Are You Skilled Enough To Keep Up With Changing Times?

Out-of-date skills could hamper your career growth. Here are the top 10 skills you need to acquire to be at the top of your game.

A thriving economy necessitates an adequate supply of qualified workforce to meet current and future demands. With recent technological advancements coupled with shifts in employment markets, it has become essential for employees to adapt and upskill. Gone are the days of plateaued work cultures because changing times demand skills that are relevant and proactive. In this article, we explore the top 10 skills you need to stay ahead of this recurring transformative curve.

1. Developing Empathy

Empathy in the corporate workspace is something that has only gained importance in the recent few years. Companies are now giving great emphasis to empathy-filled work environments. The ability to sympathize can enable us to resolve conflicts, build more productive teams, and improve our relationships with coworkers, clients and customers. For any business to flourish, the team needs to understand and empathize with each other.

According to the Businessolver’s 2017 Workplace Empathy Monitor Report,

• 77% of workers would be willing to work more hours for a more empathetic workplace; meanwhile, 60% would accept a slashed salary for the same.
• 92% of HR professionals note that a compassionate workplace is a major factor for employee retention.
• 80% of millennials noted that they would leave their current job if their office became less empathetic. 66% of Baby Boomers also shared this sentiment.

Empathy is now looked at as a vital leadership competency sought after by most companies for major job roles.

2. Being Inclusive

Being inclusive and welcoming is easy. On realizing that every other coworker is as human and imperfect as you are, inclusivity becomes second nature. Over the past few years, we have evolved as a society. At any workplace, inclusion ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute at a workplace. However, it’s imperative to understand that diversity and inclusivity are slightly different from one another. Diversity is about representation while inclusion is about how well one’s contribution and perspectives are integrated into an environment. It helps-

• You become more progressive and create bonds with colleagues
• Reduce toxicity and needless competition
• Build a loved organization that fosters growth and expansion

Being inclusive is the new form of efficiency in an organization.

3. Making Connections

Connections are crucial to an organization as it promotes team building and efficiency. As an employee, it is essential to be a part of a team and build healthy relations with your colleagues. The more connected you are as colleagues, the more efficient your work will be. Let us not confuse networking with making connections, as the former is a socioeconomic business activity and the latter is a result of successful networking. Networking can lead to new business and result in new referrals. You might end up meeting new people who advise and mentor you about the best industry practices.

Companies are more likely to recognize employees who feel connected to what they do for a living and who believe in and align themselves with their company’s values, mission, and purpose.

4. Maintaining A Work-Life Balance

The global pandemic moved a significant chunk of the employee population to work from home. It is easy to have an inconsistent work-life balance, especially when one is working remotely. You may end up working for more hours, struggle between personal and professional responsibilities and deal with health issues sitting in one place for hours. These are stressful times and not finding time for yourself can take a toll on your mental well-being too. Here is what you can do.

• Restrict your time and activities on non-essential things to keep your focus on work
• Plan when you should unplug from work and spend time on something you love
• Be vocal at work with your managers and express your challenges and find mutual solutions
• Plan your day and priorities

5. Cultural Sensitivity

At work, we tend to cross paths with people from different cultural backgrounds. They may be colleagues, customers or partners. It is vital to imbibe the value of cultural sensitivity to unite the workforce and ease tension. We need to develop cultural competence. It is important to accept differences without asserting one’s cultural superiority. This understanding allows employees to serve each other and their customers better. When an organization has better cultural representation, there are possibilities of unique perspectives and inputs. Cultural sensitivity promotes-

• Better communication between culturally diverse colleagues
• A welcoming and safe environment in the workplace
• Understanding and minimizing misinterpretation

6. Focus And Self-Discipline

Self-discipline produces a greater sense of control when working on projects and tasks. It is valuable for achieving success, not only in the workplace but also in personal life. Focus and self-discipline are the foundation of producing exemplary work and performance. Scattered-minded individuals are most likely to be turned away by recruiters because they lack the skills required to optimize results. Hence, it is an essential yet underrated skill sought out by organizations these days. There is value to your ability to stick to the task at hand and see it through to completion.

7. Dealing With Ambiguity And Stress

The times we are living in are uncertain. Security and clarity are rapidly diminishing at work and in cultural spaces. Somehow, the stress from such situations percolates also into our personal lives. An ideal candidate today needs to know how to deal with ambiguity and cope with stress. If you want to progress in a managerial role, your key to success would be managing ambiguity.

• Set clear and achievable goals to increase engagement and communication
• Understand your team and their coping mechanisms
• Hone your skills and be resilient and confident

It is fundamental for you to have the ability to cope up with uncertainty, ability to take risks, adapt to changes, and have strong analytical, problem-solving and decision-making skills.

8. Building Resilience

Modern workspaces are characterized by staff cut-offs, deadlines and competition. The road to success under such circumstances depends on an individual’s capacity to overcome difficulties and thrive irrespectively. As a professional, there is no way you wouldn’t face any setbacks. Your power to reflect, learn continuously, get over those setbacks, learn from your mistakes and start afresh is what sets you apart. It is also important to find your own identity, apart from your job and staying true to your values. Now the exciting part is resilience is a skill that can be learned with time and effort. Not being able to cope is a dead give-away of your unpreparedness in a work setting.

9. Strengthening Flexibility

Flexibility is a great skill that everyone should carry in their back pocket. Having the ability to overcome stress or simply adjusting to changes quickly, flexibility is the skill to master. You can be flexible if you understand and accept that change is always bound to occur and provide you with new experiences. Making yourself more comfortable with the possible changes will also make you more confident. You can work effectively on this skill by-

• Accepting that change is inevitable
• Being confident in your skills
• Challenging yourself and increasing your professional bandwidth

10. Exploring The Power of Data

Data exploration is a field that is gaining momentum. It has been dubbed as the future basis for business configuration and optimization. Yes! We are blessed and cursed at the same time because we have access to data. However, big data analytics has taken prominence as an emerging field of study that only makes sense to use data and gain a competitive advantage. Making sound decisions by analyzing good data means less money wasted on poor strategies and less money wasted trying to fix poor strategies. There would be a continuous increment in the market for individuals to extract valuable insights from the data as it keeps increasing. Exploring data can be learned through courses or degrees. But inculcating skills comes with practice and hard work only. Skills that you learn in this field reflect the changing times that make upscaling your career even more necessary.

The past two years witnessed a set of unprecedented changes that left the global employment market in tatters. What saved the economy during this crisis is shifting to digitization and building remote work opportunities. It has forced organizations to adapt and make sure their employees are well-equipped to face challenges head-on. While changes continue to occur, we need to build unique skills that are conducive to these alterations. We hope that the above-mentioned list gives you insight into the top skills required to keep you at the apex of your career.

Authored by: Kartik Kulshrestha ; Written by: Vindy Damion Dias