WHAT ARE THE TOP SKILLS EMPLOYERS WANT?
SKILLS OF THE FUTURE NEED TO BE THOSE IN WHICH MACHINES CANNOT REPLACE HUMANS
Nothing lasts forever. Everything changes and evolves over time — and this includes the workplace and the skills demanded therein. Experts believe that we are now standing at the brink of the fourth Industrial Revolution, an era which will combine digital, physical and biological systems in a way that has never been seen before.
Technology, digitisation and automation are replacing many human tasks and jobs at an alarming rate, resulting in organisations looking for skills in potential employees that very different from traditional ones.
A World Economic Forum report states that by 2020, we will lose around five million jobs to automation. A majority of employers anticipate that the greatest challenge will be retraining employees for current roles or training for entirely new roles in the next 10 years.
In fact, a comprehensive Employer Research Report by Pearson suggests that 52 per cent of employers in the UAE feel the need to significantly invest in training and re-skilling.
Özhan Toktas, managing director of Pearson Middle East, provides a quick overview of some of the skills that employees will need in order to continue staying competitive and relevant in a dynamic market.
Soft skills
Emotional capabilities and intellectual competencies such as complex problemsolving, creativity, empathy, or communication have become extremely significant. From looking for traditional degrees, employers are now shifting towards employees who demonstrate realworld applications and are equipped with the right kind of skills that are aligned with their job roles.
Mental elasticity
It may be defined as the ability to stretch beyond core strengths when necessary and quickly rebound to core skills and discipline as needed.
When combined with logic and analysis, it can enable complex problem solving, a skill which allows one to look at a problem from different vantage points, develop alternative solutions, and select the best solution.
Critical thinking
It requires the use of one’s ability to reason and relies upon being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information. A critical thinker will rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them as is.
Creativity
With automation playing a bigger role than before, people who will stay relevant are the those capable of coming up with ideas and strategies which robots cannot. As an example, data analytics businesses don’t want just analysts who can crunch numbers, they want workers who can come up with creative or unique strategies based on these numbers.
Collaboration
In the future, we will see increased levels of teamwork enabled by technology. Not surprisingly, in 2019-20, according to Computer World, the market for collaboration software is set to grow 9 per cent to more than $45 billion globally.
Decision making
This is an area which will grow spurred on by man and machine collaboration. Machines will process information and provide numbers, but a human will analyse this to make informed decisions which can have broader implications. As technology takes away more menial and mundane tasks, it will leave humans to do more higherlevel decision-making.
Leadership
This is one skill which continues to stay relevant through the ages. In the future, leaders will have to adapt to the new realities of the Industry 4.0 in order to succeed. They will have to be flexible to accommodate the shifting demands of workers, work spaces, and tools.
In the future, jobs which require ‘human’ skills will continue to remain firmly in people’s hands.
Luckily, the education sector has been evolving as well, and today upskilling can be done in new ways and forms such as blended education and other mixed programmes aimed at making learning flexible, portable, and possible while working full-time.
WITH AUTOMATION PLAYING A BIGGER ROLE, PEOPLE CAPABLE OF COMING UP WITH IDEAS AND STRATEGIES WHICH ROBOTS CANNOT WILL STAY RELEVANT.