Research from PwC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO survey revealed that key skills remains the top concern for business leaders globally as organisations move towards the future of work.
Change and disruption is the new normal within workplaces today. This poses new challenges for organisations – including digital transformation, evolving employee needs, and meeting changing compliance mandates, while ensuring revenue growth and remaining operationally efficient. The job market is always evolving. As some occupations lose popularity, others gain an edge. No matter which field you are in, having certain career skills can make a difference in your success. Knowing which skills or qualities are most in-demand can be helpful as you carve out your career path. As such, employers and employees alike need to focus on new skills that will allow them to thrive in the constantly transforming workplace.
Here are some of the top 9 job skills for 2021.
1. Creativity
Developing new ideas and applying new solutions to address existing problems is essential given the disruptive workplace. As new business challenges continue to emerge, employees need to be creative in creating new and innovative models to tackle tomorrow’s challenges.
2. Persuasion
Persuasion remains one of the most in-demand soft skills and is highly sought-after in aspects of sales, marketing, leadership as well as project management. The ability to communicate effectively and convince the target audience of a particular product or concept is key for ambitious startups and small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Given the mushrooming number of startups and unicorn companies today, persuasion is certainly an important skill to master.
3. Collaboration
Today’s workplaces encourages an open-office concept to encourage collaboration amongst teams and facilitate exchange and generation of new ideas. This results in high functioning teams, which are likely to increase productivity as opposed to teams working in silos.
4. Adaptability
Advancements in technology has changed the way businesses function today. As more processes are being automated, employees have to be able to adapt to the ever-evolving business landscape. This also means the ability to embrace change and maintain a professional attitude in high-stress situations.
5. Growth Mindset
In order to keep up and adapt with new changes, employees have to adopt a growth mindset and be willing to change. The skills of today may no longer be relevant tomorrow. As such, employees need to be willing to continuously learn in order to ensure that their skill sets remain relevant for the workplace.
6. Communication
Strong communication skills is essential to share information as well as facilitate exchange of knowledge and ideas. Effective communication also allows information to be delivered quickly and accurately. Essentially, to communicate well is to understand, and be understood. When you are applying for jobs or looking for a promotion with your current employer, you will almost certainly need to demonstrate good communication skills. Communication skills are needed to speak appropriately to the different type of audiences whilst maintaining good eye contact, demonstrate a varied vocabulary and tailor your language to your audience, listen effectively, present your ideas appropriately, write clearly and concisely, and work well in a group.
7. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to analyse objectively and make objective judgments on topics and ideas. It helps employees to diagnose problems and identify all possible solutions. Given the constantly new challenges that arise in the workplace, critical thinking is essential to ensure that employees are able to derive on the best solution to a problem. Concurrently, critical thinking can help to resolve conflicts in the workplace by working out issues in an amicable manner.
8. Leadership
Leadership is key to providing guidance within the workplace. A good leader is able to bring out the best ability within his or her team and motivate them to work effectively and productivity in achieving a shared goal. As organisations strive to growth, competent leaders are require to motivate and guide their employees in line with the organisation’s vision and long-term goals.
9. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, evaluate and respond to one’s emotions as well as the emotions of others. Today’s workplace focuses on cross-team collaboration which requires the need to be able to effectively interact with and respond to co-workers. Emotional intelligence is closely tied to other key soft skills including leadership, adaptability, and communication.
Developing both your hard and soft skills will boost your marketability to potential employers. It’s almost a certainty that tech skills will continue to be highly sought after, but other skills like being able to communicate effectively, being mindful of details, and staying organized aren’t likely to go out of style any time soon. The key to getting ahead is finding the right balance and targeting the skills that are most valued in your chosen field. These essential key skills will help employees remain resilient amidst the myriad ways in which jobs and organisations will evolve over the coming years. As technology continues to disrupt the way organisations function, honing these skills is a top priority for both employers and employees alike.
