The Top 5 Personal Skills for the Future

By Mark Kaplan / May 21, 2020

The world has changed and is in the process of emerging different than it is right now. That means more change. It means you haven’t seen the end result. No one knows what we will experience even though every business now has a strategy of how it will approach the future.

How does a business decide who the best workers are for the present and future? Businesses know what they need now to reopen or serve the market they know. Many have workers in place that will transition to the new requirements. Many jobs within organizations have disappeared through layoffs and the erosion of demand.

What Can You Do to Prepare Yourself for the Next 5 Years?

As we went through the last recession of 2008, businesses transformed from what they were to what they had to become to survive. It has taken 10 years to really develop momentum. They created new criteria for what type of personnel could help them make the transition.

You need hard skills and soft skills. Every business has job descriptions and the type of work they need fulfilled in every position. And they also know that situations could change every day so they need people with great soft skills.

What do you need:

Skills specific to the job description
The ability to learn
The ability to cooperate with others
The emotional intelligence skill of empathy
The ability to adapt and be flexible

What Will the New Environment Look Like?

You will obviously have to convince an existing or new employer that you have skills that are relevant or can be adapted to help them going into the future. Employers look at present needs and the requirements that may be needed as they emerge into a whole new set of demands.

Workers may find that each week a company has new rules or has to pivot to reach a viable market. They will need personnel that can learn new roles or skills to make the change.

The days of utilizing an organization for personal gain may be over. Businesses need personnel that will sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole and work with others to achieve the Mission.

Women are especially talented at exuding empathy because they listen and feel before they react. They can place themselves in the other person’s shoes. This will be necessary for working with co-workers, suppliers, customers and all stake holders. Every business is looking to deliver peak experiences and is sensitive to how their services have been received.

Adaptability and flexibility will be key in this transition. We can’t be ridged in what we expect or in how we will deliver our services. Everyone is focused on safety and increasing revenues. Businesses will be experimenting and changing as they analyze the data. They will be creating and eliminating positions, departments, and maybe products and divisions.

How to Market Yourself

You will want to market yourself to your current employer and to future employers. Your current employer may be looking at how they have to change to adapt to their current situation and analyzing who can help them do that.

Future employers maybe hiring with the same thoughts in mind. They know they will have to transition from now to the future from when operations are struggling to when there may be normalcy in the markets. Who can help them make this transition?

Consider how you will help organizations make these changes and how you will be willing to learn and adapt.

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