Navigating the Modern Workplace: Essential Skills for Success

Deciding on the skills and experience you should gather at any point in your career can be overwhelming and confusing. This is especially challenging in our modern work environment, which is filled with endless options, quick fixes, and online recommendations. Compounding this confusion are developments in AI and other technological advancements that have an unpredictable impact on employee work processes and workflows.

Certain skills and experience, however, are increasingly important in our modern, rapidly evolving work environments, especially in organizations that are the leaders in their industry, such as Camp Canada.

In these organizations, thoughtful and careful leaders who can efficiently process information and stay focused on key objectives and priorities without getting distracted are becoming more and more important. An organization's ability to innovate and respond to changing consumer needs also requires bold and considerate leadership.? In my opinion, employees at any stage of their career will benefit from further developing the following softer skills as they develop in their careers during these modern times:

• Resourcefulness: ability to locate information, experts outside the business and people within the organization who can help resolve a work issue/challenge.
• Effective time management: In particular, being able to successfully manage distractions and focus attention on top priorities.
• Reflectiveness: Ability to learn from the past and make adjustments accordingly.
• Self-awareness: in particular being able to recognize when you are feeling overwhelmed or need more support and can source appropriate resources and tools to gain this support. Also, how to leverage your time effectively to increase work capacity and productivity in an often distracting environment with complex variables.

Some of the hard skills that will continue to be of high value to organizations include:

• Accounting and financial management skills, in particular, understanding the systems and tools available to move, manage and track money and an intermediate understanding of the creation and evaluation of budget spreadsheets.
• Basic understanding of online CRM systems (such as Salesforce), internal communication platforms (such as Slack)? and mass emailing/communications systems (such as Mailchimp).
• An intermediate understanding of Excel or a similar spreadsheet organization software tool, which includes an understanding of equation creation and linking cells and information throughout a spreadsheet.

The most in-demand skill, however, that I think employers will be looking for are people who have experience assessing and taking on risks, managing those risks and making informed decisions and predictions about the future based on an assessment of complex information. In a society where our younger generations are predicted to have a propensity towards managing higher levels of anxiety and fear and in an environment where people can feel overwhelmed by information, individuals who are comfortable stepping out of their comfort zones and can make sound decisions during moments of uncertainty will become more and more valuable to organizations, especially those businesses that are leaders in their industry.??

While it might be difficult to find a course or training to help develop the skills of risk assessment and the courage needed to take on these risks, any immersive experiential opportunity that might bring you out of your comfort zone and lead to healthy development and growth should be considered.

This could include such opportunities as simple as going on a weekly excursion through your local town in areas that you are not familiar with without the comfort of your phone. Having to navigate your surroundings without this robust, handheld technology can be uncomfortable and scary and can lead towards character development and a level of confidence operating in unfamiliar environments. Be bold and try going on a camping trip or a weekend out of your community trip without your phone to test your resilience and resourcefulness.

Here are some other ideas to develop your skills in this area:

• Start a small hobby business and set objectives and benchmarks on what you want to accomplish.
• Plan a trip for your full extended family and exercise your communication and resolution skills.
• Set a goal of making and maintaining three new friends over the next year and track your progress.
• Volunteer for an organization where you know no one and find ways to add value and nurture new relationships.

Stepping out of your comfort zone to engage in a meaningful experience without some of the familiar supports that you have become accustomed to will help you better familiarize yourself with risk, and the feelings of navigating decisions in uncertain moments and it will help you develop resourcefulness and overall grit. All of these skills will be in high demand from organizations that are dedicated to meaningful change and impact on the clients, employees and other stakeholders of the organization.?

Good luck and happy exploring!