The world is changing at a fast pace, and how work gets done is evolving accordingly. Companies will undergo a mindset shift, and the key to their future success will be providing continuous learning options and instilling a culture of lifelong learning throughout the organisation.
How we screen and hire has changed too. Business leaders are looking for future skills and jobs to keep up with these changes. We are talking about skills that are bound to digitalisation, increase automation of working processes, and decline specific job roles.
A well-trained workforce equipped with the skills needed to adopt automation and AI technologies will ensure that the economies benefit from higher productivity growth and that the talents of all workers are harnessed. The ability to secure this will largely depend on how educated the workforce is and how adaptable companies and workers prove to be in the face of the multiple new challenges of adopting automation.
Hard skills for future jobs revolve around digital literacy, data analytics, and data visualisation.
As workers interact with increasingly intelligent machines, the demand for soft skills also increases. As the saying goes, "What got you here won't get you there." Soft skills, such as empathy, emotional intelligence, kindness, mindfulness, adaptability, self-motivation, resilience, and the kind of empathy that ensures that everyone can truly have a voice, have become crucial success factors.
The basic organisational configuration will definitely change, with a substantial shift towards cross-functional and teamwork and an emphasis on agility. The introduction of more agile ways of working will be a high-priority organisational change, and more cross-functional collaboration is the key to progress. Unlike traditional hierarchies, which are primarily designed for stability, agile organisations are designed for both stability and dynamism. It typically consists of a network of teams and is notable for fast learning and quick decision cycles.
To make the most of new technologies, companies will have to retool their business structures and approaches to work. That change will require redesigned business processes and a new focus on the talent they have - and the talent they need.
Organisations can keep pace with broad initiatives to develop employees' soft skills.
Yesterday's skills are a starting point, but tomorrow's success will require more and different skills. We all need to build talents that we may not yet possess, and that is a good thing - it keeps us on our toes. It will also separate those who do well from those who only achieve mediocrity. The future of work begins now, and we can embrace it!
