly and rationally about what the future will bring so that they can plan for those eventualities.
This article is contributed by Jason Dirkham
