In October 2020, the World Economic Forum released its report of the top 15 skills for 2025. While 2025 may seem a long way off, it’s not.
As you read the list note software development, cybersecurity and technology are not at the top of the list. Instead, it’s about creativity, problem solving, analytical thinking, and innovation.
It is critical companies develop these necessary skills today. Waiting until 2025 won’t work since your company will be left behind its competition. Start training at the top and cascade down now. This reinforces the skills training since your executives and managers will set a positive example.
3 Key Issues Often Overlooked
- Discrimination practices will get in the way when designing individual training goals. Insert into your leaders’ job descriptions, “training and coaching the next leaders include each and every person!”
- Failure to budget and use that money for training tells customers your business is not ready to be their vendor or contractor.
- Hiring, coaching, and managing are much easier and less expensive if you hire and promote based on job fit. This requires using objective data on a consistent basis. Not everyone has an interest in learning and using the new skills appropriately.
Here is the “List of the Top 15 Skills” (click here for the full report):
(Note: most of these are considered “soft skills,” which are often ignored.)
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Complex problem-solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality, and initiative
- Leadership and social influence
- Technology use, monitoring, and control
- Technology design and programming
- Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
- Reasoning, problem solving, and ideation
- Emotional intelligence
- Troubleshooting and user experience
- Service orientation
- Systems analysis and evaluation
- Persuasion and negotiation
5 Key Factors to Prepare Your Company for Success
- Create a strategic plan for ongoing training and skill development. Make sure your budget includes consistent communication reminders on how to use these new skills!
- Develop skill levels (basic, medium, and advanced) required for different job responsibilities. For example, non-tech salespeople need systems awareness but don’t need advanced systems analysis and evaluation.
- Select trainers who are shining examples of using these skills (internal and external). They must be able to engage participants and answer questions. Otherwise, your leaders and employees will lose interest.
- Provide easy-to-access workshops, videos, coaching, and 1:1 training to reinforce skills. Ensure manager/executives receive the training first. This will set an example for all team members.
- Encourage team members to work in cross-functional groups and rotate who leads the team. This will expand everyone’s knowledge on how to apply these new skills in different situations.
©Jeannette Seibly, 2021
Jeannette Seibly is The Leadership Results Coach. She has been an award-winning executive coach, management consultant, and keynote speaker for over 28 years. She is an expert in guiding leaders and their teams to get unstuck and achieve dynamic results. Contact Jeannette for a confidential conversation.
A Note about Getting Your Employees Talent-Ready from Jeannette. 2021 is not business as usual and employees are frustrated with the lack of new opportunities for skill development. (Yes, even your newly hired team members.) Now is the time to develop everyone, from the top-down, to expand their skills and knowledge. It gets team members excited to come to work each day! Need help? Yes, we all need help from time-to-time. Contact me!