The Future of Work no longer requires skills you learned in school – technology moves too quickly for that. Instead, we’re expected to become fluent in new software quickly, build trust over video instead of expensive, corporate-paid dinners, and collaborate with teammates at all levels of the company hierarchy.
These “soft skills” are flexible and make up the Future of Work: they can be applied to any industry, allowing you to pivot your career when the unexpected arises.
These five skills will take you far in your current workplace and make you a critical part of any team in the future.
#1 The Writer-First Mindset
You may think “don’t bury the lede” only applies to journalists, but you need to think this way for your communications, as well. While you might think you hate writing, you now write emails and chats all day long: it’s time to make those clear, concise, and efficient.
Like a journalist, start your emails with the most important information: do you have a specific question answered? An action required? Start with that, then the rest of the email should support the question with information the reader needs to make a decision or take action. Use bullet points as necessary.
Are you just keeping your team in the loop? Make the first sentence as summarized as possible, then expand that point through the rest of the email.
Learn to love writing as the tool to good communication and trust, not a barrier to working well.
#2 Curiosity: Become a Lifelong Learner
People are living and working longer, meaning you’ll have more jobs in your lifetime. Therefore, you need to spend some time learning about yourself and what you like to do.
Having a spirit of curiosity helps you love your job more: you’re always looking for new solutions and learning different facets of your industry. When you’re curious, you’re able to pivot careers easily. You see how your other skills apply to new markets, and you get excited about the challenge of learning new things.
With Work as a Lifestyle, you’re looking for fulfillment in all areas of life. Don’t let your job be the place where you wait for retirement: make it interesting and energizing by bringing curiosity every day.
#3 Self-Awareness
We talked about this in our blog post on building a routine: you need to know yourself well to work well. What environment do you need to be productive? What time of day are you most creative? If the time you have available isn’t during your “peak hours,” how can you put yourself in the same state to be creative?
Emotional intelligence comes into play here, too. Learn what makes you anxious or distracted throughout the day, so you can learn how to correct it.
Without the skill of self-awareness, you won’t be able to grow into a leadership role in your career or determine what part of your career fulfills you.
#4 Empathy-Based Trust
How do you build trust in a digital environment? You can’t rely on body language over Zoom (although you could make the other person’s face full screen), so you need to convey empathy another way. We also went into detail about trust in another blog post from April.
At SWAY, we remind people to think “I see you, I hear you, and I value you” in their connections. “I see you” is literally seeing the teammate or client on video or in person. “I hear you” means listening to what they say in a meeting or remembering their contributions when you hear them indirectly. “I value you” is shown by seeking out those teammates for their expertise and giving positive affirmations.
If your manager is not regularly seeing and hearing you – through scheduled status calls, emails, and updates – they will forget you, inadvertently passing over you, even when you do your job well.
#5 Digital Fluency
We hope that you have your digital skills mastered after 2020, but in case you don’t: ask someone to hop on Zoom with you as a test run of your headphones, speakers, microphone, and background. Practice screen sharing, and become fluent in these new platforms.
Most digital platforms use the same terminology, and the buttons look similar, so you’ll build your skills quickly after a few sessions.
Remember, there’s a YouTube video for everything! Don’t be afraid to search for a tutorial if the platform is new to you. You might discover a use that your teammates don’t know about yet.
The Future of Work: Flexibility Improves Efficiency
Many employees say, “I didn’t learn any of this in college!” without realizing that’s a great thing! You have the opportunity to use your on-the-job experiences to create new careers for yourself without doing college all over again.
These soft skills will make you stand out in the workplace, and you’ll have the ability to learn quickly when you’re in a new role just by applying these skills to every industry.
In the comments, answer these questions for yourself and encourage each other as you prepare for the Future of Work:
Which of these skills do you need to develop first?
What skills have helped you adapt to the new World of Work?
If you’re going back to the office, how can these “soft skills” help you now that you’re seeing coworkers in person?