These are the five areas you need to develop to keep yourself employed in the next 10 yearsHere are five skills to start developing now to preserve your marketability over the next decade.TrendspottingCollaborating In New WaysBuilding Brands—Even As EmployeesLearning Next-Level TechnologyDeveloping Your Emotional Intelligence
According to some estimates, approximately half of U.S. jobs are likely to be affected by automation in the near future. So, what are the skills required to develop now to remain employable over the next decade? While every industry have different talent needs and knowledge, there are some primary trends that will affect many of us, workplace futurist Jeanne Meister, a partner at Future Workplace, a New York workplace consultancy told Fast Company. So how do we approach the future and keep pushing the limits in the job market. Adapting to the change and the requirements of time is a must in today’s continuously evolving world.
Here are five skills to start developing now to preserve your marketability over the next decade.
Trendspotting
Jacob Morgan, author of The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization, and cofounder of The Future of Work Community, an online membership organization exploring how the workplace will change, says, “The big challenge for a lot of people today is that they typically learn something and they assume that what they learn is going to carry with them for the rest of their lives.” It is very crucial to build systems to not only observe those changes considering that the workplace is transforming so rapidly, but to filter the information and training that is required to keep up with them. That means staying up-to-date of industry developments, taking classes, attending trade events, and following thought leaders who are talking about your sector. It also means being watchful about the day-to-day tasks and functions that matter and how they are changing, separating anomalies from trends.
Collaborating In New Ways
The coming together of two trends will compel us to be happy collaborating in new ways. Firstly, more freelancers and soloist services are being used by companies — the so-called “gig economy”—so it’s very vital to be able to work efficiently with different teams. Additionally, employees can spend more than quarter of their workdays reading, writing and responding to email. Any process that is time-consuming is suitable for disturbance, Meister says. Employees can devote more than quarter of their workdays reading, writing, and responding to email, which is happening these days. Platforms like Yammer and Slack reduce the flow of messages in your inbox and keep project versions, information, and updates in one central, searchable location, she says. She says that companies will increase their use videoconferencing, much to the annoyance of many who work from home and take casual workdays to the next level. “This is a way for people to get comfortable with each other faster,” she says.
Building Brands—Even As Employees
Bala Iyer, information technology professor at Babson College says that marketable employees would require to take a more general view of what their online brand is. Besides the obligatory social media parameters, knowledge workers and others whose employment recruitment have an online element need to show their knowledge through participation on sites like Quora or industry-related sites, where they can share their thoughts on important problems. “Those things have become more relevant in terms of when people try to assess how good you are at something,” he says. As more and more workers shift to the gig economy and freelance work, brand-building and other entrepreneurial skills will also be important. You have to have a body of work and online capital to back up your pitch to contest on a regular basis for the next job, Bala says.
Learning Next-Level Technology
Whether it is learning how to cooperate with machines armed with artificial intelligence, or a wearable device that can help you to do your job from the road, or the start of automation in your office or other workplace, remaining employable will need acceptance rather than avoiding tech changes. If robots are approaching an assembly line, the next step is to learn what the robots cannot do and achieve new skills there, says Morgan. This could mean learning programming or becoming acquainted with the human support that automated systems require. “You need to be aware of what’s going on around the world. Sometimes, we close ourselves off,” he says. Prepare yourself by paying attention to what’s happening in the most advanced workplaces in your field. In that way, when the changes happen, you will be ahead of the game.
Developing Your Emotional Intelligence
While it may sound stale, the one thing that machines will have a difficult time doing is building relationships, says Morgan. Developing emotional intelligence such as building strong connections with your co-workers and your network, empathy, and embracing vulnerability will go a long way to keep you highly saleable, he says. “We are very good, in our schools, at teaching people the strategic aspects of how work should get done, how to build strategies, how to compete, how to do all that sort of stuff. We don’t do a good enough job teaching people the human, the relationship side of business,” he says. In order to remaining among the most marketable employees, it will be essential to look for the next changes and remain ahead of the curve in learning about them. Further, following trends and thought leadership in your own sector and ensuring that your skills are staying abreast will also play a role. Lastly, the eventual way to keep your job opportunities strong would be to pay attention to the human side of work, which is the area that machines will be most tested in duplicating. Not letting peer pressure get to you and keeping your own signature style stamp on your work will also help you adapt much easily to the future world.
