According to the World Economic Forum, the professional world is already struck by the Fourth Industrial Revolution or the Industry 4.0 as they call it. As it converges tech advancements in digital, biological and physical technologies, changes will be much more prominent in the global economy as a whole by 2020. Developments in the field of autonomous transport, robotics, artificial intelligence, genomics, and machine learning will change the way we work and also the way we live. Therefore, it is imperative that you, as a part of the workforce, should align yourself with the new skill sets required in order to keep pace with the changing times.
Here is a list of the top 10 skills you must have by 2020, as per a recent report by the World Economic Forum:
- Complex problem solving
Technological tools are coming up almost every day to make our lives easier but they can make things complicated as well. The reason is, regardless of how advanced these tools are, a certain amount of human intervention is always needed to make the best use of the results provided by these tools. Hence, a capacity to solve complex and ill-defined problems in real time and at the backdrop of challenging settings becomes all the more important.
Economists define modern-age problems as ‘wicked problems’ – not because they are evil, but because they are almost impossible to solve; thanks to their ever-evolving and contradictory nature. Hence, it is quite natural that anyone, having the capacity to solve such problems will be in high demand. The report says that about 36% of the jobs by 2020, across all industries, will have the requirement of complex problem-solving ability as a core skill.
- Critical thinking
As the scope of automation increases, the demand for people who can effectively employ reasoning and logical abilities will increase and the art of critical thinking essentially comprises these two elements. Employers will look for people who can critically evaluate the power of technology and put it to the maximum benefit of the organization.
Critical thinking provides a person the ability to interrogate an issue by employing his reasoning and logical abilities and reach the most feasible solution from among various available solutions.
By 2020, critical thinkers will be a welcome addition and a much-sought-after members of any team.
- Creativity
Creativity is constantly going up the ladder on the list of skills employers will seek in the near future. This is simply because we are swept by an avalanche of new technologies and new methods of working every other day and employees are expected to be more creative to be able to extract more benefits from these changes.
Creative people have that special ability to be at ease with diverse sets of information and present something new by bringing ideas together.
- People management
Regardless of the increasing intrusion of automation in jobs and advancement of artificial intelligence, people, or more precisely, the employees are bound to be the most prized possession of an organization. But, employees are needed to be motivated, their talents are to be nurtured and their productivity is to be maximized.
Therefore, it is no secret that there have been and will be demands for managers with an abundance of emotional intelligence, man management capabilities and power of effective delegation.
- Coordinating with others
The trend of putting value in social skills continues and employees who are able to collaborate, have strong interpersonal skills and are sensitive to other’s needs are regarded as a critical resource for any organization. Companies acknowledge the fact that effective human interaction at the workplace enhances team production and helps workers to adapt to changing circumstances seamlessly. It will also provide the workers an opportunity to have an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their team members and will enable them to work productively with different personalities.
The WEF report rightly points out that this set of skills will put human above machines for years to come.
- Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence will be in high demand as a desirable skill set to HR and company strategists in near future across industries. Emotional intelligence is a kind of smartness that companies look forward to seeing in their potential employees because it will help the employees to tune themselves to a plethora of human emotions. It will also measure how adept they are at adjusting their own behavior according to the emotions and moods of their colleagues, business partners, and other stakeholders.
As a matter of fact, emotional intelligence determines every interaction we encounter. It affects the way we manage our behavior, make important personal decisions, achieve positive results and navigate social complexities.
Emotional intelligence, as a social skill, is going to be particularly important to leaders and managers. HR officials will definitely put a strong emphasis on your emotional quotient during any hiring process when they look at you as one of their potential employees in future.
- Judgment and decision making
Organisations these days are data-driven and they would love to have someone who has a knack for analyzing the collected data and can make intelligent decisions, based on them. There will be growing need for employees who can surf through the numbers, make actionable insights and use them to help formulate business strategies.
Good judgment is also critical for getting the best out of a subordinate or making an all-important suggestion to a manager. In fact, the much-needed quality of strong decision making comes from the ability to make sound and timely judgment calls.
Therefore, it is highly imperative that you should develop your decision-making skills and also form a close affinity with data. You can practice this by figuring out the problem you want to solve first and then exploring the data analysis tools that may come handy for gathering required information in this regard. Then you should learn how to manipulate the data to help your cause.
- Service orientation
Your service orientation will define how actively you go about seeking means to help others, how prompt you are in assisting your team members, superiors and others across the industry. Service orientation is bound to be a critical skill in the consumer-centric business world of today as the entire spotlight of the business is on anticipating and identifying the needs of the consumers.
It is also an evolving business scenario that industries (mainly IT, energy and financial services) have to confront with changing customer values on a regular basis. Hence, anticipating customer values and translating these into product offerings have become keys to survival indeed. Organisations also need to be more precise about the processes involved towards meeting customer demands.
Therefore, the companies are looking to enroll employees with a high degree of service orientation. Employees these days are expected to step into the minds of the consumers and get a grip on their likes, dislikes, values, fear psychosis and many more.
- Negotiation skills
With more and more automation and robotics intruding into the workplace, the importance of social skills such as negotiations is increasing more than ever before. This is a differentiating factor between humans and robots, at least for the near future and this is one area where the human cannot be replaced by robots. Simply speaking, negotiation is a form of interpersonal skill that allows one to effectively communicate his ideas with his managers, colleagues, teams, and clients. Employees across all departments and industries are expected to have negotiation skills in their armory.
- Cognitive flexibility
Cognitive flexibility is an amalgamation of skills such as problem sensitivity, logical reasoning, and creativity. It also determines how well you can adapt your communication according to the person you are talking to. Employers would like to assess how you think critically while communicating with someone important, and how your listening skills are.
Cognitive flexibility is also an indicator of how flexible you are while swinging back and forth between various systems of thought and how adept you are in applying the creative and mathematical part of your brain, according to situations.
The more nimble and flexible you are, the more you will be at ease with new patterns and new ideas. It will also allow you to form fruitful associations with evolving ideas and you can turn this to the advantage of your organization.
There are many ways by which you can flex your cognitive muscles. Try to learn new things and more importantly, learn new ways of thinking. Expand your horizon, come out of your comfort zone and try to develop new interests. These will help your brain to develop cognitive flexibility.
The footnote:
Changes do not wait for anyone. Hence, government, business leaders, and educators must work with a proactive approach to developing the required skill sets so that all of us can be benefitted from the revolution called Industry 4.0.
