When
you think about reskilling the workforce, what comes to mind? Learning to code?
Analysing data? Operating technology? Yes, these hard skills are undoubtedly
going to be important, but an area I don’t see people talking about is the importance
of soft skills. Things like leadership, communication, and creativity. It
doesn’t matter how much automation your business deploys, these skills are
always going to be key.
In fact, soft skills are growing in importance. According to a LinkedIn survey published earlier this year, the critical skills that
workers need to take on in 2020 include leadership and management; creative
problem solving and design thinking; and communication.
But
why are these skills growing in importance? And what effect will COVID-19 have
on the workforce of tomorrow? Let’s take a closer look.
The history of automation
To
understand the surge towards soft skills, it’s useful to understand the effect
automation has had on the workforce over the years. There is, understandably,
nervousness about machines taking jobs. And this anxiety can be traced back as
far as the 1920s. Tractors, ATMs, spreadsheets – all of these technologies were
supposed to shrink employment in their respective industries. But of course,
this didn’t happen. Jobs didn’t decrease – they merely changed.
Tractors
didn’t lead to the mass layoff of farm hands. ATMs didn’t devastate banking
jobs. And spreadsheets certainly didn’t replace accountants. Instead, these
technologies took care of the parts of jobs no one enjoyed: the arduous, the
mundane, the manual; leaving business to refocus their employees’ efforts on
more stimulating and value add challenges.
Today,
the same is happening – only on a much larger scale. Across the globe,
automation is sweeping up manual roles, freeing up people’s time to concentrate
on jobs that require human intelligence. And the word ‘human’ really is key
here. Because it’s almost a synonym for the soft skills I listed above.
Creativity, insight, leadership, emotional intelligence – these can’t be
replicated by technology. And in an automated future, they’ll be vital for
organisations’ to hone their competitive edge.
Adaptability
is another soft skill that’s growing in importance. Gone are the days of two-
to five-year system life cycles. Against an agile backdrop, businesses can
deploy new systems every month. Being able to adapt to change – and to quickly
learn multiple hard skills – will be a key trait going forward.
The COVID-19 Pandemic
Another
factor to bear in mind is COVID-19. Workplace flexibility has been on global
businesses’ radars for some time. But the pandemic has dramatically raised it
in priority. Although organisations will slowly carry on opening their office
doors in the coming months, remote working is set to be a staple of office
culture going forward.
This
brings a new challenge for employees: not only must they hone their soft
skills, but they must also do it remotely. You can imagine the implications.
Not only must teams collaborate, but they must do so with colleagues littered
across different locations. Colleagues might be at home, at a coffee shop, or
even at an airport. Considering the scale of modern projects, they may even be
located in an international office – introducing the complexities of working
with different cultures and time zones.
There
are many small-but-important challenges to overcome. How can line managers
nurture talent remotely? How can the creativity and spontaneity of a workshop
be replicated via conference call? How can businesses keep their employees and
partners motivated, enthusiastic, and plugged into office culture when many are
working from home?
And
then, linking back to adaptability, how can businesses reskill, retool, and
redeploy employees working in a hybrid workforce? COVID-19 has taken a business
landscape that was already quickly evolving, and turned it up to top gear.
While the immediate problem facing employers is how to pivot to a flexible
culture, soft skills will stay high on the boardroom agenda.
Today,
transformation isn’t just a digital arms race – it’s a human race too,
particularly in emerging markets such as South Africa. Inevitably, the real
winners will be those that invest in their people just as much as their
technology.
* Robin Fisher is regional vice president of Salesforce for emerging markets
