Building the Future Skills

In the last edition of The Future of Jobs 2020 report by World Economic Forum WEF (October 2020), has been found that COVID-19 has caused the change of labour market faster than was expected. Report clarifies that what used to be considered by the “Future of work” for majority of online white-collars workforce, is already here!

From the executive summary (K. Schwab, S. Zahidi) I picked 3 points important for this article:

• job creation is slowing while job destruction accelerates (see top20 job roles increasing/decreasing demand across the industries)
• the top 15 skills important for year 2025 show increasing need of Human skills than digital ones
• the window of opportunity to reskill¹ and upskill² workers has become shorter in the newly constrained labour market, where is also missing the support from public sector

Adoption of New Technologies

According the survey done by WEF, high priorities in technology adoption that remain the trend established in previous years are mainly:

• Cloud computing,
• Big data
• E-commerce

However, there has been a significant rise in encryption and cybersecurity, reflecting the new vulnerabilities of our digital age, and a significant increase in the number of firms expecting to adopt non humanoid robots and artificial intelligence (AI). AI is finding the most broad adaptation among the Digital Information and Communications, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Transportation industries. Big data, the Internet of Things and Non-Humanoid Robotics are seeing strong adoption in Mining and Metals. However, the Government and the Public Sector industry shows a distinctive focus on encryption and cybersecurity.

These all new technologies are set to drive future growth across industries, as well as to increase the demand for new job roles and new skills.

So, Technologies or Human skills?

Both is right however, Human skills will be more important in the digital Future of work. Because it will be priorily Human skills, not technology alone, that will help us through the actual double disruption of Covid 19 and automation which is defined by Future of jobs. 

As employers accelerate digitisation and automate repetitive tasks, the WEF findings indicate that by 2025, the time spent on current tasks at work by humans and machines will be nearly to 50 / 50 - but this does not apply that the quality or utility of that work will be the same.

This new jobs market divided equally between humans and machines will of course require us to work on those skills that can’t be replaced by a robot and distinguish us from algorithms. This is a trend which is beginning to catch the attention of many business leaders for their future competitiveness.

Of the top15 skills being the most important in 2025, cited from WEF report; only two are directly related to technologies (skills seven and eight). The rest were strongly linked to critical and analytical thinking, creativity, resilience and emotional intelligence. Over 90 % of business leaders saw critical thinking, problem-solving and self-management as increasingly or equally important up to 2025.

Developing Human skills

Developing Human skills is a completely different game. Developing “hard” or technical skills requires the knowledge from the expert, such as a trainer or course instructor, to the learner. Human skills that are inherently social, cannot be practiced on ones own but mainly in the society. More over when it comes to technical skills and new competencies, people begin by learning the basics from the scratch. But for social and emotional learning it is impossible. Here are 3 tools how you can develop Human skills of your people:

1. Peer Coaching

Peer Coaching is designed for learning Human skills. In a regular scheduled sessions, participants talk and listen an equal amount of time. With no third person there, only the listener can respond empathetically and provide feedback. Each has to find his or her own way to do so. Peer coaches build relationships with each other around acceptance and openness. This creates a positive effect. In turn, it can increase the trust which leads colleagues to further explore and develop their Human skills together.

2. Shadowing

Another powerful tool to surpass the lack of Human skills. During Shadowing younger colleague observes the work of the senior one. After that they analyze the process to understand the consequences. Younger colleagues learn decison making, development of strategies, analytical thinking etc. This mutual discussion can bring the different angle into current pattern and can be beneficial for overcomming the gap between generations and entail upskilling of individuals.

3. Reverse Mentoring

This approach is mutual form of classic Mentoring where the more experienced employee passes the knowledge or skill to the less experienced one regardless the age. It can be effectively used for the development of senior employees in digital knowledge from their younger „digiskill“ generation colleagues. And on the other side it can bring deeper insights for younger generation in Human skills e.g. Leadership, Negotiation, Complex problem solving or Analytical thinking from their senior colleagues. This can be the way how to retain New Generation on one side and ensure the upskill of the Old Generation on the other side.

Human after all

The main propeller for the digital future of work is not to acquire technological skills only, or trying to keep those jobs that will become automated, but to build on those critical, Human skills that make us human after all in order to cultivate productive and in the same time balanced hybrid workforce. The future leaders will have to be definitely sensitive to the real needs their people will require in their work.