Skills of the Future

Which Skills Will We Be Talking About in the Years Ahead?

Sometimes in life you need to prepare for and adapt to certain things quickly, because if we are not ready for them today, a few years from now they may hit us like a bombshell. In my view, the skills of the future are one of those topics — something HR professionals first, and then all of us, need to prepare for. Those who are not ready for them will struggle to adapt to fast-changing competitive conditions and survive.

In its "Future of Jobs" report, the World Economic Forum set out the skills we will need in 2022 — just two years from now. The list is a long one. Our friend Evrim Kuran also devotes a lot of space to these skills in her latest book, "Z Kuşağını Anlamak" (Understanding Generation Z).

Note that the list below also includes skills that are not in this report but are cited as future skills elsewhere, so think of it as a composite list drawn from many sources.

What catches your eye when you look at these skills? A few things stand out to me, and I'd like to share them briefly.

Some of these are skills we have been talking about and focusing on for years, while others are "brand-new."

First, the items that struck me most were "Health and Environment," "Civic Literacy" and "Global Awareness." Looking at this list, I can sense how much they will matter over the next few years. They always have, of course, but recent months — with the drought, pollution, forest fires and water shortages we have seen around the world — have shown us just how critical they are. We are all responsible for these, and our responsibility will only grow.

At the same time, some skills that have always been with us — and that keep showing up in competency assessments, especially at large companies — are now evolving. For example, "Problem Solving," a skill my HR colleagues have assessed extensively for years in both hiring and competency reviews, has now evolved into "Complex Problem Solving." What does this tell us? Simply solving problems will no longer be enough; we will face highly complex situations and will be expected to resolve them. If you're wondering what I mean by complexity, take a look at our article on the VUCA world, where we go into the concept of Complexity in detail 😊

We can also see some skills branching out and becoming more specific. For example, "Flexibility" is a skill we have used and measured for years, and it is still very much with us. But now a more specific version is emerging as well: "Cognitive Flexibility." The difference? "flexibility" is defined as "the ability to shift between different situations," while "cognitive flexibility" is defined as "the ability to switch quickly between different mindsets or ways of thinking." In other words, one is about flexibility across situations, the other about flexibility in thinking.

You will surely have noticed that there is more than one "Literacy" on the list: "Media Literacy," "Information Literacy," "Technology Literacy," "Digital Literacy" and so on. What are these, and what do they tell us? We are entering a period in which we need to be literate in every area. Let's start by looking at the definition of literacy:

Literacy is the ability to read the written texts of a language and to perceive and comprehend what is read. According to UNESCO's definition, literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute using printed and written materials of various kinds.* (Wikipedia)

What I take from all these literacies is that we will need to be able to read, understand and grasp areas such as "technology, media, information and digital" — and then apply that knowledge and communicate about it. Going further, the days when these areas were the preserve of specialist teams within companies are coming to an end. We are talking about a period in which everyone — every employee — needs at least average, and in some cases above-average, competence in these areas. For example, digital skills will no longer belong only to the CDO's team or the digital marketing department, because that will no longer be enough for companies to survive. Everyone will need to have these skills, use them in their work and keep developing them. In short, all skills, though especially the more technical ones, will no longer belong only to the teams doing that work but will spread across the whole organization. Hello to years of even fiercer competition ☺

Another notable point is the skills associated with Generation Z. Which ones? Skills such as active learning, flexibility and cognitive flexibility, adaptability, self-management and entrepreneurship. We will cover them in a future article on Generation Z, so we won't go into detail here, but they are worth mentioning while we're on the subject. In the years ahead, whatever "new" things Generation Z brings to working life will show up in skills one way or another. A generation that wants to learn on its own — and even design its own learning experience — that adapts easily to different situations, moves very quickly between different mindsets and, most importantly, wants to manage itself rather than take instructions — and takes responsibility for doing so — is bound to shake things up at work too. Don't you think so?

Finally, looking at the skills of the coming period, we can say that the "analytical perspective, or analytical intelligence," so highly valued at work over the last 10 years, will no longer be enough on its own. That's not to say it will lose its value, but it will need new companions alongside it: "social and emotional intelligence." Those who can combine all 3 will be highly valuable in the years ahead.

So where do "Digital Skills" fit into this puzzle? Let's save that for another article 😊

See you in the next article...