5 Tips for Acquiring Highly Demanded Soft Skills for the Digital Age

In the coming years, you will probably see the figure below “top 10 skills of 2025” many times. It is taken from the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Work" Report for 2020.

Regarding soft skills this year’s FoJ report forecasts that those employees exhibiting a high degree of active learning competences (#2) and capacity to adapt will be in highest demand. Furthermore, people displaying positive energy and leadership (#6) will be needed to confront fast changing environment. The third most important soft skill will be resilience to stress (#9) which will inevitably be produced due to the impact of further digitalization in the 4th industrial revolution, and high degree of uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now how we can acquire these top-10 soft skills of active learning (#2), leading and social influence (#6) and, resilience, stress tolerance & flexibility (#9)?

Given the importance of continual learning, it is worthwhile to take a planned and strategized approach, for example, by drafting a Personal Self-Management Plan (PSMP) which includes concrete learning objectives for soft-skills. A large part of this learning will be online, or in hybrid mode. COVID-19 has taken away the element of choice, and online learning has greatly increased during the pandemic. The WEF “Future of Jobs 2020” report notes: “There has been a four-fold increase in the numbers of individuals seeking out opportunities for learning online through their own initiative, a five-fold increase in employer provision of online learning opportunities to their workers and a nine-fold enrolment increase for learners accessing online learning through government programmes.” Now that its advantages have been experienced by both instructors and students, online or hybrid learning are probably here to stay. 

The report continues: “Online learning and training is on the rise but looks different for those in employment and those who are unemployed. Those in employment are placing a larger emphasis on personal development courses, which have seen 88% growth among that population. Those who are unemployed have placed greater emphasis on learning digital skills such as data analysis, computer science, and information technology.” Personal development courses mainly address soft-skills.

As I describe elsewhere, in the digital age it is very important we re-examine how we learn. Traditional models of presential small-group learning or master-apprentice models are no longer feasible due to the need to operate safely and low touch. 

We are living in interesting times: in the middle of the highly disruptive 4th industrial revolution, we were hit by a global pandemic, restricting movement and causing a worldwide economic recession. It may be a while until our life becomes enjoyable, our business becomes viable again, or our institutions become fully functional again. 

In these circumstances, in our view, the main self-management challenges are grit and superior time-management. Grit is individual's perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state. Grit is essential now that we are constantly bombarded by new and potentially upsetting or disruptive information. Being focused on long-term goals means we stay motivated and get out of bed every day. 

Being well organized and manage your time and energy carefully, means you are able to adapt and learn efficiently and effectively. We need to stay organized and keep a cool head. 

Let me sum all this up, by making five actionable suggestions:

1. Start tracking your time, and make a personal self-management plan (PSMP) based on your personal values and strengths. We can provide an annotated template for your PSMP and coach you through the changes you will need to make in your behaviour.

2. Learn competencies online, but implement them in the real world or the workplace with budget and time constraints. The habit of demanding feedback here becomes essential to further your learning.

3. If you are employed, it is good you focus on soft-skills (self-management as well as working-with-people skills). Digital and IT skills may be offered through in-company training, but for soft-skills, you may need to take the initiative and find your own learning solutions. 

4. If you are not fully employed, staying up-to-date with digital and IT skills is essential, but do not disregard soft and self-management skills. After all, these may have been the reason you lost previous jobs. In all cases, hard skills may take 6 months or more to master.

 5. If you perceive any confusion or challenge regarding soft-skills, get a coach to give you timely and specific feedback on how you manage yourself and invest your time and energy. A personal coach can offer a flexible and tailor-made learning program, which will allow you to enhance your soft-skills within 6 months.

I hope this article has been helpful, and I wish you courage and wisdom in dealing with today’s challenges.

References

Drucker, Peter F. (2008). Managing Oneself. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.it/Managing-Oneself-Peter-F-Drucker/dp/142212312X

Drucker, P. F. (2006). The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. . Retrieved from https://www.amazon.it/Effective-Executive-Peter-Ferdinand-Drucker/dp/0060833459

Duckworth, Angela (2016). Grit: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success. . Retrieved from https://www.amazon.it/Grit-passion-resilience-secrets-success/dp/1785040200 (Italian translation available)

Harvard Business Review (2011). HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself. . Retrieved from https://www.amazon.it/HBRs-Must-Reads-Managing-Yourself/dp/1422157997