The year 2020 will remain an exceptional year in many ways, including in the area of training and skills. We have witnessed the most consistent and rapid changes that vocational training has known for more than 20 years!
The hierarchy of essential skills has been shaken up. The rise of remote work (Work from home) changes the way people work and therefore calls for new skills.
All in a context of economic crisis where teams have to adapt, sometimes to develop their own employability.
To better understand these developments, As per a national survey conducted in June and July 2020, among 600 HR and training functions in companies with more than 250 employees and this survey suggested about the 15 best skills that will help you to get a job instantly that’s why one must have these definitely in 2021.
A. The “2 Priority Skills” In Which Companies Will Invest
1. Remote Management
For managers, this involves managing, motivating and developing an employee and a team, remotely. This training need is all the more critical since there has been no transition phase.
Remote work (Work from home) was suddenly installed with confinement and remains sustainable despite deconfinement.
2. Efficient Teleworking
The same applies if we are on the side of employees. New questions in terms of organization, communication and working methods arise.
As remote work has been established for a long time, the way we work today is changing. Therefore, all the skills that go with it, particularly the human skills, must evolve with it.
B. The “5 Key Skills” To Work Better Remotely
The impact of teleworking is shaking up the organization of work in a company and generating training needs.
3. Facilitate Remote Meetings
For 15 years, each year, the media have highlighted the staggering figures of meetings that are too often ineffective (25% to 50% of meetings would not be useful). During the lockdown, the organization of remote meetings blatantly showed the inefficiency of many of them.
There is, therefore, a real challenge to train in the preparation and conduct of remote meetings that are effective and engaging.
4. Develop Your Leadership And Influence From A Distance
Training managers also report having faced many requests for leadership training. Indeed, until now mainly expressed in offices (in meetings, in corridors or open spaces, etc.) managers and project managers find themselves helpless in terms of their ability to express their leadership in a context of distance, which is a necessary skill, to the conduct of their missions.
Practices and postures must evolve to adapt. The integration of this skill into training plans thus appears to be a response to this new need.
5. Distance Learning
As we recalled previously, training is also impacted by distance. Each employee is now faced with having to learn via digital methods.
This is a game-changer because we do not learn in the same way at a distance and in person. Knowing how to learn, which was already a skill regularly identified as key in the 21st century, is gaining momentum by integrating the notion of distance.
6. Communicate Orally From a Distance & Communicate In Writing From A Distance
Finally, just like leadership, communication and daily professional interactions are disrupted by working at a distance. Whether communicating orally or in writing (during meetings, interviews, more informal exchanges, etc.), digital tools are, more than ever, an integral part of communication.
New challenges are emerging with these recent communication methods, how to have an impact? How to adopt the right posture? How to be synthetic?
7. Adaptability
There is nothing constant except change. And the business world is no exception to this rule. To stand out in 2021, you need to embrace this state of affairs, adopt a positive attitude and keep an open mind even in the most stressful situations.
These are all new skills that must be developed with this organization of remote work.
The “5 Skills” That Remain Essential
Which skills will remain strongly present, or even strengthened, in the skills development plans?
8. Exchange In A Foreign Language
Language skills help advance a career but are also an undeniable and lasting personal asset. The good command on the English language other than your native language will help you set better communication and relationships with your colleagues, resulting in the overall growth of self and the organisation.
9. Time And Priority Management
It is an important skill for a long time in the eyes of the HR & training functions, which will remain so in 2021. It even comes out reinforced by the need to manage time and priorities with digital tools (notifications, multiplication messages and tools, etc.) when working remotely.
10. Stress Management and Professional Well-Being
It was already an indispensable skill, it has experienced a temporary increase in interest during confinement, and it remains strongly present in skills development plans.
Indeed, if they evolve, the global sources of stress remain numerous in the company, and it is necessary to know how to face them individually and collectively.
11. Classic Project Management and Agile Project Management
They have kept important places in training plans for many years now. Organizations have become matrix and, regardless of the profession we exercise, today, we have every chance of contributing to and/or managing several projects simultaneously. It is therefore essential to have skills in this area.
12. Coordination and Team Spirit
Knowing how to organize and evolve in a changing environment is one of the skills most in demand on the job market.
In question, the increased flexibility of the world of work and the integration of new talents, sometimes freelance or virtual, into teams has redefined the usual form of a work team.
It is now necessary to manage teams remotely. There is also a need to coordinate efforts across multiple time slots or continents.
To get out of the game, tomorrow’s employees will therefore have to demonstrate great organizational skills. It will thus be a question of prioritizing the tasks in order to succeed collectively.
Good organization also requires greater autonomy. These professional skills allow you to deal with more complex subjects.
The “3 Skills” That Go Up
13. Solving Complex Problems
In a context where we exchange with ten times more people than 10 years ago (according to the Harvard Business Review), everyday problems are becoming more complex in the company.
Indeed, there are more sources of complexity, more interlocutors involved, more information to integrate… hence the growing need to develop teams’ capacity to solve complex problems.
14. Argumentation To Convince
With the multiplication of interlocutors, we have just spoken of, in predominantly matrix organizations that operate in project mode and without hierarchical links, the achievement of individual objectives often depends on many stakeholders (internal and external).
However, these stakeholders have their own challenges, objectives and personal motivations. The ability to convince them, therefore becomes an important factor in obtaining results.
15. Creativity
This has been a popular theme for several years, in the prism of entrepreneurship, for example. By dint of observing that changes are faster and more complex (due to digital technology, crises, globalization, etc.), we come to a stage where it is through creativity that organizations plan to face problems for which existing solutions no longer work.
Therefore, the stakes are high, especially since it is one of the cognitive skills most valued by human skills experts.
These last examples show how the arrival of new technologies, which automate tasks and processes, gives all its importance to human skills, which cannot be automated, which are soft skills.
Conclusion:
It is essential to be trained with the best skills for getting jobs in 2021. Once these skills are developed, it will be easier to get a job without any extra hustling. 2021 job skills one should have definitely.
You have to dedicate yourself to developing these skills that are essential as we have seen already in this pandemic. We are left with zero reasons for not developing them. It becomes our responsibility for our betterment, secured future and success.
