15 Critical Skills to Master for the Future World of Work

Opinion by Dr Eric Albertini, Future Fit Academy

JOHANNESBURG, GP, SOUTH AFRICA, September 10, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — Ask anyone what the crucial skills are to compete in the future world of work, and they’re likely to rattle off a list of competencies such as coding, robotics, digital marketing, programming and so on. This overt focus on technical or digital competencies stems from the belief that machines and robots will automate jobs and remove the need for human labour and skills in the 4th Industrial Revolution, making millions of jobs redundant.

Granted, there is some truth in the fact that many jobs will be automated and driven by computers and artificial intelligence – but this has been a reality for decades in the drive for business operational efficiencies and that truly important state called progress!

In fact, for every pessimist who believes tech and disruption will make more jobs redundant and signal the end of “being human”, history has proven that technological advances create more jobs, in different industry sectors. The question that everyone should be asking of themselves, of their leaders and workforce is not what technical competencies are needed, but rather:

“Will I rise to the challenge of learning what is required to stay relevant in the future world of work? Do I possess the crucial human traits and behaviours to be a lifelong learner, to embrace change to continually learn new, in-demand skills to empower myself to transition and face the future of work successfully?”

It’s important that we pick up our pace of change and look to build capability that helps us to adapt, thrive and succeed within an ever-changing world. For any employer, employee, student, leader or entrepreneur looking to get handle on what the skills of the future will be, the list is onerous. A Google search on “future world of work” yields over three million results. There is an avalanche of literature suggesting the “top skills for the future of work”, yet no “definitive” list of what these skills are.

To cut through the clutter, the Future Fit Academy has defined 15 ‘behavioural’ future fit skills as critical to being relevant and competent, if not advanced, in the future of work. The emphasis on the ‘Future Fit’ skills is equally as important to individuals as it is to employers and businesses. To meet the skills challenge and ensure that businesses are sustainable and competitive demands that organisations developing their human capital ‘muscle’ to strengthen companies for future disruptions. Companies need a talent strategy that develops employees’ critical, future fit skills. For individuals, the need to upskill and reskill has never been more pressing.

In harnessing and developing these 15 skills, the Future Fit Academy’s Future Fit Index provides a comprehensive self-assessment tool that assesses your level of effectiveness in these 15 critical skills needed to be effective now, and in the future world of work. They are:
• Curiosity – The desire to know more about something or someone. The willingness to seek out and embrace the unknown.
• Dealing with Paradox – the ability to deal with seemingly opposing or contradictory perspectives, the ability to think “both/and” instead of “either/or”.
• Tolerance of Ambiguity – The degree to which an individual is comfortable with uncertainty, unpredictability, conflicting directions and multiple
demands. COVID-19 has taught us this in truckloads.
• Learning Agility – the ability and willingness to learn from experience and use those lessons to perform effectively in new and different situations.
• Growth mindset – The mindset that talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others.
• Design Thinking Mindset – an ideology and a process concerned with solving complex problems in a highly user-centric way.
• Sensemaking – refers to how we structure the unknown so as to be able to act.
• Creating Clarity – also known as Visioning and Mobilising, is about defining shared values and engaging people in positive action.
• Adaptability – is about having ready access to different ways of thinking, enabling leaders to shift and experiment as things change.
• Cultural Adaptability – An individual’s willingness and ability to adapt their manner of communicating, motivating, and managing across cultures.
• Virtual Collaboration – Collaboration between dispersed team members that is carried out via technology-mediated communication.
• Change Resiliency – Being able to adapt well and bounce back quickly in times of stress and constant change.
• Resourcefulness – The ability and creativity to cope with difficulties, the ability to deal resourcefully with difficult problems.
• Leading without Authority – Getting others to willingly cooperate and engage, rather than following directives because of your positional authority.
• Connectedness – The ability to relate to others in a manner that builds them up, encourages, and brings out their highest potential.

Why are these 15 future fit skills so important?

Based on the ‘Knowing-Doing-Being’ framework, the Future Fit Index takes into account all aspects of good leadership and management and how it works in practice. It recognises the need for rounded development across technical knowledge, capability and personal awareness.

The reality is that many technical competencies you learned at university, on the job or at trade college are likely to become outdated and redundant in a world facing exponential change. Your ability to embrace the opportunity that comes with change, learn new skills on a lifelong basis, and cope with the stresses of uncertainty are underpinned by your ability to harness and leverage the 15 future fit skills.

In mastering the 15 Future Fit skills, the detailed Future Fit Index provides respondents with an awareness of their level of readiness across these skills, as well as a developmental pathway for each of the 15 skills assessed. By understanding your level of readiness on each of these 15 future fit skills, the Future Fit Academy is then able to formulate a learning strategy to guide behaviour change and master these skills, knowledge and behaviours required to remain relevant and effective in an in an ever-changing world.

Trent Lockstone
Future Fit Academy
+27 11 019 0019
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