Complete Story
02/09/2024
Soft Skills Development
How a hi-tech solution can aid a low-tech need
You don't have to look far to find an article or warning about the half-life of the workforce's current capacity and the urgent need to upskill, reskill and pre-skill workers to future-proof both their careers and their organizations. It seemed like hyperbole when, just a couple of years ago, the World Economic Forum predicted that half of all employees would need reskilling by 2025. But, given the pace and unpredictability of change, this is quickly becoming our reality. And this reality is not lost on employees. Gallup research finds that 48 percent of American workers would switch to a new job if it offered skills training opportunities.
With today's focus on digital transformation and the proliferation of technology, many surmise that the skills required for success now and into the future will skew in that direction. But, counterintuitively, seven of the 10 most necessary skills identified by the World Economic Forum are what we commonly refer to as soft skills, marked below with an asterisk.
- Analytical thinking.
- Creative thinking.*
- Resilience, flexibility, and agility.*
- Motivation and self-awareness.*
- Curiosity and lifelong learning.*
- Technological literacy.
- Dependability and attention to detail.*
- Empathy and active listening.*
- Leadership and social influence.*
- Quality control.
Of course, anyone who's tried to learn — or teach — the asterisked skills above has discovered the hard truth about soft skills. They tend to be the most challenging to develop. They also tend to be the most important to long-term success. We might hire for technical or functional expertise, but these human skills engineer career resilience and endurance over time. Acquiring these critical skills, however, has only become more challenging for some as a result of pandemic-inspired social distancing as well as diminished interaction resulting from remote and hybrid work. Some organizations resort to unusual strategies, like sending employees to charm school.
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